T-Mobile's Project 10Million Aims To End the Homework Gap

As schools start around the US, many face a problem with getting all their students connected for virtual classes. To help with that crisis, T-Mobile has launched its grant program that aims to eliminate the so-called homework gap. From a report: Unveiled a year ago, Project 10Million will provide hotspots and free connectivity for millions of students around the country. Now that T-Mobile and Sprint have merged, the combined company has hammered out the project's specifics and is opening it up to schools on Thursday. It has allocated $10.7 billion over the life of the 10-year program, up from the initial $10 billion pledge in late 2019.

"Our mission is to not stop until we've provided the connectivity and devices for students to be connected who can't afford to be connected, so that they can do their homework," T-Mobile Chief Marketing Officer Matt Staneff said in an interview ahead of the news. "We believe we can make a difference, and we're taking this on at scale." Students who are part of the national free- and reduced-price lunch program for low-income families will qualify for Project 10Million. A school district applies for the grant and is able to specify the needs of its students. It doesn't share personal, identifying data with T-Mobile, aside from a ZIP code at times to be sure students have steady T-Mobile service where they live. The schools handle the distribution of the hotspots and can tap into dedicated T-Mobile support for setting up the device or other troubleshooting.

It's true

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Mike Sievert and other muckety-mucks are donate a billion or more in services and gear, and the idea is to do it at cost or in some cases at no cost.

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[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Sorry for triggering you, but you'll get over it.

Homework gap?

[JeffOwl]

Homework is overrated. I rarely, if ever, did my homework in K-12. I did the bare minimum amount of work to get by, which meant if I couldn't get it done in class (or in a different class) it did not get done. My senior year I took the last few classes I needed from the community college because of the lesser expectation for homework. After all this I went to college and graduated, got a good job, and then my employer paid for graduate school. Turned out way better than everyone told me it would.

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[alvinrod]

My experiences were similar to yours, but I don't know if I'd call homework overrated. Some people don't need it to learn, but you and I are probably the exception. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs dropped out of college and started their own companies and became billionaires. Clearly you and I were foolish for sticking around until graduation. I suspect that you've noticed the flaw in your original argument.

I suspect that the material you had to work with was just below your level of ability. In an ideal world

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[backslashdot]

You aren't give enough information here. For example, if you are a brilliant chemist .. maybe you never did homework but you did a lot of chemistry stuff on your own. Therefore you gained that knowledge by putting in the required work to become one unforced. It doesn't mean homework has no value, you may have done the equivalent of "homework" without knowing it. You can't do good in certain subjects, such as math or coding, without doing more work than simply attending class.

If you skipped homework and play

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[JeffOwl]

I am an engineer. Where I work (>30K employees) I've topped out unless I want to be an executive or get some more education and become a research scientist. Neither holds much interest for me. When I was in K-6 the majority of homework was either "read this and summarize it" or "this is how you do these 4 variations of the same problem, now go do the exact same thing 10 times each," and regardless of getting the right answer, show every step or lose points. Not just a wast of my time, but a waste of the

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[JeffOwl]

I think you are missing the point. Once you have learned something, repeating it 9 more times might help you retain it, if you have problems in that area, but it doesn't help you learn it "better."

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[j-beda]

I think you are missing the point. Once you have learned something, repeating it 9 more times might help you retain it, if you have problems in that area, but it doesn't help you learn it "better."

Usually retention is one of the goals of going through the trouble to learn something. I would tend to say that if you don't retain it, you have not really learned it, but that is just me.

In addition to retention, repetition often also has the goal of helping to increase speed and reliability. There are many skills that are foundational for other skills. Spending some time on repetition early in the process can increase the speed and efficiency of mastering those later skills. Rote knowledge of multiplicati

Home Internet?

[kdekorte]

Perhaps they should work on rolling out their 5G home internet service. I tried to sign up for it and they put me on a waiting list, which seems odd as there is supposed to be 5G in my area.

Up to 500 meter range, max

[raymorris]

You said "in my area".

T-Mobile has 5G in two frequency bands. In the lower band, it's about 20% faster than their 4G, so nothing exciting there.

In the upper hand, the maximum range under good conditions is about 500 meters, or a quarter mile. If there is a T-Mobile 5G tower 400 meters from you, but your neighbor's house in the way, it may not work. If there isn't another house in the way, it may work as long as it's not raining.

I'll stick to fiber. :)