Is Technology Available to Students?
Ninety-five percent of all classrooms nationwide now have high-speed Internet access, according to school leaders. Moreover, more than six in 10 (62 percent) report that every classroom in their district has broadband access to the Internet. Rural districts tie wealthy districts as the most thoroughly broadband-enabled demographics, with school leaders in these districts each reporting that 98 percent of their classrooms have broadband access. The schools least likely to have broadband access are those in large, urban and very poor districts - but even in these districts, school leaders report that as many as 93 percent of classrooms have broadband access.
Further, wireless Internet connections are an emerging trend in school technology access. More than one in five classrooms (21 percent) have wireless Internet connections, school leaders report, including more than a third (37 percent) in high-tech districts, more than a quarter (29 percent) in the Northeast, in small districts (27 percent) and wealthy districts (26 percent).
Despite this reported prevalence of computers and widespread, high-powered Internet access, however, more than half of school leaders (57 percent) say classrooms are the least likely points of Internet access for students in their schools. Instead, computers labs and media centers remain the major Internet access points for students. Nearly half of school leaders (47 percent) say students most often access the Internet in computer labs. Media centers are the second most common points of access, according to 49 percent of school leaders. Only about three in 10 of school leaders (29 percent) report that classrooms are the leading point of Internet access for students.
Surprisingly, school leaders in the poorest districts (42 percent) are the most likely to say classrooms are the most frequent point of Internet access, with relatively high proportions of school leaders in high-tech districts (37 percent) and districts in the South (34 percent) also reporting high degrees of classroom computer penetration. Districts in the West, large districts and urban districts have relatively poor student-to-computer ratios - and there are no significant differences in these ratios by district socioeconomic status.
These findings beg the question: Who is benefiting from the reported classroom computing power and speed? If most students have to go to computer labs and media centers to get online, Internet access does not seem to be an easy or everyday activity - underscoring the finding that schools have yet to fully integrate technology with classroom teaching and learning. The findings suggest that classroom technology is either widely underused or in need of maintenance, upgrading, expansion or replacement.