Omar Crowder, Principal of Northeast High School in Philadelphia, greeted Covid-cautious parents as they approached a makeshift drive-through in front of the school's gymnasium on Cottman Avenue. It was the first week in March 2020, one week after Philadelphia announced its public schools would be moving to remote learning due to the nascent Covid-19 pandemic.
Crowder, along with a group of teachers and volunteers from the 3,400-student district, were handing out Chromebooks and Wi-Fi hotspots to parents and students.
"We distributed at least 1,000 Chromebooks in that first week." — Principal Crowder
A few weeks later, Congress signed into law the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the first Covid relief package, bolstering efforts by states and local districts to provide technology to families to facilitate the transition to remote learning.
In Philadelphia, CARES money funded computers and free internet access for 35,000 low-income families. In Los Angeles, the second largest school district in the country, school officials used $100 million in emergency funding to give all 600,000 students a tablet and internet access, as well as train teachers to teach online. Chicago put Wi-Fi in the hands of 100,000 students, Atlanta Public Schools distributed 9,000 mobile hotspots to families, and Texas distributed 1 million laptops and 480,000 Wi-Fi hot spots — all before the start of the 2021 school year.
The pandemic's harms to children — in the form of learning loss, stymied socialization and mental health troubles — have been well-documented. At the same time, in the long run, the pandemic will likely be a catalyst for bridging the nation's digital divide — the gap between individuals and households' access to, and ability to use, information and communication technologies (ICTs) for a wide variety of activities.
There are two reasons for this. The first is that the pandemic has accelerated broadband investment and adoption across the country. The second is that it has compelled public schools to embrace hybrid learning.
In March 2020, when K–12 public schools in all 50 states shifted to remote learning, roughly 16 million students — or 30% of children in grades K–12 — did not have an affordable and reliable Internet connection. Black, Latinx, and Native American students, as well as students from rural and Southern communities, were most likely to lack adequate internet service.
The pandemic mobilized officials at the federal, state, and local levels to approach the issue with the urgency it had always warranted. The initial infusion of aid from the CARES Act in March 2020 was dwarfed by the $65 billion investment in broadband that was included as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) in 2021. The IIJA provided $42 billion in grants to states and $14 billion to directly help low-income Americans pay for digital services.
As of this writing, more than 40 states now have offices dedicated to expanding broadband availability, affordability, and adoption — double the number just a year ago. In 2021, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont and California Governor Gavin Newsom both introduced plans designed to achieve universal broadband access in their states by 2027. Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson signed a bill allowing municipal governments to build broadband infrastructure. Wisconsin's Governor Tony Evers, who dubbed 2021 the "year of broadband access" in his State of the State address, announced a $200 million broadband proposal.
The full impact of these investments has likely not been realized, but already an estimated 4 million students have gained reliable at-home internet access since the start of the pandemic — chipping away at the 16 million who lacked internet before schools shut down.
"The IIJA will make real, high-speed internet far more affordable for millions of people who today cannot afford it, and it will make faster networks available to millions more. It's a big deal." — Matt Wood, broadband policy expert at Free Press
Positive as these developments are, closing the digital divide not only requires expanding access to the Internet, but also improving digital skills. Roughly 3 in 10 Americans are not digitally literate, according to U.S. data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which creates barriers to participating in economic and social life.
Just as the pandemic centered broadband on the policy agenda, it also pushed elected officials and school administrators to invest in, and embrace, hybrid learning models that teach students how to expand their communication, language and media skills through video conferencing, learning management software, language apps, and virtual tutoring. In 2021, the number of laptops and tablets shipped to primary and secondary schools in the United States nearly doubled to 26.7 million, from 14 million. Venture financing for education technology start-ups surged to $12.58 billion worldwide, up from $4.81 billion in 2019.
"Students can log on by themselves, submit their assignments correctly and, in some cases, even troubleshoot problems on their own. Schools aren't going to return to those pre-pandemic days when teachers used ed tech tools infrequently — and awkwardly. These tools are part of the instructional world now." — Sylvia R. Quigley, educational integration specialist, Tucson Unified School District
To be clear, Quigley's assessment — and the larger point that the pandemic will reduce disparities in digital access and skills — is both optimistic and forward-looking. The pandemic has set many students back, and most likely exacerbated learning disparities in the short-term. In Boston, 60 percent of students at some high-poverty schools have been identified as at high risk for reading problems — twice the number of students as before the pandemic. In Virginia, one study found that early reading skills were at a 20-year low.
Furthermore, millions of families in the United States remain without broadband access at home. It's also possible that the recent spike in schools' investments in e-learning tools might disproportionately benefit students in high-income districts, while compounding the digital exclusion students in low-income areas face.
Yet, by unearthing the deep opportunity gaps that already existed in American life, particularly in K–12 education, the pandemic stimulated governments and the private sector to act, and has likely set us on a course towards greater digital equity.
To maintain this momentum, federal, state, and local governments must continue to fund broadband initiatives, as well as digital inclusion and skill-building programs. Broadband providers, like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon, must invest in infrastructure to expand access and improve the quality of connections, particularly in rural and low-income communities that they have historically neglected. And private actors, including EdTech companies and non-profits, must continue to inform policy and stimulate ongoing investment in digitally-enabled learning.
Since the start of the pandemic, there have been more job openings in technology roles than any other occupation. More than 8 in 10 middle- and high-skill jobs today require strong digital skills. In an economy that increasingly demands digital fluency, the stakes of closing the digital divide have never been higher — and the pandemic, for all its devastation, may prove to be the catalyst that finally moves the needle.