Rural schools in the Sunflower State received some good news this week. Over the next two years, every Kansas public school could be equipped with high-speed internet, reports The Wichita Eagle.
This week Governor Sam Brownback announced that about 300 schools in Kansas, most of them in rural areas, will be equipped with fiber-optic connections to provide high-speed Internet access to students.
The effort will be paid for with a mixture of state and federal funding. Upfront costs, totaling about $10 million, will be drawn from the state’s universal services fund.
But most of the funding will come from the Federal Communications Commission, which also plans to take care of the ongoing costs.
Education Commissioner Randy Watson said the plan will help rural schools “level the playing field with students . . . in the more suburban areas of Kansas.”