FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is putting one of the federal government’s biggest classroom subsidies under the microscope.
The target is E-Rate, the roughly $3 billion-a-year program that hands schools and libraries discounts on internet access and connectivity.
Carr’s concern is simple and one a lot of parents share. All that subsidized connectivity may be fueling the screen time that has parked kids in front of devices instead of lifting their test scores.
Fox News Digital reported on June 3, 2026 that the FCC announced a sweeping review of the program, with Carr citing concerns that increased screen time in schools may be contributing to declining academic performance.
Screen time in schools has surged in recent years—particularly during covid.
Parents often have little information or choice about their kids’ online exposure during school hours.
President Trump has been empowering parents and working for great educational opportunities for pic.twitter.com/k18XfjSdHM
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) June 4, 2026
The chairman framed it as a parent-rights issue, and that framing fits where the Trump administration has been heading on schools.
Fox News Digital reported that the program provides roughly $3 billion annually in discounts for internet access and related connectivity services for eligible schools and libraries.
The same report said Carr wants the FCC to make sure those federal dollars support real education, not classroom distractions that parents never signed off on.
This is a review, not a shutdown. The FCC is scheduled to vote June 25, 2026 on whether to formally open the proceeding and seek public comment on potential changes.
That opens the door to guardrails, transparency requirements, funding changes, or broader reforms depending on what comes back.
FCC launches sweeping review of $3B school internet subsidy program over screen time concerns https://t.co/wrSNcdoJyU
— FCC (@FCC) June 4, 2026
None of this came out of nowhere. Carr’s FCC has been pulling on this thread for the better part of a year.
A September 2025 FCC document laid out the same logic, going after Biden-era expansions of the program:
WASHINGTON, September 3, 2025—Today, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr asked his Commission colleagues to vote on two items that would reverse the agency’s unlawful, Biden-era decisions to expand COVID spending programs. Those FCC decisions spent scarce taxpayer dollars on funding unsupervised screen time for kids without accounting for the significant attendant risks.
ADVERTISEMENTSpecifically, Chairman Carr circulated for vote a declaratory ruling that would overturn the FCC’s 2023 decision to fund unsupervised Wi-Fi use on school buses. He also circulated an order on reconsideration that would reverse the FCC’s 2024 decision to fund Wi-Fi hotspots that kids or library patrons could use outside of schools and libraries.
As explained in the items, the prior FCC decisions plainly exceeded the FCC’s authority, which Congress limited to funding connections at schools and libraries. Those prior agency actions also represented unreasonable policy choices given the record evidence, poor stewardship of scarce funds, and invited waste, fraud, and abuse.
The through line is unsupervised screen time on the taxpayer’s dime, and an FCC that wants to know whether parents had any idea it was happening.
Carr put it plainly on June 4, saying parents often have little information or choice about their kids’ online exposure during school hours.
For families who have watched phones and laptops swallow the school day, a federal regulator finally asking who signed off on it is a welcome change.
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