Students at Fargo North High School in North Dakota work on tablets in September. Slow connections are crimping digital learning at U.S. schools. Associated Press
Students in Dory Fravel's fourth-grade Iowa classroom got knocked offline while taking mandatory state achievement exams.
Vermont teacher Marcia Blanco whiled away the night while the school's slow-as-syrup Internet connection downloaded software.
And technology directors in Washington state restricted the number of classrooms that could get Web access at any one time to ensure computer screens didn't freeze up.
As public schools nationwide embrace instruction via iPads, laptops and other technologies, many are realizing they lack the necessary broadband speed to perform even simple functions. This is crimping classroom instruction as more teachers pull lesson plans off the Internet and use bandwidth-hungry programming such as video streaming and Skype.
An estimated 72% of public schools have connections that are too slow to take full advantage of digital learning, according to EducationSuperHighway, a nonprofit that tests school broadband speeds and works to upgrade Internet access. The average school has about the same speed as the average American home, while serving 200 times as many users, according to the Obama administration. Expanding high-speed Internet in schools involves upgrading wiring, expanding Wi-Fi capabilities or simply spending more money to purchase faster service.
Adding to the worries: 45 states and the District of Columbia adopted the new Common Core math and reading standards and most will take the new online assessments in the 2014-15 school year. The test results will be used to evaluate teachers, make student promotion and graduation decisions and rate schools.
"Just as people are getting excited about the power of what the Internet offers to students and teachers, they are running into the buzz saw of infrastructure," said Evan Marwell, CEO of Education-superhighway.
Virtually every school in America has some Internet access, thanks, in part, to a federal program known as E-rate, which provides about $2.3 billion annually to connect schools and libraries to the Web. The program, overseen by the Federal Communications Commission, is funded through a monthly fee on phone service of about $2.90 per household or user. In addition, some states, including Idaho and Connecticut, have set aside millions for schools to upgrade technology, while in other states, voters in some districts are approving tax increases to pay for it.
President Barack Obama has made expanding high-speed Internet a top priority and launched an initiative last summer, dubbed ConnectED, that aims to bring it to virtually every school in five years and to train teachers how to use technology. The administration wants the FCC to modernize the E-rate program and has hinted that a fee increase might be needed. The FCC is weighing the issues nowand is expected to make a decision later this year.
Richard Culatta, director of the office of educational technology at the Education Department, said many countries, including Latvia and South Korea, have better Internet connectivity than the U.S. does, putting American students at a disadvantage. "If we don't put significant national focus on the problem, it will simply perpetuate," he said.
But there has been pushback, including from some congressional Republicans who don't want fees raised on consumers. Others say the federal program is antiquated—it is still possible to get money for paging service, for example—and needs to revamp how it gives out money. Randolph May, president of the Free State Foundation, a think tank that advocates for lighter telecom regulation, said that before a fee increase, the FCC should "determine whether the current money is being spent wisely and whether it is achieving its purposes, which should be to further academic achievement."
FCC officials said the commission last year initiated a review to modernize the program.
Ms. Blanco, who teaches digital-media production at a north-central Vermont high school, said every time she intends to use the Internet in a lesson, she develops a "time to punt" backup plan in case it crashes. "Waiting for things to load and upload can suck up a lot of learning time," she said.
Shane Hoy, a senior in Ms. Blanco's class who hopes to become a game designer, said he hears a constant refrain from teachers: "I was going to show you how to do this in class, but the Internet isn't working." He often takes classwork home, where his computer is faster. "It's sort of embarrassing that we don't have faster Internet," he said.
Slow connections have snarled online assessments in states including Kentucky, Oklahoma and Indiana, and many educators fear their district won't be ready when Common Core exams come online. In Washington, for example, a recent survey showed 15% of the state's districts have broadband speed that could make it difficult to give the digital exams.
Joel Anderson, technology coordinator at Onion Creek School District in rural Colville, Wash., said slow speeds locked up computers last year. "If the state's going to require online testing, they better make sure we can do online testing," he said.
Ms. Fravel, of Lime Springs/Chester Elementary School in Iowa, said that last year the Internet connection went down when her students were taking online exams. But district officials boosted broadband speed, and now her students Skype, tweet and blog during class time. "It opens up a whole new world for students," she said. "And they are so much more engaged."
Write to Stephanie Banchero at stephanie.banchero@wsj.com
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