> and for up to one million lines of cell service for those and other school-issued laptops and tablets, according to contract documents reviewed by New York Focus

One million lines of cellular service for 800,000 students.

It’s a good idea to enable cellular service for those who don’t have adequate access at home. The majority of people don’t fit this description, though. As the article says, only about 1/8th of the students surveyed could be categorized as having inadequate access.

Somebody pushed a huge contract and got it, even though the service wasn’t needed at this scale. WiFi Chromebooks by default with a cellular option for the students who needed it would have saved a lot of recurring cellular contract charges.