In “Social Distancing and School Closures: Documenting Disparity in Internet Access among School Children,” Ananya Sen and Catherine Tucker argue that school closures resultant from the covid-19 pandemic disproportionately impacted poorer, non-white children, who have statistically less access to the internet. They highlight how the digital divide might exacerbate existing educational inequities that became more pronounced over the last few years.

School closures, which were intended to help unburden struggling healthcare systems by slowing the spread of the covid-19 virus, have resulted in many students being forced to learn online. Unfortunately, not all students benefit from the same access to the internet, and there is a strong correlation between wealth and the ability to make the transition. These results, they argue, are critical to the rapidly evolving policy debate around remote education.

Although the transition needed to happen quickly, certain segments of the student population were bound to struggle to keep up. For example, students who live in underprivileged communities may not have adequate access to the internet or a computer. In my opinion, this is a much larger issue than the study alludes because there is a portion of the remote environment that is likely to remain in place after restrictions are relaxed. Students who do not have adequate tools will continue to be at a disadvantage, so we must make it a social priority to increase access to the internet and technology before too many people fall too far behind.