[ale] Cobb Laptop Deal

[Geoffrey]

Mark Wright wrote:
> I am glad the deal fell apart even though I am a former Evangelist  
> member. ( Guy Kawasaki's old mailing list to promote mac info back a  
> few years)
> 
> I think that computers in schools are just another impediment to a  good 
> education.  I believe there is no teen in the metro area that  cannot 
> operate a windows PC currently or passably given a day to  learn.  
> Putting PCs in schools unless, they are used just to teach  coding or 
> hardware design just takes away time from learning to read,  write and 
> do math.

This is just patently false.  I was totally against the cobb computer 
debacle, but the computers in schools these days are used for a lot more 
then 'teach coding or hardware design.'  You don't even get the option 
to take such classes until late in middle school.  So what do you thing 
the students are doing with the computers in grades k-5?

Further, you make an assumption that every teen in the metro area has 
access to a computer outside of school, and that is also false.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the computers in the schools are 
properly utilized, but they do a lot more with them then you've stated.

I do realize there are all kinds of problems with computers in schools. 
  Teachers get little or no training, there is little or no support, 
poorly designed network infrastructure...

Computers can be used as a good educational tool just as books, chalk 
boards, white boards, overhead projectors..... are.  In a lot of cases 
they are.

> The crazy thing is every time the government wants to spend more of  our 
> money to help students read, write and do math better, all you  have to 
> do is move the curtain back a little and see that the  opposite is  do a lot more then 
> ALWAYS the result.
> 
> As you can see this is a sore point to me and I am restraining  myself!  
> My daughters go to a respected public school up here in cobb  and I 
> don't think it would be much of an exaggeration to say they  there are 
> probably as many guns and containers of alcohol in that  school as there 
> are computers.  I am dead serious.

And you blame the school system or the government for that?  The problem 
with schools is that there is no parental involvement.  Schools are not 
supposed or intended to parent these children, that's the parents' job.

-- 
Until later, Geoffrey