Findings Suggest Digital Divide Efforts Should Focus on Cities

Nearly all public schools in the U.S. are connected to the Internet, according to a survey published by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The survey, Internet Access in U.S. Public Schools and Classrooms: 1994 – 2000, shows that 98 percent of public schools had access to the Internet by the fall of 2000, representing a 3 percent increase over 1999 and a 26 percent increase since 1997.



The survey also shows the number of public schools with instructional rooms possessing Internet connections is on the rise. Seventy-seven percent of such rooms were connected to the Internet in the fall of 2000–a notable increase over the 63 percent in 1999. During this time, the ratio of students to instructional computers in public schools decreased to 5 to 1, while the ratio of students to instructional computers with Internet access improved from 9 to 1 in 1999 to 7 to 1 in 2000.



Schools of different settings–city, rural, town and urban fringe–demonstrated little difference in general Internet accessibility. Of all the types, however, town schools were most likely to have Internet connections in instructional rooms, at 87 percent, and city schools were the least likely, at 66 percent. Rural and urban schools fell at 85 percent and 78 percent, respectively.



In most cases, a gap in Internet access existed between schools with a high concentration of students in poverty and those with a low concentration of poverty. Similarly, a gap existed between schools with high and low minority enrollments. However, in schools with the highest concentration of students in poverty, instructional rooms with Internet access increased by 58 percent between 1999 and 2000 to 60 percent. Sixty-four percent of instructional rooms in schools with the highest minority enrollment had Internet access, an increase of 49 percent from a year earlier.



Other findings in the survey were:

• The type of network connections and the speed at which public schools are connected to the Internet has changed. In 1996, about 74 percent of public schools used dial-up Internet connections. In 2000, 77 percent of the schools used dedicated lines such as 56Kb or T1/DS1 and 24 percent used other connection types, including wireless and cable modems, while only 11 percent used dial-up connections.
• Fifty-four percent of schools with Internet connections made Internet access available to students after regular school hours. Students in secondary schools were 34 percent more likely to have such access than elementary school students. Students in large schools (1,000 or more students) also held an advantage over students in smaller schools, being as much as 30 percent more likely to have Internet access past school hours.

For Internet Access in U.S. Public Schools and Classrooms: 1994 – 2000, nearly 1,000 schools were surveyed about their Internet access and connections. To conduct the survey, NCES used the Fast Response Survey System (FRSS)–a system designed to gather small amounts of data within a short timeframe, placing little or no burden on its respondents. Visit the National Center for Education Statistics at http://www.nces.ed.gov to view a report on the survey.