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Texas High School Gets iBooks

Posted by pudge on from the i-am-movin-me-to-texas dept.

bigjnsa500 writes "Starting in December, high school teachers and students in the sleepy south Texas town of Pleasanton will be receiving Apple iBook wireless laptops. The school has installed wireless access points throughout the campus, including classroom buildings, the shop areas, gym, field house and press box at the football stadium. It will be first high school campus in South Texas to go high-tech." Maybe it's just me, but wouldn't that $2.2m over four years be better spent on books and teachers?

2 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Where to spend school dollars... by dbirchall · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Maybe it's just me, but wouldn't that $2.2m over four years be better spent on books and teachers?
    Um, no. We've had 2 or 3 decades of the mantra of "we need more money for books and teachers," and has it helped? Not really.

    Why? Well, I'm not an academic, but I think they forget that learning is something you do, not something that's done to you. You can't teach someone who doesn't want to learn, isn't ready to learn, or whatever. Conversely, you can't stop someone from learning who really wants to. Teachers are all well and good for the middle third of kids, I suppose... but give a kid a computer and odds are they'll learn something without you having to tell them to do so.

    1. Re:Where to spend school dollars... by fridgepimp · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That comment MIGHT be interesting IF private schools hadn't demonstrated the ability to educate students (usually with better educations) for fewer dollars per student per year. Often, too, they pay teachers pretty well.

      And NO, not all private schools are for rich kids.

      The problem with funding our education system is that the bureaucracy built around education is so massive, and generally scarfs all the money.

      -fp