Home Computers Equal Lower Test Scores

An anonymous reader writes "Politicians and education activists have long sought to eliminate the 'digital divide' by guaranteeing universal access to home computers, and in some cases to high-speed Internet service. But a Duke University study finds these efforts would actually widen the achievement gap in math and reading scores. Students in grades five through eight, particularly those from disadvantaged families, tend to post lower scores once these technologies arrive in their homes."

Comments

statistics "may" lie!

[ekran]

There are two things that strikes me when looking at the graph. The increase in laptop sales (ignoring the smaller ones) is ingsignificant, the other thing is that it's in percentage, which clearly doesn't say anything about the change in PC sales, since netbooks and smaller laptops are newer technology and I have a feeling that people have more money to buy computers these days. I could be wrong, but it would be interesting to see the graph taking into account the actual sales in number of units, and the actual sales in terms of cost.