GoBigEd

Posted 1:05 PM by Susan Darst Williams

DIGITAL DIVIDE ILLUSTRATES RACIAL DIVIDE,
BUT DOES IT REALLY MATTER?

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 67% of white students use the Internet, but 44% of African-American and 47% of Hispanic students do.

That's called the "digital divide," and it's seen as evidence of a damaging gulf between the resources and goal-making opportunities of whites vs. minority schoolchildren.

The gap is less extreme in schools, since so many public schools in all income areas have Internet access. But at home, the divide is a reality: 54 percent of white students use the Internet at home, compared with 26 percent of Hispanic and 27 percent of black children, the center reported based on a 2003 survey.

Of course, as GoBigEd reported the other day, there's no real evidence that computer access and Internet usage actually makes a person smarter, or better at school. But to the extent that the digital divide exists along racial lines, it gives the educrats one more veil to put in front of the public's understanding of what children need, which is the simple, inexpensive, non-technical 3 R's.