When schools closed in the wake of COVID-19, the Seattle-area Northshore School District launched “classroom in the cloud,” lending 4,000 laptops to their students and setting up 600 wireless hotspots in just a few days. An hour away, in the Tacoma School District, about 13,000 elementary students still don’t have access to computers and won’t receive them until January. 

What’s the difference between these two districts? Northshore, with a median household income of nearly $100,000 and only 5.7% of people living in poverty, has the resources necessary to quickly distribute technology their students need. But Tacoma, with a median income at less than $60,000 and 16% of people living in poverty, like so many other school districts in America, does not. 

In America’s educational system we have become comfortable with the fact that predominantly white school systems typically have more funding and resources than schools with predominantly lower-income students of color.

However, in the era of COVID-19, existing inequities have been amplified and are starker than ever before, especially as many schools have moved to online learning. Now, if a child doesn’t have internet or computer access, they aren’t receiving an education at all. 

In Washington State, 735,000 people do not have an internet connection in their homes. Another 500,000 households rely solely on limited cell phone data plans, while 12,000 others use slower dial-up services. Disaggregating the data, we see internet access is fundamentally an equity issue. Even in the technology hub of Seattle, households earning $25,000 or less have the lowest internet access rates, with 21% of these households lacking any internet access, according to a 2018 technology study by the city. The same study also showed that English as a second language speakers are more likely to lack the internet than native English speakers.

These digital inequities are likely to exacerbate existing achievement gaps in test scores, drop out rates, chronic absenteeism, and other education measurements. With more students at home because of COVID-19, we’re likely to see increased reliance on homework and extending periods without instruction, known factors that already cause summer learning loss and disparities in student outcomes. Without direction from teachers, kids often rely on their parents to keep them on track, but if families are busy working multiple jobs to keep food on the table, progress is slowed. 

Solutions to Digital Inequities for Students

The Equity in Education Coalition (EEC) believes achievement gaps demonstrate even larger opportunity gaps, showing that kids living in poverty and facing institutionalized racism have to overcome huge barriers to academic success. While COVID-19 has laid bare these realities, it will also perpetuate existing barriers, disproportionately affecting low-income families and families of color in infections and deaths, and worsening  hunger, housing insecurity, and homelessness. 

We need to address the economic, public health, and digital equity crises of COVID-19 now. Building broadband infrastructure, investing in digital access for students and families, and preparing our communities for the digital skills they need to navigate the internet are critical solutions in closing the digital divide. In Washington State, for instance, many rural Tribal Nations have been excluded from broadband projects; laying the fiber to connect these communities is a huge first step towards greater connectivity, and Washington is beginning this process only now. For children living in urban and suburban areas where broadband is available but largely unaffordable, kids simply need internet and computer access, tools that many wealthy schools and families are able to provide. Many newly connected families also struggle to use their devices; for these families, digital skills training in-language is necessary. 

EEC sees a role for public-private partnerships to address the last two pieces of the puzzle: Connecting low-income families of color to hotspots, laptops, and tablets, and providing multilingual digital literacy trainings over the phone. 

Historically, school districts have been unable to adequately serve and provide resources for immigrant, refugee, migrant, undocumented, and foster kids, leading many children to fall through the cracks. In order to reach the most vulnerable communities during a time when it’s most difficult to connect, EEC is partnering with small and micro, ethnic-based community organizations throughout the state to find children in need of digital technologies, provide those resources, and train families on how to use them. 

How Donors Can Get Involved
  • Learn: Read EEC’s full proposal for its digital equity initiative.
  • Get involved: Advocate for national, state, and local policies that advance digital inclusion.
  • Give: Support organizations like EEC and other efforts to bridge the digital divide for students.

Kids have a right to an education, and digital access is now the only way for children to stay in school. 

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Original contribution by Risa Nagel, Policy and Development Associate for the Equity in Education Coalition.