The Pandemic Digital Divide in Missouri: Rural Students Most Likely to Lack Full Access to Technology
School building closures and the sudden pivot to distanced learning in the spring of 2020 highlighted existing digital inequities across the country and in Missouri. Many families in Missouri and nationwide lacked sufficient internet access or web-enabled devices for distanced learning. The summer of 2020 gave districts the opportunity to reflect on these challenges and develop plans for the following school year that would both ensure all students had access to education and protect the health of students and staff. In this brief, we use data from a statewide sample of Missouri traditional and charter school districts’ 2020-21 reopening plans. We describe the characteristics of districts that planned to provide students with devices and internet access for distanced learning. We find:
Forty-one percent of districts planned to provide both devices and internet access.
Rural districts were 25 to 35 percentage points less likely to provide devices and over 40 percentage points less likely to provide home-based internet access than suburban and urban districts.
Nearly two-thirds of districts that started the year fully distanced planned to provide both devices and internet access, compared to one-third of districts that offered students and families the option of in-person or distanced instruction.
The smallest districts, the lowest-spending districts, and the districts with the highest proportion of white students were the least likely to provide devices and internet access.