Selected Findings

The Survey of Advanced Telecommunications in U.S. Public Schools, K-12 requested information regarding the availability and use of telecommunications, plans to implement or upgrade wide area connections, access to the Internet and selected Internet capabilities, and barriers schools face to the acquisition or use of advanced telecommunications. The data were gathered from a nationally representative sample of 1,380 public elementary and secondary schools in fall 1994.

• Overall, 35 percent of public schools have access to the Internet but only 3 percent of all instructional rooms (classrooms, labs and media centers) in public schools are connected to the Internet. Only 30 percent of public elementary schools have Internet access compared with 49 percent for secondary schools (Table 5).



• Funding is the major barrier most often cited in the acquisition or use of advanced telecommunications in public schools. Schools cited funding as a major barrier 69 percent of the time which ranks first in a list of potential barriers (Table 14). Other major barriers most often cited were lack of equipment or poor equipment (50 percent) and too few access points in the school building (47 percent).



• Seventy-five percent of public schools have computers with some type of telecommunication capabilities (i.e., local area networks or wide area networks), 74 percent have cable television, and 70 percent have access to broadcast television in their schools (Table 2).



• Only 40 percent of public schools having computers with telecommunication capabilities indicated that they were located in classrooms (Table 2). However, the types of telecommunications most often located in classrooms are broadcast television and cable television. Although 94 percent of schools with closed-circuit television reported it was in classrooms, only 25 percent of schools had this capability.



• While 75 percent of public schools have access to some kind of computer network, only 49 percent have access to a wide area network--35 percent of public schools have access to the Internet and 14 percent have access to other wide area networks (e.g., CompuServe, America Online, Prodigy; Table 3).



• Sixty-seven percent of public schools have plans to implement or upgrade a wide area computer network (Table 4). Of these, 81 percent indicate that their telecommunications plans are part of a district-level plan, 48 percent are part of a school-based plan, 27 percent are part of a state plan, and 19 percent are part of a regional plan.



• In the Southeast, schools are about twice as likely to report statewide telecommunications plans than schools in the other regions of the country-4l percent for the Southeast as compared with 20, 22, or 26 percent in the other regions (Table 4).



• Smaller schools with enrollments of less than 300 are less likely to be on the Internet than schools with larger enrollment sizes. Only 30 percent of small schools reported having Internet access, while 58 percent of schools with enrollments of 1,000 or more reported having Internet access (Table 5).

For the 35 percent ¹ of public schools having access to the Internet:

• E-mail is the most widely available Internet capability. Ninety percent of schools on the Internet indicate E-mail is available at their school (Table 6). News groups and resource location services (Gopher, Archie, Veronica, etc.) are available in 64 and 62 percent of the schools, respectively. Only 21 percent of the schools report having some graphical user interface capabilities such as MOSAIC.



• Each of these Internet capabilities (E-mail, news groups, resource location services, and graphical user interface) is more often available for teachers and administrative staff than for students. Eighty-five to 94 percent of schools with Internet access indicated availability for teachers and 66 to 79 percent indicated availability for administrative staff as compared to 43 to 54 percent of schools reporting that the capabilities were available for students (Table 6).



• The number of instructional rooms connected to the Internet varies greatly-5l percent of the schools with Internet have a connection in one instructional room, 27 percent have connections in two or three instructional rooms, 5 percent have connections in four instructional rooms and 8 percent have connections in five or more instructional rooms (Table 7).

For the 49 percent of public schools having access to the lnternet or any other wide area network connection:

• Eleven percent of the schools having access to wide area networks indicate that administrative staff use those networks to a large extent but only 3 percent indicate that students and 2 percent indicate that teachers use the network to a large extent (Table 11).



• The overwhelming majority of schools that are connected to any wide area network use modems (97 percent; Table 8).



• The responsibility for administering the wide area networks in51 percent of the schools is assigned to a part-time network administrator (Table 9). Only 9 percent of the schools indicate that the person responsible for administering the network is a full-time network administrator. Sixteen percent indicate that someone from the district staff administers their network and 24 percent report that no single individual is responsible.



• Large schools (enrollment of 1,000 or more) are about twice as likely to have a full-time network administrator than smaller schools-- 17 percent as compared to 7 or 9 percent (Table 9).



• About 70 percent of schools having access to wide area networks provide training to the administrative staff and teachers. This training is provided more often by the school district than by the schools (Table 10). Training for students also is provided in about half of the schools and for parents in 20 percent of schools. However, training for students and parents is more often provided by the school rather than the district.



• Schools with access to wide area networks indicate that district and regional administrators (48 percent) and teachers and other staff (33 percent) are the two groups most likely to play a large formal role in developing the school's telecommunications program (Table 12).



• According to 89 percent of schools with wide area network access, decisions concerning the school's telecommunications budget are made most frequently by the school district (Table 13). Fifty-nine percent also report that their school is responsible for making decisions concerning the telecommunications budget. Only 22 percent of schools indicated state influence on these budget decisions and 15 percent indicated that their regional administrator was responsible for making decisions on the school's telecommunications budget.

¹The estimated percent of schools having access to the Internet or any other wide area network connection-49 percent of public schools is based upon a variable which was derived from two items on the questionnaire. It is an unduplicated count of those schools indicating that they have access to either the Internet or any other wide area network (e.g., CompuServe, America Online, Prodigy Table 3).

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