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The Hechinger Report
Future of Learning: Hundreds of thousands of students still can’t access online learning
By Javeria Salman
Wed, Jun 3, 2020
After schools switched from physical instruction to remote learning in
the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, districts and state leaders
assured families they would get devices for students and the technology
resources needed to do schoolwork at home. But more than two months
after the switch to distance learning, many students still don’t have
what they need.
Students who haven't had access to technology since mid-March could
face significant problems, said Karen Cator, CEO of Digital Promise, a
nonprofit that works for innovation in schools.
“When schools reopen, we'll have to try to figure out what kinds of
learning loss there has been,” Cator said. “Some students will have had
no education access for up to six months. Some students will have just
the normal kind of summer learning loss.”
Only 24 percent of public school teachers reported that all of their
students had access to a computer or tablet to use for school work,
according to a nationally representative survey of 600 public school
teachers conducted in early May by Educators for Excellence (E4E).
Kids in low-income families were most likely to be left out of remote
learning. A survey of more than 1,500 parents by ParentsTogether
Action, a parent-led nonprofit, revealed that children from families
with a household income of less than $25,000 per year are 10 times less
likely to participate in remote learning than children from families
earning more than $100,000. Children from low-income homes were also
three times more likely to lack consistent access to a device (32
percent vs. 10 percent).
“What's happening has absolutely laid bare the nature of the inequities with regard to home access to technology,” said Cator.
Five weeks into the shutdown, many students still lacked access to
necessary technology. In New York City, for example, 19,000 students
who had requested devices still didn’t have them by late April,
according to reporting by Chalkbeat and WNYC. With a month of school
left to go, the city’s Department of Education was not sure just how
many students lacked needed devices.
On the other side of the country, an estimated 1.2 million California
public school students had no computers or internet access at home by
late April, according to the California Department of Education. By the
end of May, the problem had not been resolved.
In an online press conference May 27, California State Superintendent
of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said that while the state has
worked with companies and foundations to distribute more than a 100,000
hotspots and 21,000 computers, “there’s a gap in supply.” California
needs “at least $500 million to address the immediate needs of our
students,” Thurmond said. He estimated some 600,000 students are still
waiting for a computing device, while 300,000 to 400,000 students have
no way to get online and need access to an internet hotspot. He called
for companies, foundations and individuals to donate technology
resources.
But devices for students are sometimes hard to find. Many companies
produce them as they’re needed rather than keeping storerooms full of
hardware. According to Cator, this has created a supply chain shortage
and a delay in access to devices.
And while larger districts have been able to secure large orders of
computers and tablets, smaller districts, especially those in rural
areas, are still having trouble finding enough for their students. In
the Los Angeles Unified School District, California’s largest public
school system, Superintendent Austin Beutner announced in mid-May that
“just about every one” of the district’s students had a device, thanks
to a “procurement team working around the clock to scour the globe and
find devices.” The Metropolitan School District of Pike Township in
Indiana was not so fortunate. It couldn’t get vendors to commit to a
delivery date for orders of laptops it placed in early March, according
to Education Week.
Foundations, companies and individuals are trying to fill the gap and
purchase equipment for students or provide resources for school
districts. New organizations like Devices for Students, a coalition of
educators, tech employees, nonprofits and local businesses working to
close the digital divide in the Bay Area, have sprung up alongside
additional programs from established groups, like the new initiative,
DigitalBridgeK-12, from EducationSuperHighway.
Hundreds of teachers from Florida to California have requested distance
learning materials and devices like writing tablets and Chromebooks on
DonorsChoose, a nonprofit education crowdfunding site. Donations to
many distance learning projects are being matched by various
DonorsChoose partners. Salesforce.org, for example, is currently
matching donations for distance learning projects in specific counties
in California. DonorsChoose also launched the Keep Kids Learning Pilot
Program, which — on teacher request — shipped materials directly to
student’s homes. By May 21, funding for the program had run out.
Parents and teachers have taken to social media to plead for device
donations for their kids.
While Cator, of Digital Promise, applauded individuals who are taking
the initiative to provide for their students, she added that
“technology is part of an infrastructure that needs to be procured at a
school and district level.” Cator said “some sort of hybrid model” of
learning will be required to deal with the continued threat of the
coronavirus when schools re-open in the fall. If that is the case, it
will be vital to get all students online. “If we can't get every
student access, that's going to exacerbate the gaps even more,” she
said.
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