DIGITAL EQUITY IN EDUCATION

AND
STATE-LEVEL EDUCATION
TECHNOLOGY POLICIES:
A Multi-Level Analysis

Jonathan D. Becker
Doctoral Candidate
Teachers College, Columbia University

April 30, 2003

INTRODUCTION
• Equity in Education
• Education Technology
• States as Education Policy Makers

• DIGITAL EQUITY IN EDUCATION AS

A MULTI-LEVEL ORGANIZATIONAL
PHENOMENON
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
• Are education technology resources
(computer access and computer use)
distributed differentially across different
student and school demographic
categories? Or, is there digital equity in
education across the country?
• What is being done by the states that
might contribute to the distribution of
education technology resources, and to
what effect?
 EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY AS A RESOURCE
•COMPUTER ACCESS •COMPUTER USE
– Quantity – Quantity
• How much
hardware?
• How often?
• How much • For how
Internet long?
connectivity?
– Quality
– Quality
• How
• Newness vs.
Obsolescence educationally
• “Thickness” of beneficial?
Internet pipes

SOURCE: Attewell, P. (2001). The First and Second Digital Divides. Sociology of
Education, 74(3), 252-59.
 EDUCATIONAL EQUITY: A DEFINITION
If we could secure the ideal of
educational equity, without cost to any
other ideals, then we would have
secured a statistically describable
social condition within which there is:
A random distribution of
resources, attainment, and
educational achievement in respect
to variables irrelevant to
educational justice together with a
predictable distribution in respect
to variables relevant to
educational justice.

SOURCE: Thomas F. Green. (1982). Excellence, Equity and Equality. In Shulman

and Sykes (ed.) Handbook of Teaching and Policy, pp. 318-41.
EDUCATIONAL EQUITY: A DEFINITION
A random distribution of… RESOURCES ATTAINMENT ACHIEVEMENT

with respect RACE

to…
SEX

SES

GEOGRAPHY

AND a predictable distribution RESOURCES ATTAINMENT ACHIEVEMENT

of…
with respect CHOICE
to…
ABILITY

VIRTUE
DEFINING DIGITAL EQUITY IN EDUCATION
• Digital equity in schools is the application of Green’s
(1982) definition of educational equity to Atewell’s
(2001) notion of two digital divides (access and use)
in education technology.
• Digital equity in schools is a statistically
describable condition whereby access to
technology is randomly distributed between
schools according to educationally irrelevant
school variables (e.g. racial composition and
urbanicity) and the use of education technology
is randomly distributed within schools
according to educationally irrelevant student
variables (e.g. sex, race, SES and geography).
• Assumption: those distributions are random even
after controlling for relevant distributive variables
(e.g. choice, virtue, etc.)
STATES AND ED. TECH. POLICY
• For a host of reasons, the balance of
power in our multi-layered, fragmented
governance structure over education has
shifted to the states.
• Education technology policy is now a
particularly centralized domain of
educational policy increasingly within the
purview of state education agencies.
• Furthermore, from the federal
government down to the states (and,
ultimately, to districts and schools), the
major goal of early days education
technology policy was the equitable
distribution of technology resources; i.e.
digital equity in education.
 ANALYTIC FRAMEWORK:
Operationalizing Digital Equity
in Education As a Multilevel
Organizational Phenomenon
DATA SOURCES
• NAEP (2000) State Mathematics
Assessment Dataset
– Nationwide indicators of student
performance and a cross-sectional survey
of conditions and practices
– The data for these analyses come from the
2000 State NAEP 4th grade mathematics
database
• The Milken Exchange on Educational
Technology’s (MEET) State-by-State
Educational Technology Policy Survey
– MEET surveyed and interviewed the 50 state
education technology directors (or their
representatives) in the summer of 1998
– A state-by-state profile of information on
state education technology policies.
MULTILEVEL MODELING (HLM)
• The survey items from the NAEP data collection
process include items completed by an
administrator in each of the schools in the sample.
By aggregating certain data to the school level, a
school-level dataset is created.
• Linking the student-level data, the newly created
school-level dataset, and the MEET state-level
data, a nested data structure (students within
schools within states) is created.
• Additionally, for the state NAEP, a multi-stage
sampling design is used (a stratified sample of
schools followed by a random sample of students
within the schools).
• Therefore, multilevel statistical modeling
procedures are appropriate, and the sampling
framework necessitates that, for school-level data,
a school weight must be calculated and included in
the analyses.
MULTILEVEL MODEL SPECIFICATION:
Further Operationalization of
Digital Equity in Education As
a Multilevel Organizational
Phenomenon
DEPENDENT VARIABLES
•COMPUTER USE •COMPUTER ACCESS
•“When you do •“Are computers
available all the time in
mathematics in
the classrooms?”
school, how often do
•“Are computers
you use a computer?” available in a computer
– Almost every day lab?”
– Once or twice a •“Are computers
week available to the
classrooms when
– Once or twice a needed?”
month •Combined into a
– Never or hardly single school-level
ever measure of
computer access
points

See table 13, p. 100 See table 17, p. 104

INDEPENDENT VARIABLES
• Student-Level
– Sex
– Race (3 categories, see table 19, p. 106)
– SES (Eligibility for free or reduced-price
lunch, see table 20, p. 109)
• School-Level
– Percent African-American (see table 21,
p. 109)
– Percent Latina/o (see table 21, p. 109)
– Urbanicity (3 categories, see table 22, p.
109)
– Computer Access
INDEPENDENT VARIABLES
(cont’d)
• State-Level
– Technology-related credentialing
requirements (3 variables, see table
A1, p. 218)
– Student standards for technology
(3 variables, see table A2, p. 219)
– Professional development for
education technology (2 variables,
see table A3, p. 220)
– Education technology funding (3
variables, see tables A4-A7, pp. 221-
24).
HLM AND NON-LINEAR
ANALYSES
• The two dependent variables are ordered,
categorical variables.
• BUT, the standard HLM assumes that the
dependent variable and the residuals at
each level are normally distributed.
• Fortunately, within the HLM software, it is
possible to specify a nonlinear analysis for
ordinal outcomes (but see footnote 25, p.
111).
• For multi-category, ordinal data, the level-
one sampling model is a cumulative
probability model and the link function is a
logit link function. The structural model
assumes “proportional odds.”
FINAL MODEL SPECIFICATIONS
• Computer Access = 2 levels (schools
within states); Computer Use = 3 levels
(students within schools within states)
• The fully unconditional, random-intercept
only model
– Partitions the variance in the outcome by the
different levels of analysis
• Basic models with random intercepts and
fixed slopes
– One-way ANCOVA with random effects
– “Step-up” strategy
– All predictors are fixed and grand-mean
centered
• Basic models with random intercepts and
random slopes where appropriate
 RESULTS:
Digital Equity as a Multilevel
Organizational Phenomenon and
State Effects
COMPUTER ACCESS ( p. 157)
• Random Effects (Intercept only)
– The variance component of the
fully unconditional model (0.156)
yields an ICC of .045, meaning that
4.5% of the variance in computer
access is between-state variance.
– The variance component does not
change much between the three
models.
– None of the slopes of the school-
level predictors varies randomly
between states.
COMPUTER ACCESS ( p. 157)
• Fixed Effects
– Two school-level predictors prove
statistically significant (the same as the
ordinal logistic regression). The
likelihood of increased computer access:
• Decreases for schools with higher
percentages of African-American students
(-.719)
• Decreases for schools in rural areas (-.317)
– State funding variables do not show any
relationship to school-level computer
access.
COMPUTER USE: RANDOM-INTERCEPT, FIXED SLOPES (p.
162)
• Random Effects
– In a three level HGLM, there are two sets of
random effects (level 3 and level+level 2).
– The level 3 variance component of the fully
unconditional model (0.024) yields an ICC of
0.007, meaning that less than one percent of
the variance in computer use is between-state
variance.
– The level 1 + level 2 variance component
ranges from 0.599 and 0.577, meaning that
the proportion of the variance that is between
the schools is right around 15%. Thus, most
of the variance in computer use exists within
schools.
COMPUTER USE: RANDOM-INTERCEPT, FIXED SLOPES
(p. 161)

• Fixed Effects: Level-1

– All four level-1 predictors demonstrate
statistically significant relationships to
the dependent variable, but only two
have practically significant effects.
• Latina/o students are more likely to fall
into a higher use category than other
students (0.126).
• African-American students are more likely
to fall into a higher use category than
other students (0.288).
COMPUTER USE: RANDOM-INTERCEPT, FIXED SLOPES
(p. 161)
• Fixed Effects: Level-2
– Two level-2 predictors demonstrate
statistically significant relationships to the
average (unit-specific) level-1 intercept:
• The higher the percentage of African-
American students in a school, the more
likely that a given student in that school will
report a higher use category.
• Students in schools where there are
computers available all the time in the
classrooms (as opposed to or in addition to
a lab) are more likely to use computers
more frequently.
COMPUTER USE: RANDOM-INTERCEPT, FIXED SLOPES
(p. 161)
• Fixed Effects: Level-3
– Given that the level-3 variance component is so
small, the estimates of level-3 fixed effects need to
be interpreted with caution. Also, because there are
only 40 level-3 units, parsimony is tantamount.
– Three level-3 covariates demonstrate significant
relationships to the average level-2 intercept:
• In states where student technology standards are integrated
into the subject area standards, students are likely to report
lower levels of computer use.
• In states where pre-service teachers have to meet
technology-related requirements in order to receive their
initial credential, students are likely to report higher levels of
computer use.
• In states where earmarked state funds for technology are
distributed as competitive grants, students are likely to
report higher levels of computer use.
COMPUTER USE: RANDOM-INTERCEPT, RANDOM SLOPES (p.
172)

• Random Effects
– The effects of all four student-
level predictors varies randomly
across schools (i.e. the
magnitude of the effect of race,
sex or SES is different in different
schools).
– The proportion of variance
attributable to the states is still
less than 1%.
COMPUTER USE: RANDOM-INTERCEPT, RANDOM SLOPES (p.
172)
• Fixed Effects (slopes as outcomes)
– Having computers available in the classrooms
increases the likelihood of more frequent computer
use for girls and for students who are eligible for
free or reduced-price lunch.
– Students who are eligible for free or reduced-price
lunch have an increased likelihood of more
frequent computer use in urban schools and in
schools with greater concentrations of African-
American students.
– African-American and Latina/o students have an
increased likelihood of more frequent computer use
in schools with greater concentrations of students
of their own race.
COMPUTER USE: RANDOM-INTERCEPT, RANDOM SLOPES (p.
172)

• Fixed Effects
– Average computer use is still lower
in schools in rural areas.
– Having computers available in a lab
setting increases the likelihood of
more frequent computer use (NOTE
switch from fixed effects, fixed
slopes models)
– The state effects are similar to
those reported for the fixed effects,
fixed slopes models.
CONCLUSIONS
• DIGITAL EQUITY
– Computer Access
• There is an increased probability of
lower levels of computer access in
rural schools and in schools with
higher percentages of African-
American students.
– Computer Use
• There are differences in the likelihood
of computer use by race, sex and SES
of the students, but those effects vary
from school-to-school.
CONCLUSIONS
• STATE EFFECTS
– States have taken dramatically different
approaches to education technology, but no
more than 5% of the variance in computer
access can be attributed to state factors,
and less than 1% of the variance in
computer-use is state-to-state variation.
– While no state-level predictors are related
to computer access at the school level,
three state-level predictors consistently
demonstrate a significant relationship to
student-level computer use (not access):
• Integrated technology standards (-)
• Pre-service teacher tech. requirements (+)
• Earmarked funds distributed competitively (+)
DISCUSSION