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July 1998
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July 1998
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Educators Struggle to Make Machines Available
By David Nakamura
Washington Post Staff Writer03/11/98 -- Copyright (C) 1998 The Washington Post [Article 307449, 140 lines]
When Tiffany Johnson gets a major homework assignment, she starts calling her friends to see if one of them will let her come over. It's not companionship she's after. It's a computer.
When that doesn't work, she sometimes will do her homework in the school's computer lab, even though it means skipping lunch or a class. The year that she took a computer course, she often ignored what the other students were doing and used the machines to type her English papers.
Hunting down a computer is always a hassle, said the senior at Montgomery's Paint Branch High School. But the alternative -- trying to do research without the Internet and turning in papers that are poorly typed and lack eye-catching graphics -- is practically unthinkable, she said.
"It's totally impossible to function without a computer now for school," said Johnson, 17, an honors student who said her parents cannot afford one. "It's a big handicap not to have one at home."
With children now doing homework on computers as early as the first or second grade, students such as Johnson are at a huge disadvantage, educators say. And although falling computer prices have made the machines more affordable for many families, Johnson is not so unusual. A recent survey by Montgomery school officials found that 25 percent of the district's students did not have a home computer, let alone an Internet connection.
A Washington area survey last August by Scarborough Report Corp., a market research company, reported similar findings: 71 percent of area households with children ages 12 to 17 had a computer, and only 45 percent had a computer with a modem. Nationwide, 60 percent of households with children have a computer, according to a report this week by Computer Intelligence, another market research firm. The gulf between students who have a home computer and those who don't is one of the most troubling inequities in the education system, teachers and school administrators say. It isn't just that the have-nots are forced to turn in work that is less polished. They also are falling behind in computer skills they will need in college and in the job market, and they are unlikely to be exposed to as many facts and ideas as classmates who can deftly navigate the Internet, educators say.
The differences in computer equipment from one home to another have put teachers in a bind when deciding what assignments to make and how to assess students' work. Many teachers say they feel compelled to assign homework that will help their pupils discover the Internet's potential, although they know that those who can't access it from home will have trouble completing the work.
"My daughter was in a government class last year, and what the teachers expected just blew me away," said Maryann Barton, who teaches computer classes at Fairfax's Herndon High School. "The assignments required a lot of research that she did on the Internet. If she didn't have a computer, I don't know how she would have been able to do her work."
Eleanor Toth, a third-grade science teacher at Hyattsville Elementary School in Prince George's County, said she wasn't expecting anyone to use a computer when she asked her students to do research on the human digestive system. While most of the class turned in hand-drawn diagrams, one boy submitted charts, graphs and drawings that he had downloaded on his computer.
"The difference in the presentation was shocking," Toth said. She said she still hasn't decided whether to give the student extra credit for the work.
School officials say that computer inequities in the home, although worrisome, are difficult to address and that their main priority in technology spending is to install more computers and Internet hookups in school buildings.
Some schools have tried to tackle the problem by keeping their computer labs open before and after school. But officials at many schools say that they can't afford to pay their staff overtime and that they have trouble finding teachers who are willing to volunteer their time to monitor the labs.
"It's rare that schools will make computers available on a regular basis after hours -- it's an issue of cost," said Joseph Hawkins, a Montgomery school administrator who helped conduct the district's recent technology survey. "Generally, kids can use the computer labs during school hours but not after school or on weekends." A few schools have tried lending laptop computers to students. Officials at Sligo Middle School in Montgomery, for example, reserved 25 laptops for students who had no computer at home. But the experiment was short-lived.
"It helped -- we did get some families into using computers," said Robin Lupia, Sligo's assistant principal. "But we ran into problems. They were old computers. We had a lot break down."
The development of new lower-cost computers offers the best hope for such students, most school officials agree. The price of a desktop computer with Internet access has already fallen to about $1,300, including the cost of the monitor, printer and modem. The parents of Frank Cobey, a sixth-grader at Hyattsville Elementary, say that's still more than they can afford. Frank's mother works in the school's cafeteria, and his father puts up signs for the state highway department.
Frank, 11, said he sometimes imagines what it would be like to have a computer at home. "They'd probably have books on the computer I could read, math problems I could practice," he said.
His mother, Donna Hanna, said she realizes that a computer would help him. "I think the computer would make learning more enjoyable for him," she said. "Children learn quickly on the computer, and I think they like working on it better than going to a library and looking through books."
Sergio Blanco, 15, a sophomore at Herndon High School, said he routinely goes to the public library to work on research papers while many of his classmates are looking up the information on the Internet in far less time. Twice a week, the high school's computer lab stays open an extra hour after school, but those computers often are all taken, Blanco said.
"Sometimes I try to use the library computers, but you can only use them for half an hour," he said. "That's not enough time."
Daryush Assar, a Herndon High freshman, said he has trouble finishing his biology homework because the teacher requires that it be typed. Sometimes he asks his cousin if he can borrow his computer, but usually he has to do the work on an old typewriter. "It takes longer because you can't move things around and do stuff you can do with better computers," he said.
There is a downside to relying on a computer to do one's homework, educators say. Downloading information on the Internet is so easy that it can breed laziness, and teachers say they sometimes find students using material that they have not understood or analyzed.
Nonetheless, the student without Internet exposure is missing out on a powerful learning tool, teachers say. Dave Campbell, a world studies teacher at Herndon High, said he considers it essential to teach Internet research habits to his students and always requires them to do a project that involves collecting information from different Web sites.
He concedes that this makes it hard on students who can't get on the Web from home. On the other hand, he said, the assignment is good for them because it forces them to spend more time on a computer.
"The students who don't have computers might have to use the computers in the [school] media center before or after school or at lunch," he said. "They can get it done, but they might have to sacrifice something else."
Hawkins, the Montgomery County administrator, said his school system needs to do more to help such students. Montgomery and other Washington area districts should follow the example of places such as San Francisco and Union City, N.J., where businesses have donated computers to students, Hawkins said. He also said the county itself should spend money to buy computers for the most needy children. "There's not a serious systemwide agenda to address the issue," Hawkins said. As for Tiffany Johnson, she is competing against classmates like Erin Washington, who owns a Hewlett-Packard PC.
"I'd spend two or three hours in the library," Washington said, recalling the days before she had the machine. "Now I get information on the Internet in a matter of minutes. And I can hook up to the library from my computer. If they have a book, I call them and ask them to hold it for me and I go pick it up."
Johnson's mother, Jacqueline, is a telephone interviewer for a radio ratings company, and her father, Edward, is an assistant manager at a mattress store. Jacqueline Johnson said they hope to help their daughter buy a computer soon.
Tiffany Johnson said she's working at a pizza restaurant to earn money toward that goal and hopes to have her computer before she enters Howard University this fall. "That's my goal," she said. "From what I hear, you really need one in college."
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