“We have come to the conclusion that the crisis Michigan faces is not a shortage of revenue, but an excess of idiocy. Facing a budget deficit that has passed the $1 billion mark, House Democrats Thursday offered a spending plan that would buy a MP3 player or iPod for every school child in Michigan,” The Detroit News editorializes. “No cost estimate was attached to their hare-brained idea to ‘invest’ in education. Details, we are promised, will follow.”
The Detroit News writes, “We wonder how financially strained Michigan residents will feel about paying higher taxes to buy someone else’s kid an iPod. That they would include such frivolity in a crisis budget plan indicates how tough it will be to bring real spending reform to Michigan.”
“The only responsible option is to bring spending in line with current revenues. The mission must be to expand the tax base, rather than to expand taxes, by crafting a budget that encourages growth,” The Detroit News writes. “We won’t get there by wasting money on early Christmas presents for Michigan kids.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: iPods and iTunes can be used effectively for education.
Related articles:
Top 10 uses of an Apple iPod you’d never expect – March 19, 2007
Stanford University puts hundreds of audio programs on Apple’s iTunes Music Store – October 20, 2005
Apple donates 50 iPods to Scotland’s Gracemount High School – October 06, 2005
Fort Gordon’s U.S. Navy contingent buys 700 Apple iPods – September 06, 2006
Pearson to acquire PowerSchool. develop educational iPod content – May 25, 2006
Ohio University chooses Apple’s iTunes U for students and faculty – May 11, 2006
University of California puts video lectures on Apple’s ‘iTunes U’ – April 25, 2006
Duke University to continue Apple iPod program – April 06, 2005
Apple announces two-year partnership with French university on iPod education technologies – March 23, 2006
Apple and Stanford University open ‘Stanford on iTunes’ to the public – January 25, 2006
Private school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side requires Apple iPod – December 08, 2004
Duke University’s iPod program revolutionizing students’ experiences with language studies – December 04, 2004
Duke students’ new 20GB iPods will do more than just play music – July 20, 2004
Duke University to give Apple iPods to all incoming freshman – July 19, 2004
http://www.ufillitup.com has hundred + titles that run using the iPods operating system and include multiple choice question and answer sessions.
Also Merriam Websters Pocket Dictionary for the iPod is in stores and online at ipreppress
Weak take MDN. Obviously these kids will not use iPods for education.
This IS nuts. What % of Detroit school kids even have computers at home? Do they understand how data is loaded on iPods???
You can’t associate/load 50 iPods with one computer in a classroom. Even if you could.. how many hours would it take? Every bloody time they want to add a lesson plan?
Are they giving away computers to go with them?
There are far better ways for an underfunded school system to spend $$.
Liberals are stupid. But back on topic, Michigan has far too many problems these days to deal with. Giving iPods to school kids, although beneficial, has to be way down the list of priorities right now.
ummm..is it me, can others see old iPod adverts? one showing a all white Nano, and the first gen SHUFFLE?
ummm, ok.
Sorry, MDN, but I’m going to have to agree with the author on this one. I live in Texas and we have few billion in the bank and are currently looking for ways to spend it, but I would not be in favor of blowing it all in iPods. Heck, most kiddos have one anyways.
MDW: give; as in “Give me a break.”
And I quote MDN, “iPods and iTunes can be used effectively for education”
So let parents buy them. NOT TAXPAYERS!! For heavens’s sake will MDN stop at nothing in support of Apple. Sick
Yeah, liberals are stupid! They want to teach religious mythology as if it were science, in place of real science! They want to force religion into other parts of our school systems, like prayer, in much the same way the Taliban did in Afghanistan! They want to cede our economic and political power to foreign corporations that destroy our environment and ship our jobs over seas while paying their CEOs hundreds of millions of dollars (http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2007-04-08-oxy-pay_N.htm) all while paying pennies on the dollar to use government land and our military to get their oil!
Oh, wait. That isn’t liberals, that’s Conservatives! Never mind.
@WHere are the Liberals
“I notice the dem’s commenting are nowhere to be found, but I expect a crack any moment now on Bush or something to change the subject away from this pathetic dem legislature in Michigan!!!”
I am a registered dem. One of three dozen in Texas I think. But even I am not this socialist.
Sure, you can use iPods for educational purposes, but giving one to every kid in a cash-strapped school system? Not very practical or thoughful.
The money would be better used buying Macs for computer labs.
I love when Americans start this Republican/Democrat fighting on a computer site.
Kind of makes me want to take my kid to the hospital for free. Just because I can.
Enjoy your war!
The story reminds me of this parody of Apple’s “1984” commercial:
You can imagine which way I lean, and I think that every kid should have a taxpayer-funded iPod…
With some conditions…
Firstly, are we sending our children to school in a fit condition to learn: are they well-fed (on nutritious food that maximises concentration and mitigates blood-sugar lows) and well-supported at home.
Secondly, have we made sure that our schools are fit places for learning.
Thirdly, have we taken political bias and religious dogma out of the curriculum.
Fourthly, have we ensured that – in the absence of “new technology” – our teachers are capable of (and encouraged to) deliver engaging educational programs that excite the imaginations of the students.
Fifth, a pilot study has been done which shows how Michigan’s educators are intending to use this new resource.
Sixth, the results of the pilot have been independently assessed and any flaws in the strategy have been ironed out.
BTW, I’d like to think that – before any of this was even considered – that both the elderly and the young had access to a decent level of public healthcare as a minimum.
Sell me on all of my conditions and you can have your ludicrous iPods – otherwise, Democrat or Republican, you can kiss my creamy white butt.
Yeah, I’m a Democrat too (a proud member of the “Democrat party”) and even I think this is stupid. Michigan is billions of dollars in the hole, schools don’t have enough buses much less technology and textbooks, and an iPod in every pot is only going to mean a deeper hole.
Can iPods be used for education? Yes.
Do iPods provide an education that other methods cannot provide? No.
Wasting taxpayer money is something that is done occasionally by Republicans (see the last Congress), but it something that is habitually and characteristic of liberals, whenever they are in power. Clinton, as we all know, was kept in check by a conservative House. (And the House has the sole power to craft spending bills).
Boulderfrog, you are either not too funny or not too bright. Your “free” health care comes right out of your pocketbook in the form of taxes, charges, levies, and fees. How did you think it was paid for? Seriously.
Conservativism has nothing to say about what companies pay their CEOs. That is a free-market transaction to be handled by the company, the shareholders, and the public, to a lesser degree. That’s the beauty of a non-invasive government. It really has nothing to say about payment of anyone. Contrast that to the concern of liberals over who gets paid and how much — that excessive concern reveals a desire to control. (Remember, if the minimum wage is not high enough for your personal taste, you can always voluntarily pay the cashier more money. Or you’re free to get a cashier fired so that the remaining ones are both overworked and yet still underpaid relative to the amount of work that they do!)
Please, please, please, study up on economics before you start talking about deficits and CEO pay, and such. You really do make liberals sound like a bunch of ill-informed people who are utterly disconnected from the real world — at best — if not downright malevolent.
Sincerely, BT (a conservative if you hadn’t guessed)
MDN missed the boat on this one. These are grade school kids, not college students.
Could you little kiddies stop your fighting for a few minutes and speak to the issue here?
How did Michigan get into this bad state of affairs in the first place? Was it because the students weren’t getting a good enough education? NO! So the fix is not to try to make the classroom better, but to repair the root cause of the problem: No Child Left Behind + bad DOE administration and rules.
Those students should not get iPods, no matter how much we or MDN likes them. They would not help one bit. And as WTF correctly stated, having iPods would be totally distracting to both students and teachers.
MDN: red. As in “CODE RED!”
Ok. There are no reasonable uses for the iPod in k-12 education. I think we all agree on that.
But I would not have necessarily concluded that since the Michigan House Democrats have proposed this, the Iraq war was a good idea. Or that socialized medicine works/doesn’t work, that CEO pay is too high or that I am a moron.
Now I get it.
Thanks!
Conservatism has much to say about CEO pay. Claiming that it’s up to the market is a major statement, and an outright lie at the same time. Markets don’t give 400 million dollars to a single individual in a single year. That’s done by his cronies at the top of the corporate ladder. He’s CEO of an oil company. He and his company make money because the oil oligopolies and their political friends have stymied every attempt to break free of our addiction to oil, and not because their product has any real value. If it had value, they’d be able to pay fair market value for the use of government lands to drill for it, and for the use of government troops to protect their interests. Even more importantly, they wouldn’t fear the introduction of electric vehicles into the market, or serious development of solar power.
You claim that you’re a conservative, but you don’t really want a free market. You want the status quo, no matter how much it hurts America and the world.
I just eliminated Michigan as a state to which I would relocate.
waaaaahhhh. Isn’t Michigan offering BILLIONS in tax credit to get companies to move there. They advertise their BILLIONS available for this purpose.
and this gem…
“The Detroit News writes, “We wonder how financially strained Michigan residents will feel about paying higher taxes to buy someone else’s kid an iPod”
change that to read, “buy someone else’s kid books” or maybe repair a classroom. Or a projector or perhaps clean running water in the faucets.
Sheesh.
mw: had as in don’t be had by the “no more tax” whiners
Giving iPods to the students would be a disaster, especially in the worst schools. It would be rap crap music all day long.
Just because something can be useful does not make that thing wise to acquire. The lack of discipline in our schools is bad enough already, so enough already!
MacDailyNews Take: iPods and iTunes can be used effectively for education.
so can thumb drives. and for a lot cheaper.
I think they feel a zune will be much better.