NYTimes Article about Schools Dropping Laptops
The New York Times ran an article in the Education section entitled Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops (free subscription required) that documents instances of school districts (and one independent school) retiring their laptop programs after they failed to deliver results.
This make sense to me, not because laptop programs are a bad idea (says the guy who is rolling one out at his school), but because these programs have been sold as a way to raise student achievement as measured by SATs and other standardized tests. It’s fairly easy to show that laptop programs don’t raise scores. In fact, it’s pretty easy to show that almost anything schools try don’t raise scores (the main exception being studying to the test — that has been shown to make a difference).
The best way to raise "student achievement" (other than studying for the test) is to admit better test takers.
In general:
- People who advocate for laptop programs should be more careful about what they claim.
- In general, schools engage in a lot of magical and/or sloppy thinking. They are embarrassingly susceptible to snake oil peddlers.
- Laptop programs are expensive. It’s good that they are receiving scrutiny. It’s also good to hold people who make claims accountable.
So what are my claims? I think young people (and most especially girls) would benefit from learning to comfortably use (and take care of) a portable computer. I believe it’ll foster the confidence they’ll need to explore future technologies, some of which will be different than anything we can now imagine.
I would like to measure the benefit I claim, but it isn’t easy. Assessment that misses the mark is worse than no assessment at all.
