The emergence of the coronavirus pandemic brought major disruptions to American society. Health systems were stressed,¹ millions of jobs were lost,² businesses were shuttered,³ and many schools were closed.⁴ The traditional elementary and secondary education structure, which typically emphasizes an interactive in-person classroom environment, quickly transitioned to online education programs in the spring of 2020 in an effort to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. Although online programs have enabled educational activities to continue while schools have been physically closed, concerns have been raised about whether inequities in access to these online programs could exacerbate gaps in student performance that existed prior to the pandemic.^5,6 Studies of household internet access have revealed that lower income students typically have lower levels of home access to the internet (see indicator Children's Internet Access at Home). Similarly, findings from 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) showed that the percentages of students with digital tools available at home greatly varied by socioeconomic status, locale, and state.⁷

Using data from the 2020 Household Pulse Survey (HPS),⁸ this spotlight discusses how children’s access to technology and distance learning programs at home has changed during the pandemic. The HPS is conducted by the Census Bureau with seven other federal statistical agency partners, including the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The HPS has provided weekly or biweekly national and state estimates since April 23, 2020, when data collection began. The survey gathers information from adults about their employment status, spending patterns, food security, housing, mental health, access to health care, transportation, and household educational activities. This spotlight focuses on adults 18 years old and over who had children under age 18 in the home⁹ enrolled in school. It provides a comparison between April 2020 (when HPS data collection began near the beginning of the pandemic) and September 2020 (near the beginning of the 2020–21 school year) on three topics: classes that had moved to a distance learning format using online resources, availability of computers and internet access to children for educational purposes, and schools or school districts as providers of computers and internet. Findings related to September 2020 are also presented by racial/ethnic group and household income level.

According to HPS data, 52 million adults had children under age 18 in the home enrolled in school in September 2020 (i.e., coinciding with the September 2 to September 14 data collection).¹⁰ Overall, 89 percent of these adults reported that classes for their children were affected in some way by the pandemic and two-thirds (67 percent) reported that classes for their children had moved to a distance learning format using online resources.¹¹ By comparison, in April 2020 (i.e., coinciding with the April 23 to May 5 data collection) nearly all adults reported that their children’s classes were affected by the pandemic (99.6 percent) and a higher percentage reported that their children’s classes had moved to a distance learning format using online resources (72 percent).¹²