The other Technological Divide: K-12 Web Accessibility

Abstract

This study examined individual school home pages and their corresponding district-wide home pages for Web accessibility. As of 1999, the U.S. government established that all public and private school Web sites were to be made “Web accessible,” meaning accessible to students with disabilities. Although higher education sites have been subjected to previous Web accessibility studies, few studies have examined primary and secondary school sites. Home pages for K-12 schools were examined using the WebXact online software to determine compliance with federal mandates. Findings indicated that only about 14% of individual school home pages and 17% of school district home pages were Web accessible. When analyzed according to type of school, 17.6% of public schools were accessible compared to 7% of private schools. These numbers are disappointingly low, and far from the legally mandated requirement that 100% of Web pages be accessible to students with disabilities. The future challenge will be to determine how primary and secondary schools can develop their Web sites to be accessible to all to ensure compliance with the legal mandates.

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