Common Sense Media

Connect All Students: How States and School Districts Can Close the Digital Divide

How did stakeholders respond to school closings and the digital divide --  and what lessons can be learned from those efforts to close the digital divide going forward? This report highlights case studies at the state, city, and school district level and concludes that there are three key steps in the still unfinished endeavor of closing the K–12 digital divide during the pandemic.

Closing the K–12 Digital Divide in the Age of Distance Learning

A full 15 to 16 million public school students across the US live in households without adequate internet access or computing devices to facilitate distance learning. Almost 10% of public school teachers (300,000 to 400,000) are also caught in the gap, affecting their ability to run remote classes. The 32-page report, Closing the K–12 Digital Divide in the Age of Distance Learning, fixes a one-year price tag of at least $6 billion and as much as $11 billion to connect all kids at home, and an additional $1 billion to close the divide for teachers.

The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweens and Teens, 2019

This large-scale study explores how kids age 8 to 18 in the US use media across an array of activities and devices—including short-form, mobile-friendly platforms like YouTube—to see where they spend their time and what they enjoy most. Combined with the data from the 2015 report, the 2019 census gives us a clearer view of how young people's media use has evolved over time.