“In the first public announcement about his controversial laptop computer program, Cobb schools Superintendent Joe Redden told board members Wednesday the four-year contract with Apple computers to supply about 63,000 iBook G4 laptops will cost $69.9 million. Redden said Apple negotiated a price of $350 per computer while the other two companies vying for the contract charged $404.25 (Dell) and $381.50 (IBM). ‘It’s a very conservative number,’ said Deputy Superintendent Dr. Don Beers, who gave the presentation alongside Redden,” Jon Gillooly reports for The Marietta Daily Journal.
“Beers said $69.9 million includes all expenses – $2.5 million for infrastructure, $5.7 million for a wireless network, $10.1 million for teachers’ laptops, $33.6 million for high school students’ laptops and $18 million for laptops for middle school students. The program is funded by the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax II, which sets aside almost $76 million for technology,” Gillooly reports. “Beers said the school system expects to save money on the laptop program by saving money on textbooks, reducing the number of portable classrooms by transforming computer labs into classroom space and selling the laptops to students when the leases expire.”
“Despite the controversial nature of the program – 90 percent of e-mails to school board members and Redden between Sept. 16 and Oct. 18 were opposed to the proposal, the Marietta Daily Journal discovered in an earlier open records request – there was only one public speaker at Wednesday’s meeting who did not speak about the laptop program,” Gillooly reports. “The laptop program now goes to the seven-member school board for a vote.”
Full article here.
having a sense of humor doesnt mean you have to tolerate listening to the same joke over and over for weeks on end.
In Georgia it does.
in Gerogia, they also sleep and have babies with their cousins and brothers and sisters.
yup, all that while they’re singing the blues.
Cobb County Georgia is a suburban mostly upper-middle class area. They don’t have large amounts of students that can’t read, why is it a issue?
The problem that school districts have with computers is often with maintenance and upgrades. The district my mom works for is a good example. She has a imac that she didn’t use much because it didn’t have enough ram on it. She also needs a usb hub (she has a epson printer and a umax scanner that she has to unplug and plug). Getting little stuff like that is like pulling teeth. She got the ram when I discovered one of my friends was working in the districts IT dept, so I asked him if he would add some RAM. All the little things that make things work better get overlooked.
After reading all of the posts, I gotta agree with Plush. If you’re 17 and don’t know how to read (and don’t care to learn how) not even an Apple will inspire you to learn. I graduated high school in 2000 and in my first semester of college I encountered a HUGE culture shock. At least half of my English 101 class could not read past a scond grade level. The sad part: most of them were the underprivileged kids that are supposed to be helped by the system. Instead of help, they got a diploma.
I also live in the Atlanta area. This same radio show has detailed studies that show computers do not contribute to learning and that the smart kids already have laptops courtesy of their parents. I have 2 teenagers that have lost or destroyed 2 MP3 players so far (thank god they wern’t ipods, they were cheaper Rio’s) I like and use macs but sometimes things are just wasted on teenagers. just my 2 cents
Pete
I dern’t know why yew city folk’r gettin’ yer panties all in a twist over these here young pups not readin’ a lick. Giving them compooters’l just keep ’em outter the cotton fields where us elder kin can put ’em to work.
Why do so many people from “Joor….gia” sound like someone has inserted a talk radio cd in their head and pressed play?
rich b,
You’re on target about schools being penny-wise and pound foolish (see my post early on). It’s sad.
What is more sad is instead of spending nearly $70m on teaching, we’ll do it for ephemeral technology that won’t be maintained or understood.
Why do we need computers when generation of people learned quite well without them? Could it be teachers were better and parents were actually involved?…
I am all for putting Apples into schools. But reading that article and the above posts are making me have second thoughts.
What about using the $70 million to raise teachers salaries and hire more teachers so they can teach kids to read and write? Have fewer kids per classroom. I grew up before there were computers in school. I have seen kids today who cannot do simple math because in school they use a calculator.
Lets see $70 million / 4 years is $17.5 million. How many teachers can you hire for $17.5 million per year?
I”m tired of talk about raising teacher salaries.
They can earn 65K with a phd for 9months work. During this period they get MANY days off. Nearly 3 wks for xmas, 10 days for Thanksgiving & 3 off days during the week spring break. They also get sick days & based on the FREQUENT absences at my son school, they’re using every one.
What is a decent salary for a 9 month work year?
most teachers do not have phd and do not make that much.
Here is some data showing the average salary of teachers.
http://www.aft.org/salary/
“average beginning teacher salaries rose 3.2 percent to $29,564”
Even if they made $65k, that is fine. You can still hire 269 teachers per year for 4 years. That would reduce the number of students per teacher.
“average beginning teacher salaries rose 3.2 percent to $29,564”
when summer vacations, several long holiday periods & sick leave are deducted, we’re talking about a seven & one half month work year.
$29k for 7 & 1/2 months sounds fair to me. And remember this just the starting salary.
I am not trying to argue about salary. My point is that with illiteracy, more teachers would help. Even if they all made $100k you can still hire 175 teachers per year.
Hey, Al:
You can’t hire nearly as many teachers as you think. In what buildings will they teach? On what school buses will the kids get to school? So there are big infrastructure costs associated with more teachers. Besides, big reductions in class size end up screwing the lower income/disadvantaged students. Work conditions are better in middle class areas because kids are better behaved, etc. When a bunch more teaching slots are added at all schools, middle class schools get their pick of the best teachers from disadvantaged areas, while low-income areas end up scrambling to fill the empty teacher slots with any warm body they can find.
BTW, raising all teachers’–good and bad–salaries by $500 is also not going to teach a single student any more than they would have learned at the lower teacher salary.
Hmmm, maybe fixing this education thing is not as easy some of you seem to think….