June 1996 — Features
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Achieving Technological Equity and Equal Access to the Learning Tools of the 21st Century
Is there a problem of technology equity in our schools? Just ask the kids and teachers who use it. Even better, ask those who can't access it enough or at all. Technology's new tools are seen as empowering, productive and motivational. They make learning fun; more importantly, they let the user both access and create new realms of knowing and doing. But there simply aren't enough of these learning tools to go around, and many learners are being denied access.
School decision-makers are aware of the critical need for broader technology access. Parents, too, recognize the importance and, those who can, provide it at home. Employers tell us that nearly all workers entering the job market in this next century need to have an expanded set of technical skills in communication, problem-solving and production. Productivity and profit will both be linked to workers' effective uses of new technologies. Many high school graduates can't compete for entry-level technical jobs. Once hired, they're unable to progress to more responsible, remunerative levels of their chosen professions. Inequities of class, gender, ethnicity and economic disparity correlate highly with denied or restricted access to the tools of technology. The have-nots have increasingly less.
When it comes to gaining greater access, many groups and classes are simply unable. The resources are just not there. Futurists tell us that tomorrow's workers who want to stay employed, or be re-employed, will need the skill of learning new skills. Technology will be the common link among most of tomorrow's jobs. Our growth as a national power has depended largely on the expertise of our workers. If our schools fail to pass on these new skills, there may not be another opportunity. Inequity of access to today's new tools becomes tomorrow's enduring societal loss.
The State of Technology
Students don't have to share pencils. Most teachers even have their own overhead projectors, and certainly their own chalkboards. But when it comes to technology, there clearly isn't enough to go around. Yes, it d'es cost a lot more than paper and pencils: camcorders and computers are hundreds to thousands of dollars apiece. Most schools don't have the funds to address the issue of adequate access, let alone equity.
In Minnesota's Saint Paul Public Schools, there are 13 students to each computer. That's not quite as attractive as our state average of about 10:1 and the national ratio of 11:1. Ratios vary considerably among the 16,000 school districts and, taken alone, don't tell us much about equity of usage, anyway. Many of our district's computers are older, less-powerful machines without high-resolution color, CD-ROMs or Internet access.
