Tracking U.S. Trends

There is now almost no difference in the availability of Internet access between poor schools and wealthy ones.

Over time, Internet access has steadily increased in public schools, leading to virtually no difference in access between poor schools and their wealthier counterparts, according to the latest figures from the National Center for Education Statistics.

The NCES, an arm of the U.S. Department of Education, also reports that schools are using their Internet access more frequently to build school Web sites—which, experts say, can offer everything from lunch menus to online practice tests and daily homework assignments. During the 2001-02 school year, 75 percent of all public schools had Web sites, and that figure had increased to 88 percent for the 2003-04 school year. About 80 percent of high-minority schools and 72 percent of high-poverty schools had Web sites.

Information from Market Data Retrieval, a research firm in Shelton, Conn., that tracks the use of educational technology, provides further evidence of the continuing infusion...