Alaska schools pay a price for the nation’s slowest internet, but change is coming

“Alaska’s 133,000 students are scattered throughout 53 school districts, many located in vast stretches of roadless terrain. Like Nome (population 3,800), perched on the coast 540 miles northwest of Anchorage, many communities are disconnected from the rest of the state, with only two options for transporting people and things—by air or by barge. A $500 round-trip flight to Anchorage or Fairbanks for teacher training, or a robotics tournament, or a college visit, is a hard sell for districts struggling with the impact of a statewide recession. Roughly 14 percent of children statewide live in poverty.”