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MA High School Forces All Students To Buy MacBooks
An anonymous reader sends in this excerpt from the Salem News:
"A new program at Beverly High will equip every student with a new laptop computer to prepare kids for a high-tech future. But there's a catch. The money for the $900 Apple MacBooks will come out of parents' pockets. 'You're kidding me,' parent Jenn Parisella said when she found out she'd have to buy her sophomore daughter, Sky, a new computer. 'She has a laptop. Why would I buy her another laptop?' Sky has a Dell. Come September 2011, every student will need an Apple. They'll bring it to class and use it for homework. Superintendent James Hayes sees the technology as an essential move to prepare kids for the future. The School Committee approved the move last year, and Hayes said he's getting the news out now so families can prepare. 'We have one platform,' Hayes said. 'And that's going to be the Mac.'"
Students who don't participate will be able to borrow a school-provided laptop during the day, but they won't be able to take it home, Hayes said.
Which essentially means that the program is voluntary. The school is hoping to be able to save money by not having to provide computer labs.
Suppose I were the parent of an underprivileged child. Suppose I live paycheck-to-paycheck, and don't have room in my budget for this. What the hell is the school going to do when I refuse to adhere to this absurdity? Fail my child? This wreaks of something illegal.
My other sig is clever.
A new program at Beverly High will equip every student with a new laptop computer
Odd, from reading the summary, it sounds more like the parents will do that, while the 'program' will just require it.
Is it really necessarily to require every student to have a laptop in order to learn? Are they saying it's nearly impossible to correctly teach students without this technology?
And sure, while technology makes things easier to do, it almost feels like they're blaming the lack of technology for not being able to properly teach the students. But, that's my opinion.
Public schools should never require parents to pay for expensive items or programs. This is dead wrong. Many parents no longer have a job nor savings. How will their children get by in school? Further why in the sam hell would anyone push Macs on the kids? There are alternatives such as Linux that could save these families a fortune on PCs.
Probably a far better idea to get them all netbooks. They're cheaper and they will draw less irk from parents. Besides, what can a Mac do that Linux can't when it comes to schoolwork? And I'm not going to even mention using Windows and how much a joy that could be.
For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
FTFA:
"Parents can pay for the computers upfront or lease them from the district, with the option to buy after three years. The payments should work out to about $20 to $25 per month, Hayes said. The cost also includes free tech support.
"We realize for some families that will be a stretch," he said. In those cases, the district will provide financial assistance.
Students who don't participate will be able to borrow a school-provided laptop during the day, but they won't be able to take it home, Hayes said."
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IMO, $20-25/mo is a fair plan. That should be well within the finances of most families, and as they noted, they will provide financial assistance.
That said, using a unified platform is not a bad idea, but why make students buy heavily marked up hardware? Why not Netbooks with Linux?
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
The first three years I was in high school, the school had this ridiculous program going on where they issued every student an iBook. Teachers tried to make us use them, but seriously, how useful is a laptop in high school math? Admittedly, it was nice for language and social studies classes to have something to type/browse Wikipedia on, but the hassle of carrying them around, dealing with the constant breakage, and etc. far outweighed the benefits to the students. And when you look at the $2 mil that the school district spent on the program, the whole thing just seemed like a really bad joke.
My daughters school added the requirement that she have a laptop for school. The school here said that it must run Windows and have Microsoft Office on it.
I gave her a new Toshiba with Fedora Core and open office. She is happy with it, then I get a note from the school that It must be Windows because they had software to install that required windows. I told then that if they would let me know what the software does I would be more than happy to find a similar package for Linux or to set it up in a restricted virtual environment.
Never hear another thing from them. IMHO if the school wants to require an OS or Specific software packages then they need to pony up the money for the laptop and set it up the way they want it.
Direct your hate mail this way: jim.hayes@beverlyschools.org
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Damn right. I'm glad that my school was forward-thinking enough to teach me Windows 3.11 and Microsoft Works and Word 2. All that other time that they spent teaching me the concepts underlying the systems was completely wasted, because when I got out into the real world I found that everyone used Window 3.11 and Word 2.
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Too bad you never learned that it was Mark Twain who said it.
Has anyone noticed that putting an exclamation after apple's iStuff makes it look like it's in spanish? iCarumba!