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Statistics in Brief: Advanced Telecommunications in U.S. Public Elementary and Secondary Schools, Fall 1996
NCES: 97944
February 1997

Internet Access in Instructional Rooms

In addition to Internet access at the school building level, the survey collected information regarding the percentage of instructional rooms including classrooms, computer or other labs, school libraries, and media centers that had Internet access. Overall, while 65 percent of schools were on the Internet, 14 percent of all instructional rooms in U. S. public schools had Internet access. This percentage has grown by 5 to 6 percentage points annually since fall 1994 when 3 percent of instructional rooms were on the Internet (Table 1).

The percentage of rooms with Internet access differed by percent minority enrollment and poverty of the school. While schools with minority enrollments of 20 percent or less reported Internet access in 18 percent of their instructional rooms, those with minority enrollments of 50 percent or more had access in 5 percent of their instructional rooms. Instructional rooms in schools with the highest level of student poverty (71 percent or more) were about half as likely to have Internet access (7 percent) as schools with lower levels of poverty (14 to 18 percent). Of the schools with Internet access, 95 percent indicated that they had Internet access in at least one instructional room such as a classroom, computer or other lab, or library media center (Figure 2). Forty-three percent reported access in one instructional room, 22 percent had Internet access in two or three instructional rooms, 4 percent reported access in four instructional rooms, and 25 percent had Internet access in five or more rooms.

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