Bridging the Digital Divide: Equity in Education Through Technology Access

Introduction

The digital divide in education refers to the gap between those students who have ready access to technology and digital resources and those who do not. This divide manifests in unequal access to computers, the internet, and other essential digital tools, creating disparities in learning opportunities and outcomes. The digital and technology resource divide is not a new phenomenon facing school-aged children of color and children experiencing poverty. The equity implications of these gaps and impacts on learning have been brought into sharper focus as schools and districts grapple with the necessity of full-time distance - and increasingly online learning.

The Scope of the Digital Divide

National Statistics

A recent study found that, nationally, around 17% of children are unable to complete their homework due to limited internet access. This “digital divide” and often resulting “homework gap” mirrors trends in California, where about 1 in 6 school-aged children lack access to the internet at home. According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), nearly 17 million schoolchildren are without internet access at home.

Disparities Among Vulnerable Groups

These numbers grow for the state’s most vulnerable children: students of color, low-income students, English Learners, students with disabilities, and homeless youth. Our parent poll revealed that 38% of low-income families and 29% of families of color are concerned about access to distance learning because they don’t have reliable internet at home. Parents also cited concern about access to technology - 50% of low-income and 42% of families of color lack sufficient devices at home to access distance learning. Even before COVID-19, students from the most disadvantaged communities often depended on public libraries, fast-food restaurants, coffee shops, and Wi-Fi enabled school buses to access internet and complete homework.

Socioeconomic Factors

We would expect socio-economic status to have a major influence on who has access. Computers, modems and Internet service providers (ISPs) are expensive. Pew Research Center data shows that 44% of households with an annual income below $30,000 do not have access to high-speed internet at home, compared to only 6% of households with an income above $75,000. Another alarming statistic is that, in low-income families, a White child is three times as likely as an African American child to have Internet access and four times as likely as a Hispanic child.

Geographic Disparities

When income is held constant, those who live in rural settings have less access, especially to the Internet, than those who live in metropolitan areas. In rural areas, the problem is even more pronounced, with one-fourth of the population-14.5 million people-lacking access to high-speed internet, according to the FCC. The majority of users use dial-up modems that rely on phone lines to connect to the Internet. Rural users often cannot afford the long distance charges of connecting to a far away ISP.

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Racial and Ethnic Disparities

Several sources of data suggest that race and ethnicity are important factors regardless of socioeconomic status. Comparisons of White, African American and Hispanic access to computers and Internet in the home from 1994 to 1998 found that the gap actually increased significantly between the groups. We should be sensitive to cultural and linguistic underpinnings for some of these racial and ethnic disparities. For example, the dominance of English in computer-based communication currently at a high of 80 percent also tends to restrict usage by minority populations who speak other languages.

The Impact of the Digital Divide on Education

Academic Achievement

Students who do not have access to computers and the Internet (among other technologies) will get further and further behind their peers who do. They will miss the instant links to information, entertainment, and communication with others that luckier students have. Their school reports will lack the latest data and the professional look of high resolution graphics and desktop publishing. A study by Quello Center and Michigan State University found that students who do not have access to the Internet from home or are dependent on a cell phone alone for access perform lower on a range of metrics, including digital skills, homework completion, and grade point average. Further, these students are less likely to complete their homework and are more likely to drop out of school.

Homework Gap

The FCC reports that nearly 17 million schoolchildren are without internet access at home. The “homework gap”-a disparity between students who have access to the internet and technology at home, and those who don’t-persists and is a key priority for education leaders and their communities to solve to ensure all students have equal academic opportunity. Infrastructure limitations effect home internet connectivity and the digital divide in education.

Digital Literacy

This divide also could affect students’ ability to develop digital literacy skills, which are essential to preparing students for the challenges of consuming content in an AI-driven world. Children who have technology-using parents and siblings have role models at home who show them how computers are used for daily activities.

Long-Term Consequences

And these students potentially will miss out on the 70 percent of jobs that require moderate or high amounts of computer knowledge, all of which pay well (Linn, 1999). Many middle skill jobs require digital skills that students on the wrong side of the digital divide never learn. This limits their career opportunities throughout their life.

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Graduation Rates and Future Earnings

There are concrete differences between students with reliable internet access versus those who do not. Students without reliable internet access are significantly less likely to graduate. A 2010 study published by Economic Inquiry concluded that teenagers with access to home computers were 6-8 percentage points more likely to graduate from high school than teenagers who did not. The Federal Reserve shared that students with internet access at home out-earn those without at-home internet access by $2 million over their lifetimes.

Addressing the Digital Divide: Strategies and Solutions

Home Access Programs

Usually the equipment is loaned to the students just as they are issued textbooks and lab equipment. Some programs have a checkout system for parents and/or students for hardware and software, together with some basic training on how to use them.

Community Access Centers

Community access centers are another good approach. Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin recently conducted a fascinating study of public access centers in Austin. The city was considered by the researchers as a “best case scenario” because local corporations, colleges and universities, public libraries, and community-based organizations such as Austin FreeNet have worked hard to be at the forefront of public access to computers and the Internet for those who cannot afford it (Lentz et al, 2000).

School-Based Initiatives

The third approach, improving both the quantity and quality of access to technology for poor, minority and LEP students in our nation’s schools, is the most promising one. It is also the most complex and difficult one to implement. The federal E-Rate program has made Internet access more affordable by providing telecommunications discounts to schools, libraries and hospitals that serve low-income communities (see Montes, 1998). In Texas, the Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund (TIF) has provided additional financial assistance to libraries, schools, rural health care organizations, and colleges and universities to facilitate Internet access since 1995.

Infrastructure Improvements

It is relatively easy to remedy the inequities in terms of infrastructure - the hardware, software, wiring, the “stuff” - that schools need. Improving the infrastructure will just take time and money, and the business community and federal and state governments have been fairly deliberate in providing additional funding for technology in the schools. As a result, significant gains have been made in technology acquisitions for all schools (see box below), including high poverty and high minority schools.

Teacher Training and Support

A final trend I have seen has been that many teachers, even when they have the requisite hardware and software at their fingertips, do not use technology at all or they use it poorly because of a lack of time, training and technical support. This is a general trend for all teachers, in high and low poverty schools and in regular and special programs.

Addressing Technical Issues

“For lack of a nail the kingdom was lost.” In many classrooms, computers sit idle because a $10-mouse is broken, a plug is not secure in its socket, or no one has gotten around to installing a certain software program. All teachers should be trained to do some simple equipment trouble shooting and minor repairs themselves. They should not have to wait for overburdened technology coordinators to get around to them.

Federal and State Initiatives

Policymakers can learn from these examples and others that inform efforts to bridge the digital divide. The Common Sense Media report estimated that closing the divide will require at least $6 billion in immediate investments for infrastructure and devices at the federal level-of which half would be recurring costs each year. As outlined in the recent Common Sense Media report, federal policymakers should take swift policy action in the short term by passing the next stimulus bill with funding to ensure internet service and devices at home for students who lack them through expanded funding for federal E-Rate supports and through direct funds to states and districts.

Examples of Progress

At least nine states have made substantial gains in broadband access in recent years. Minnesota has placed most of its broadband program in statute and included clear goals for broadband expansion, a state Office of Broadband Development, and a fund to support broadband infrastructure, and launched the Minnesota K-12 Connect Forward Initiative in 2016. The Colorado Department of Local Affairs centralizes the state’s financial and technical assistance to local governments and offers regional broadband planning grants. In Tennessee, the legislature passed a 2017 measure creating the Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Grant Program to support broadband deployment in unserved areas in the state. In 2016, the state of Wyoming was ranked No. 1 in the nation in broadband connectivity, having addressed the needs of 100% of its school districts in a sparsely populated, rural state.

Local Efforts

Cleveland, OH, is a city-level example of access success. The Cleveland Metropolitan School District and the nonprofit DigitalC have worked together since the pandemic struck to hand out over 17,000 devices and provide 4,700 temporary hotspots.

California's Approach

California has already surveyed all of its districts, and in April 2020 established a task force overseeing the California Bridging the Digital Divide Fund, a joint effort of the Governor’s Office, the State Board of Education, and the California Department of Education (CDE). The funds raised go directly to equip school districts with resources they need to enable distance learning.

IEEE Initiatives

IEEE is uniting partners to address the digital divide. Government organizations, universities, and nonprofit organizations came together when IEEE hosted its Connecting the Unconnected Summit in November 2021. IEEE is providing internet access in rural areas worldwide, exploring information and communication technologies (ICT) implementation in rural communities and developing countries.

The Role of Digital Skills and School Readiness

Digital Skills

A second, and currently more important source of digital divisions are the skills to use technology. In the context of education, the distinction between access and skills is even more relevant as the two requirements are plausibly applicable to both the student and the school.

School Readiness

Not only the student, but also the school needs the necessary equipment and skills to work with online education technology. The research question we address is: to what extent is there a digital divide between students by socioeconomic status, migration background, and gender, with regard to their own skills and digital equipment use, as well as with respect to the quality of the digital infrastructure of the schools they attend?

Multilevel Approach

Building on this, we consider digital divides to be of a multilevel nature. To the extent that the fourth level of the digital divide exists, policies to reduce digital inequalities should not only consider access, skills and usage at the individual (student) level, but also at the contextual (school) level.

tags: #digital #divide #in #education #statistics