As Schools Soak In Technology, What Becomes Of Students Whose Schools Can't Afford To?

At a time when awareness of technology and its potential uses in school is growing nationally, DuSable High School often feels like a poster child for the so-called digital divide.

The term "digital divide" used to refer to whether classrooms had computers connected to the Internet. Now, the bar has been raised, as newer software programs require high-speed connections and as WiFi-dependent devices such as iPads make their way into classrooms.

Even though Chicago Public Schools reports spending about $40 million a year on technology, Bronzeville Scholastic lags behind its peers and exemplifies a dangerous disparity that exists in the United States, according to Susan Patrick, president and CEO of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning.

"Some schools may have access to one-to-one pilots, and other schools have old infrastructure that is barely functional, so that kids don't have access to the computers."

Bronzeville got a boost this year when Best Practice High School, which is closing, donated a roomful of the West Side school's computers. But Bronzeville Scholastic's principal, Latunja Williams, says it will take at least $3,000 to update the hard drives, which are too slow to run many current programs.

Two years ago, school librarian Sara Sayigh received a $15,000 grant that paid for many of the computers in the shared homework lab. The rest, however, can be unreliable and can't be easily fixed when something goes wrong.

"We do not have a designated tech person in this building," said Sayigh. Instead, an "audio-visual" person who Sayigh says is not qualified to perform maintenance on computers is responsible.

Flaherty says the computer in his classroom takes more than 20 minutes to boot up. The slower hard drives make it difficult to run newer software programs. Ninth-grade English teacher Tijwana Witt said computers break down frequently.

"I've seen huge disparities, where I've gone into classrooms in urban districts and the paint is peeling and there's not a computer in sight, to very high-end districts where every kid has an iPad they can bring home," said Lisa Gillis, president of Integrated Educational Strategies, a national nonprofit based in California that helps schools implement digital curricula. "We have a long way to go."

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