Laptops: Do they have a future in our schools?

A recent article in the New York Times tells the story of a New York State school district's decision to pull the plug on its laptop program. (The full article is available here ; and an excerpt is posted here at Articles.)

Here's the meat of it:

Yet school officials here and in several other places said laptops had been abused by students, did not fit into lesson plans, and showed little, if any, measurable effect on grades and test scores at a time of increased pressure to meet state standards. Districts have dropped laptop programs after resistance from teachers, logistical and technical problems, and escalating maintenance costs.

Such disappointments are the latest example of how technology is often embraced by philanthropists and political leaders as a quick fix, only to leave teachers flummoxed about how best to integrate the new gadgets into curriculums. Last month, the United States Department of Education released a study showing no difference in academic achievement between students who used educational software programs for math and reading and those who did not.

Ann Althouse ("formidable law blogger") has this take:

Speaking of distractions, it sounds like you're trying to distract us from the fact that you gave them internet access but kept it inadequate, that you hate the idea that they're taking control of what they want to find out about (especially sex), and that you've been failing all along to educate students and you were foolishly hoping giving them laptops would magically fix that.

Meanwhile back in Maine, the Governor's reorganization ("consolidation") plan would use some of the projected savings from cutting administration to expand the laptop program to the high schools.

As the young folks say, "what's up with that?"

First of all, where is the evidence that the laptop program in the middle schools has produced any real learning results? How much of our curriculum has been truly integrated with the technology?

More than anything else, it would be nice to have leadership at the State level that would settle down to the hard, mundane business of education, and not be so quick to embrace the faddish or ideological. Here I have in mind the turn-on-a-dime decision to adopt the SAT as the 11th grade assessment, the proposal to require every high school student to apply to college, and, yes, the laptop program.

Even if you concede the utility of the laptop program, of course, the question will become, what is it worth? In the Governor's view, it's worth the consolidation of local districts. And after all, if it's worthwhile now, then shouldn't it be expanded to other grade levels? Shouldn't the machines be more up-to-date, with sufficient resources put into maintenance, than they are currently?

Megabytes filled with AOL buddy lists, myspace.com, or other social networking and recreational pursuits are already draining scarce public resources from other educational or public safety programs. Reducing the number of administrative units for cost efficiency is one thing. Using the proposed savings from such consolidation for expansion of the laptop program is just throwing the savings away.