The COVID-19 pandemic has shifted many of our daily operations from physical spaces to digital ones. What happens to those who don’t have access to a computer and high-speed internet? What options are left for students trying to attend virtual classes via Zoom while sharing a single tablet with three younger siblings who also need the device for their classes?
The digital divide, sometimes called the “homework gap,” is not a new phenomenon. However, the pandemic has thrown the divide into sharp relief.
According to the California Department of Education (CDE), an estimated 97% of the state’s six million students have resumed classes this fall through distance learning. Not everyone, however, has access to a computer or the internet.
In California, the public and private spheres have partnered to close the digital divide for students in a joint effort between the CDE, the governor’s office, the State Board of Education and the Californians Dedicated to Education Foundation — the nonprofit private-sector partner of the CDE. Together, these institutions have created the California Bridging the Digital Divide Fund, which will serve as a resource to provide devices, connectivity and digital learning support for students, teachers and their families, according to the CDE Foundation.
“School may be physically closed, but class is still in session,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom in a press release. “But for class to be in session, it is imperative that California addresses the inequities in access to computers, technology tools and connectivity to ensure that online learning can, in fact, reach all of California’s children.”
According to the FCC, nearly 70% of teachers in the U.S. assign homework that requires access to high-speed internet. And while California — home to both Silicon Valley and the fifth-largest economy in the world — has made progress in closing the digital divide, internet access at home is still a problem.
A Pew Research Center analysis of 2015 Census Bureau data found that around 15% of U.S. households with school-aged children (ages 6 to 17) do not have a high-speed internet connection at home. The number is higher in families with school-aged children and whose annual income is below $30,000 a year, to the tune of one-third of households.
Additionally, 17% of teens have stated that they often or sometimes can’t finish their homework because they don’t have reliable access to the internet or a computer. Around 25% of lower-income teens don’t have access to a computer at home.
“For rural households, the issue is about the high cost of building the infrastructure to deploy internet service to more remote areas,” Lloyd Levine told the University of California, Riverside, where he is a senior policy fellow.
Levine is a former member of the California State Assembly and a leading expert on technology policy. “For urban and suburban households,” he added, “it’s about the costs of the service itself and of the devices needed to use it.”
California State Superintendent of Public Education Tony Thurmond called on the state’s top private industry partners, businesses and philanthropists to contribute to the fund in order to provide technological resources to students in need.
Between March and Aug. 2020, the fund received over $18.3 million in-kind donations that have paid for over 64,000 devices and 100,000 wireless hotspots. More than 300 school districts (about 29% of all districts in California) have received devices and/or hotspots, with priority going to small and rural schools as well as those with the highest percentages of special education, low-income students, and english language learners.
The list of donors includes Amazon, Apple, AT&T, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Google, Hewlett Packard, Lenovo, Microsoft, Office Depot, PayPal, Sprint/T-Mobile, Verizon and Zoom.
“We are grateful to our state leaders for taking such quick action to establish the BDD Fund and thank the many donors who heeded their call,” said CDE Foundation CEO Jessica Howard. “The funds will continue to allow us the flexibility to be responsive as new needs arise. For example, we were able to quickly pivot to deliver dozens of devices and distance-learning accessories to districts with schools affected by the fires.”
The CA BDD Fund is meant to “facilitate the donation of devices to our students most in need,” said Howard. The CDE Foundation has worked to ensure an equitable distribution of resources and to identify which schools have the highest need. This was done through survey responses, direct communication with school districts and county offices of education, and analyzing student family income levels and English language data, explained Howard.
As of Aug. 5, the CDE estimates that 1 million students still do not have access to a device for distance learning. [TK Waiting on updated numbers from the CA Department of Education.]
“As Californians, we have a shared commitment to ensure every student has access to the basic tools needed to connect to their learning, succeed in today’s world and pursue their dreams,” said Thurmond.
“This commitment provides schools across the state a unique chance to put devices in the hands of students now, while potentially making longer-term investments that can help us remove these inequities once and for all.”
California is an example of what can happen when the public and private sectors work together to solve a big problem. But while California is making significant strides in closing the digital divide, what about other states? What happens to kids in rural areas with little funding?
“We’re shifting so many government services to the internet, but we’re not necessarily making the internet more accessible to those who need it,” Levine said. “By doing that, we’re disenfranchising people and dooming them to more economic hardship.”
He added, “I’m not going out on a policy limb here; there’s a whole host of programs out there through which we’ve provided people with financial assistance for other utilities — for natural gas, for electricity, for water, for telephones.”
Maybe, Levine suggests, it’s time we do the same for broadband.
Photo credit: sinseeho / Shutterstock.com
