Fig. 2

City of the low-tech schools
While 60 percent of the nation's urban public schools have Internet access in the classroom, only 32 percent of Chicago's do. This and other findings come from the U of C's Consortium on Chicago School Research, which reports that computer and Internet usage in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is rudimentary compared to that of other urban school systems. According to the survey, 17 percent of CPS students never use technology in the classroom, and those who do seldom use computers for more than word processing or Internet research. The report also notes that there is no correlation between computer availability in schools and student race or family income, though wealthier students are more likely to have computers at home. Usage depends more on the teacher's comfort with technology.

— D.G.R .