Digital divide: Montana's children face technological challenges.

• Author: Herling, Daphne

Many children in America today have access to the Internet. But if a child live, s in a low-income, rural household, his or her chances of getting online are diminished, With 34 percent of Montana's children living in households earning $30,000 or less and most of the state being considered rural, Montana must work hard to overcome a growing digital divide.

Research shows that technology has positive impacts on health outcomes and academic performance; it also provides economic opportunity to young people and increases civic involvement in local communities.

Between 1994 and 2004, there have been substantial changes in information and communications technology among American youth. The number of children who have computers at home has doubled, and the number of public schools equipped with Internet connections has gone from one-third to 100 percent (Table 1).

The Children's Partnership (www.childrenspartnership.org), a national nonprofit, nonpartisan child advocacy organization, undertook an important study on how to measure digital opportunity for America's children. The purpose of the study was to help answer the question: How can the Internet help our children succeed? The study report looked not just at academic achievement, but also at whether technology might improve lives in other meaningful ways, such as leading healthier lives, being prepared for the work force, and becoming engaged in their local communities. The report also showed the importance of technology and how each state rates in providing its children with access to high-speed Internet.

Even in the short time since the report was released in 2005, the impacts of the Internet and the necessity of accessing it as part of our daily lives have become a more significant. Increasingly, broadband technology has become the means of delivery for high-speed Internet, and this infrastructure delivers essential service to young Americans: services around education, health care, work force, and civic participation.

The New Work

In 2002, 57 percent of employed Americans older than 25 used a computer at work. By the year 2010, jobs in the computer and mathematical fields are expected to increase by 67 percent. More and more workplaces expect workers to be computer literate and Internet savvy, and use of the Web to post and find jobs is increasingly becoming the norm for businesses and job-seekers alike United States now lags in high-speed internet penetrations in 2000 the United States ranked fourth, but in 2005 it had fallen to 16th in broadband penetration per capita. In Japan, high speed Internet has an average Connection speed 16 times faster than in the United States.

Montana's Work Force and Technology

Montana does not rank high in some of the measures to assess the new work force and the benefits of being prepared with technology skills. According to the Children's Partnership report, Montana ranks 39th in the rate of private sector workers who are employed by high-tech firms (32 out of every 1,000 employees). Measured against 52 other states (Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., are included with the 50 States), the state ranks 48th for the overall number of high-tech workers and 48th for average high-tech wage. On a positive...