Sufficient but not necessary

The Digital Divide brings up an incredibly salient point that seems to be rarely made in the digital divide dialogue. The digital divide is ultimately about the disparities in access to technology. But once that gap is closed, the article asks, will the social problems associated with the disparity disappear? 

OF COURSE NOT! Obviously it is not just a lack of access to technology that makes minorities perform lower on standardized tests. Lack of access to technology may be a necessary causal factor, but not a sufficient one. Does it not seem ridiculous now to think that access to the use of calculators or CABLE TELEVISION could restructure society? 

The point is, there are deeper reasons as to why there are disparities in educational performance. How could eliminating the digital divide ever be expected in and of itself to "improve educational performance and reduce economic and social inequality"??? What about our crappy public education system? What about centuries of the majority not allowing minorities access to an education AT ALL, which is one of the reasons minorities don't have the same probability of going to college and subsequently making as much money as the majority or at least enough to buy a computer and Internet access? 

Just as other technologies were seen as tools to destroy disparities but eventually turned into entertainment devices and became widely available to the public, eliminating the digital divide cannot be expected to cure or help in any significant way with the kind of inequalities discussed.