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Education Featured Article

March 15, 2012

Low-Income Students Demand Equal Access to Technology

By Jacqueline Lee, Contributing Writer


KQED in northern California recently reported that students from several Los Angeles high schools attended the Digital Media and Learning conference in San Francisco during the first week of March. At the conference, these students demanded advancements in technology for their schools, which are schools with a high percentage of lower-income students.


The students presented research that they had done on their own cameras, laptops, tablets and cell phones, including filmmaking, online surveys and face-to-face interviews. They also spoke about the challenges of obtaining access to technology in a lower-income school. For instance, even though 49 percent of these students use the Internet to do homework, most schools had very limited Internet access available.

At Crenshaw High School, 10 of 14 computers actually work, the students asserted. Two are new, and three can print. Of the 30 laptops in the school, only 10 can actually access the Internet. Additionally, 90 percent of the computers in the school still operate on the Windows 2000 operating system.

“We don’t have the basic needs that students at Beverly Hills High have,” said Myquesha Moore from Crenshaw High. “Why should l have to go to a library outside my school to have access to computers that are available, but limited? Yes, we’re learning to type on our T-Mobile Sidekicks, because we’re taking our own initiative.”

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan gave a speech at an education conference in Austin, Texas, last week. During the speech, he stated that the future of education included a laptop on every desk, access to the Internet in every student’s home and plenty of online learning. “Ensuring education equity is at the heart of the federal role in education,” Duncan remarked. “It opens doors for all students as long as we make sure that the students most in need have access.”

Some critics, however, accuse Duncan of promoting not the interest of students, but the interests of corporate America. Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times wrote that “the leading promoter of the replacement of paper textbooks by e-books and electronic devices today is Apple (News - Alert), which announced at a media event last month that it dreams of a world in which every pupil reads textbooks on an iPad or a Mac.” In addition to accusing Duncan of catering to corporations, critics also accused the Obama administration of trying to take educational decision-making out of the hands of local and state officials.

The Los Angeles students, however, want access to technology, and they have no interest in promoting the agendas of large corporations or of wading into a fight on states’ rights. “Doesn’t it make sense to use the tools that engage us the most?” the students asked in their presentation. “How are we supposed to use technology responsibly if we don’t use it at all? Why aren’t schools creating culturally relevant curriculum?”

“We’re crucified by a process that’s making us a permanent underclass,” Moore concluded. “We are forced to stay at the bottom, and this lack of technology will not allow us to develop skills for the job market.”




Edited by Carrie Schmelkin


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