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School Swaps Math Textbooks For iPads
MexiCali59 writes "Four of California's largest school districts will be trying something new on eighth-grade algebra students this year: giving them iPads instead of textbooks. The devices come pre-loaded with a digital version of the text, allowing students to view teaching videos, receive homework assistance and input assignment all without picking up a pen or paper. If the students with iPads turn out to do improve at a faster pace than their peers as expected, the program could soon spread throughout the Golden State."
Between the cost of a textbook and the rate at which they become 'obsolete' for the state testing I'd imagine with an educational discount from Apple (no need to make the state pay taxes to itself and can prolly write off some of it as a donation) they probably aren't whole lot more expensive than your regular schoolbook in the long run. Course I'd be interested in knowing what the policy is for broken iPads. Do the kid's parents have to shell out the money for a new iPad? you would for a replacement book.
Its been shown time and time again that people will donate when they believe they are actually making a difference, and private groups would be able to use decision making to give support to people who actually need it unlike the government.
Pure horseshit. Call my bluff and link to a peer reviewed study.
There's a reason roads aren't private, and power is regulated, and water is a public utility. That reason is because you cannot trust a corporation with needs, unless those needs can be plentifully produced and naturally lend themselves to real competition. That means MP3 players and apples need very little regulation, because it's pretty easy to tell what these things are, what they are made of, and what purpose they serve.
Hell, when the founding fathers were talking about what the government should run, the latest technology at that time - the post and road systems - was something they all wanted folded into the government. The reason is because under government supervision it could be properly accounted for and equitably distributed across America, and not subject to the whims of aristocracy or price gouging by private entities. That cheap, reliable, price-regulated infrastructure is the bedrock of all modern economies. The intelligence and capability of the workforce is a vital part of that infrastructure, and shouldn't be left to chance by some entity who is only concerned with that quarter's profit return instead of the well being of American society for the long haul.
You want a place where money rules and weak government is powerless to regulate commerce? Pick just about any place in Africa and see how you like the income distribution there. You'll quickly learn that it's pretty tough to have a middle class when the majority of your population can't read or write. But hey, the market said they should just dig in the dirt and have all of their natural resources sold out from under them and funneled into the hands of the tiniest sliver of their upper class. And if the market did it, it's got to be right.
Right?
Government programs benefit those who game the system rather than people who actually might need it. Private programs can deny people which makes it a whole lot easier to give help to those who need it.
Your ideas on economics are fatally childish and unrealistic, unless you have no problem with old women dying in hospital parking lots for lack of kidney dialysis, or a vast population of uneducated and unskilled workers roaming the slums, or kids selling their bodies for their daily bread if they happen to be unlucky enough to be an orphan. Those are all realities right now across the undeveloped world. And true, some of it is due to government corruption, but that just shows you how important a strong and legitimate government is to the well-being of a society.
If all of this libertarian horseshit were true, than the weak states across the world would be drowning in money and happiness. They are not.