Getting closer to equity: Department of Education notes three big steps needed to close the K-12 digital divide

Many schools in the United States are now equipped with greater connectivity and access to devices and digital learning resources than ever before. This can be seen as a direct result of the need for emergency remote learning brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to E-School News, “74% of districts (9,573) across the country now have school internet connectivity at speeds that are sufficient to support digital learning in their classrooms every day – impacting 27.1 million students, an increase of over 5 million students since 2022.”

According to a University of Connecticut report, 89% of K-12 instructors use educational technology in their classrooms. If that all sounds like we are closing the Digital Divide at K-12, we are approaching that goal, but we are not there yet. According to Project Tomorrow’s report, it would seem we are about halfway there: “Teacher usage of a wide range of digital and online tools has significantly increased over the past few years. A majority of teachers say that they use an online curriculum (52%), online and digital game products (49%), software and apps to help students develop content knowledge (46%) and online reading sites and subscriptions (45%) on a weekly basis in their classroom.”

Yet, in the realm of connectivity in schools and at home, things are much better than they were before the pandemic, primarily due to a massive influx of government funding. “Between this Emergency Connectivity Fund Program and the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program, we are investing more than $10 billion in American students and households. These investments will help more Americans access online education, healthcare, and employment resources. They will help close the homework gap for students nationwide and give so many more households the ability to connect, communicate, and more fully participate in modern life,” said Jessica Rosenworcel, Chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in 2021.

According to  Public Policy Associates, 2.1 million more children had broadband access in 2021 than in 2019. Yet, in 2021, the FCC estimated that as many as 17 million children still struggled without the broadband access they need for remote learning. Today, 3,330 of the nation’s 12,911 school districts are still not yet meeting the FCC bandwidth goal of 1 Mbps per student. 

The first new national educational technology plan in seven years

In January 2024, the U.S. Department of Education released the new 2024 National Educational Technology Plan, titled “A Call to Action for Closing the Digital Access, Design and Use Divides.”  That report states “Somewhere between the promise of transformation and the barriers to realizing that promise lies the potential for states, districts, and schools to build systems that better ensure that edtech’s promise is afforded to all students, no matter their geography, background, or individual context.”

The technology plan asserts that while progress has been made, there are still three major areas of division that prevent a declaration of victory. In support of the release of the first new National Educational Technology Plan in seven years, Project Tomorrow, in collaboration with Spectrum Enterprise, is creating a new series of reports to be released in 2024 that examine each of the three digital divides.

The new plan defines the three key divides of access, design and use.

The Digital Use Divide: Addressing opportunities to improve how students use technology to enhance their learning. This includes dynamic applications of technology to explore, create, and engage in critical analysis of academic content and knowledge. On one side of this divide are students asked to use technology in their learning to analyze, build, produce, and create using digital tools. On the other, students encounter instructional tasks where they are asked to use technology for passive assignment completion. While this divide maps to the student corner of the instructional core, it also includes the instructional tasks drawing on content and designed by teachers.

Digital Design Divide: Addressing opportunities for educators to expand their professional learning and build the capacities necessary to design learning experiences enabled by technology. This divide is centered on the inequitable access to time and support of professional learning for all teachers, educators, and practitioners to design learning experiences for all students using edtech. This divide maps to the teacher corner of the instructional core.

Digital Access Divide: Addressing opportunities for students and educators to gain equitable access to educational technology, including connectivity, devices, and digital content. This also includes accessibility and digital health, safety, and citizenship as key elements of digital access. This divide is based on inequitable access to connectivity, devices, and digital content. Mapping to the content corner of the instructional core, the digital access divide also includes equitable accessibility and access to instruction in digital health, safety, and citizenship skills.

The initial report in the Project Tomorrow series focuses on the inequities that still exist regarding access to technology and Internet access in the classroom. Despite significant investments in digital learning devices, online curriculum and content and Internet connectivity within schools, this remains an issue.

Project Tomorrow explains, “Nationwide, middle school and high school students (53%) report that slow or inconsistent Internet connectivity in their classroom is the primary barrier to using technology more effectively for learning. Unfortunately, this finding is not a new revelation. Ten years ago in 2014, 48% of students cited the same obstacle as the number one impediment to classroom learning.” Teachers are also feeling the impact of slow and inconsistent Internet connectivity on their classroom instruction. The connectivity issue was cited by 44% of teachers as a primary obstacle to using technology more effectively in their classrooms.

How Spectrum Enterprise can help

Spectrum Enterprise is one of the nation's leading internet connectivity providers. With over 20 years of experience partnering with schools to provide solutions, Spectrum Enterprise is a reliable partner with the E-Rate expertise you need for the Category One, Category Two and non-E-Rate solutions your district needs to keep up with today's increasing demands.

Our managed internal connectivity services are eligible for Category Two funding, with infrastructure solutions like Managed Network Edge. This managed solution provides next generation firewall protection, malware protection, content filtering, web application control, intrusion protection and packet inspection of encrypted traffic. Delivered over the Cisco Meraki platform, Managed Network Edge is designed to scale as your networking needs grow.

We look forward to connecting with the front runners in K-12 innovation at ISTELive 24, June 23–26 in Denver, Colorado. Let’s innovate together.