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This third grader from Las Vegas has a Chromebook, but not all students are so lucky. Ethan Miller / Getty Images
Students are going back to school, but they may not have everything they need to learn.
This year’s back-to-school shopping list could have a new entry: a laptop, needed for the next few months (or more) of remote learning.
Not only can it be the most expensive item on your list, it can also be the hardest to find.
As students begin the new school year, some of those who will be attending virtually are struggling to find the equipment to do so. The shortage of laptops and tablets has caused delays that will stretch for weeks, even months, in the school year.
This could force children from households that cannot afford to have the devices, widening the already considerable educational gap between rich and poor.
Many schools have had a long time to plan for the fall and order supplies accordingly, and some of them did just that.
The problem is, there just aren’t enough laptops and tablets for everyone, especially when it comes to low-cost Chromebooks. Chromebooks are laptops that run Chrome, a simple operating system designed by Google, and can cost less than $ 300.
They are used by most American school systems due to their comparatively low cost and Google’s push in the rapidly growing and increasingly lucrative educational space, including apps like Google Classroom.
School districts from Bozeman, Montana, to Austin, Texas, have reported delays in ordering computers necessary for their students to participate in remote learning.
Similar supply chain problems related to the pandemic have affected other products, from meat to weights, but the shortage of laptops has been getting worse.
An industry analyst who spoke to Fast Company in May predicted that the situation would correct itself in June, in time for the new school year and its increased demand. Obviously, this has not happened.
One reason, according to the Associated Press, is the Trump administration’s sanctions, issued in July, on Chinese companies believed to use forced labor.
While the ban only applies to US companies that sell products to sanctioned Chinese companies, the New York Times said US companies were likely to stop doing business with those Chinese companies altogether.
In letters to educators, Lenovo blamed the penalties for its backlog of 3 million Chromebooks. HP, on the other hand, told school systems that its shortage of 1.7 million laptops is due to pandemic-related production shortages of components made in China. (HP and Lenovo did not respond to Recode’s requests for comment.)
The United States is not the only country with a shortage of laptops; Schools around the world have also turned to distance learning and they also need affordable computers to do so.
In January 2019, Google said 30 million Chromebooks were being used in schools around the world. Those schools need Chromebooks for remote learning as much as American schools, which only increases demand.
The unpredictable nature of the Covid-19 pandemic hasn’t helped either. Some school systems, AP said, assumed that in-person learning would return in the fall, or didn’t know what the reopening plan would be until well into the summer, so they didn’t order as many devices as they would eventually need.
However, even schools that planned ahead have seen their orders delayed by up to six months.
Although the shortage has been going on since March, it shows no sign of abating anytime soon.
Acer America president Gregg Prendergast told Axios that the demand was “historic” and that hundreds of thousands of orders were still coming in.
Low-income students have fewer options, as usual
While some school systems have been able to meet the needs of their students, those without enough devices in time for the new school year have had to figure out how to make education available to those without access to a computer (or, for that matter, an Internet connection).
The Austin Independent School District in Texas even pushed back the school year start date to September 8 to have more time to purchase devices or come up with alternative educational plans for children who did not yet have access to them.
Families who can afford to buy their own devices from retailers, although supplies are also dwindling due to increased need from students, as well as adults who work more from home, and their companies suddenly having to supply massive quantities of computer to work from home.
Ready-to-use solutions may not be ideal. Prendergast told the Wall Street Journal that those computers might not be optimized for educational use like the models bought by schools.
Some parents share their own devices with their children. That’s also not ideal, both from a cybersecurity perspective and a practical perspective: laptops (and software) made for adults are typically not kid-friendly and may not withstand the rigors of frequent handling and use by children.
Meanwhile, other families are improvising solutions to mimic some of the benefits of a normal school environment.
Certain parents are paying to create “pandemic groups” that will give their children in-person instruction as well as some social interaction with their peers, benefits that children from families that cannot afford to join a pandemic group will not receive.
Other children will have to rely on the learning centers that schools have established to give students access to the online learning materials they need.
While school districts have promised to follow CDC guidelines to keep those centers safe, it’s still not ideal considering that remote learning aims to keep kids away from large groups of people or crowded spaces in the first place. And some school districts are just going analog: Austin, for example, will have “instructional kits” available for kids who are learning remotely but don’t have access to the internet or devices.
The consequences of inequality will last for more than one school year
Difficulty accessing necessary school supplies due to income inequality is not new in the US, and the educational gap between rich and poor has widened in recent decades.
That’s not just because wealthy parents can afford to send their children to expensive private schools, it’s true for public education as well. For months, experts have warned that the pandemic and the remote learning it has imposed on students will only exacerbate that gap, in part due to a lack of remote learning supplies.
A June report from McKinsey estimated that low-income students would miss twice as many months of learning compared to the average student, assuming that all in-class instruction resumes in January 2021, and the effects of this would likely be permanent and they would have lasting effects throughout the country. In an August report, the consultancy again emphasized the need for equity in school plans against the pandemic.
“Access to devices and Internet connectivity is uneven even in districts rich in developed systems,” the report said. “Addressing that is a critical first step in ensuring fairness.”
If nothing else, the historic demand for Chromebooks has been good for their makers. HP’s most recent earnings report, released Thursday, said that roughly half of the company’s revenue comes from laptop sales, a 30 percent increase in laptop revenue year-over-year.
Dell’s latest earnings report, also released on Thursday, said the company experienced double-digit revenue growth from Chromebooks.
