Cyber Education Faces the Digital Divide
As school districts across the country scramble to come up with online alternatives to classroom education, they are faced with a big problem: how to provide online access to the school curriculum fairly -- without putting lower-income kids, minorities, or special needs kids at a disadvantage.
“An Unprecedented Test of Digital Preparedness”
Consider the challenges:
One third of families in the U.S. with incomes under $30K have no internet connectivity, versus 6% non-connectivity for households with an income of less than $75K.
46% of those families don’t own a computer.
Data point: Camden, NJ. Only 30% of families in the city have internet access and an electronic device for each student in the home.
About 1 in 5 teens aged 13 to 17 (17%) said they are often or sometimes unable to complete homework assignments because they do not have reliable access to a computer or internet connection.
Black teens and those from lower-income households are especially likely to be affected by the digital ‘homework gap’:
One-quarter of black teens said they often or sometimes cannot do homework assignments due to lack of reliable access to a computer or internet connectivity, compared with 13% of white teens and 17% of Hispanic teens.
Around a fifth (21%) of teens with an annual family income under $30,000 reported having to use public Wi-Fi to do homework, compared with 11% of teens in families with a household income of $30,000-$74,999 and just 7% of those living in households earning at least $75,000.
Public Wifi often means Wifi from the local library or other public institutions, but most of those have been shut down during the health emergency.
The current school closures as a result of the COVID-19 crisis only serve to highlight the long-existing cleavage in educational opportunity for rich vs. poor.
Mark DiRocco, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators, said it well when he said, “This is when the inequity between funding and resources for districts becomes the most prevalent.”
Philadelphia Makes a 180-degree Turn -- But In What Direction?
On Tuesday of last week, the Philadelphia School District had directed teachers not to offer remote instruction, suggesting that wouldn’t “ensure equity” for all students. (District officials cited guidance from the state and federal education departments that said they cannot provide instruction to some students unless all students can access it.)
Philly has been handing out paper “educational packets” to families that include instructional materials and workbooks intended for children to work on at home.
What a difference one week makes.
On March 23, the Philadelphia School Board announced that it is developing “a remote learning experience for all students, along with a plan to provide student devices to ensure equity.”
The plan was more than a little bit fuzzy, however.
The Schools Superintendent, Dr. Hite, said that the District was in the process of organizing “virtual training and resources” so that teachers can stay connected with students using Google Classroom.
But Dr. Hite did not give a target date for making Google Classroom available to Philly students, nor did he say anything about expanding broadband availability to the student population or ensuring that children had appropriate devices to use.
In the meantime, all the District could offer was a new set of “K-12 Learning Guides” that would be available for students online beginning Wednesday, March 25, and in paper form at all 49 School District grab-and-go meal sites starting Thursday, March 26.
Some Administrators and Technology Experts Are Innovating To Meet the Challenge
South Carolina education officials started this week to place hundreds of school buses equipped with Wi-Fi in low-income neighborhoods around the state to serve as mobile hotspots for students. (This effort is funded by a grant from Google.)
The idea of delivering internet connectivity to students via buses is not new—the Austin Independent School District in Texas has been putting Wi-Fi on hundreds of its buses to smooth the way for remote learning.
Closer to home, Cherry Hill School District in New Jersey recently gave out 700 Chromebooks to homebound students, and plans to distribute another 700 Thursday for families with multiple students. (Nearby, in Pennsauken, New Jersey, there was not a Chromebook to be seen.)
Special Challenges Faced By Special Education Administrators and Students:
As we know, it is a financial and technological challenge to ensure all children access to an online curriculum because many families have limited or no Internet access and there is limited funding available to supply adequate access for them.
But for special education students, the challenge is even more daunting:
According to the Center on Online Learning and Children With Disabilities:
The lifespan of most devices – like tablets and laptops – is about three years, and the instructional materials being used by a school program might not work with older devices.
Also, special education is not usually considered in a school district’s purchasing decisions for new technology – resulting in devices that are not compatible with adaptive technology that students with disabilities might be using.
Schools and school districts have the “front line” responsibility to arrange for special education students to have access to the online curriculum, but don’t forget that state departments of education are often ultimately responsible for modifying curriculum materials or tools to allow special-needs students to access content.
Lessons For the Future
Preparedness
Potential Paradigm Shift away from bricks-and-mortar university, college experience; toward online degree courses for working people