RSSFree iBook Program May Be in Jeopardy
By Ed Oswald | Published June 2, 2005, 12:12 PM
The largest laptop program in the history of public education may be in jeopardy after a county commissioner filed suit to stop the school district from distributing more Apple iBooks. Former Cobb County, Georgia Commissioner Butch Thompson is accusing the local school district of misusing taxpayer money.
He also claims that voters were not properly informed that a new 1 percent sales tax was to be instituted in order to help start the program. Voters had approved the tax back in 2003.
"I didn't vote for laptops for every student in the county, and I don't think anyone else did," Thompson said. "In essence, they took funds designated for one purpose and used it for something else."
Officials said back in 2003 that the new tax would be used to replace aging and obsolete workstations. However, the lawsuit says that nowhere in the proposal to voters was language that suggested that school officials planned to give a laptop to every student from grades six through 12.
But the program has already started; some of Cobb County's 7,100 teachers had begun to receive iBooks last week.
The school system planned to raise $70 million through the sales tax program, with an annual cost to taxpayers running about $20 million. The sales tax would expire in 2008. The first phase of the program will cost the school district $25 million. And if the whole program is approved by the school board, nearly 63,000 iBooks could be given to teachers and students at the program's completion.
Members of the Cobb County school board defended the free iBook program and said that the 2003 tax was the second in a row that voters had passed to improve the area's schools. "We have always been conservative, on-time and under budget with everything we've done," School board Chairwoman Kathie Johnstone said.
the only thing i can see with this is, what are they doing with the laptops once the children graduate, keep them or reuse them? in which case, reusing them would be a big problem, obsolete laptops are no fun, and most likely will be obused. if they let the children keep them, then the buying will never stop and their sales tax will always have to be kept up, unless of course they find some other way of doing it. It seems like this program would be better suited to allow for upgradeable desktops to be put in every classroom, not for a student to have to carry around a laptop, books, and all the other stuff kids carry around.
Oh, and what happens if they break one?
I'm not saying this is a bad idea, i think that it's great, but sometimes ideas like these should be implemented a little differently... =/
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|this is so rubbish i hate politics for this reason.... some retard says lets give kids a better education and another person oh what a waste of money lets stop that and spend it on war and the army to invade other countries how stupid!
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|Computers keep kids intrested. Having kids learn more than one computer OS is just smart all around. If they are bad in class, punish them by forcing them to use a Windoze computer just like in the real working world.
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|You know this is why I hate politics, some jerk off gets made cause some kids are going to have it better than he did in education and he has his panty's all in a bunch. I really think this guy should be pull out of his office and into the middle of the street and horse whipped. I am glad I dont live in cobb county anymore, nothing but a bunch of stuck up people (not all are but 80% are). I remember when I did some work for Cobb County schools last year, they were so excited about this cause the kids could benefit from it. The network they have is pretty tight and they have decent security in place and try to keep all the computers cleaned up from spyware and other crap like keyloggers that some students try and install.
I just hope this still goes through and I hope this guy gets hit by a cct bus on his way to lunch.
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|Typical politician:
Before election - "We need to improve education. I will see to it that education is a fully funded priority."
After election - "We need to cut taxes and the first place we will cut is wasteful education spending."
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|Should have just gotten Dells much cheaper, and they would be using a standard. Unlike Apple, the worst standard going.
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|"were not properly informed" ?? Isn't that his job to inform his constituants? The kids will benefit -- if only they could supplant the iBooks with online access at home. Those of us who take internet access and computers for granted, miss the fact that some areas of the country really need plans like these.
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|A 12in iBook will teach kids 2 things:
1) How to squint.
2) That Apple laptops are slugs.
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|What a d***. It is irrelevant that the money is being used for this. It is being spent on the children to improve their future. No expense is too great for that.
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|Too much money is being spent on childeren these days... that's why most of them are so depressed and brats, most kids can barely do their household chores and keep their rooms clean...
my son does all his homework without a pc (for years now...and is a straight A student...
(yes he does have a computer in his room.. just like my other kids)
I have no problem with pc's for kids... but to give every kid a laptop?
why don't they give the family a computer for at home instead... that way they could al get educated...
Why not make it a family ordeal instead of alienating the parents?...
most kids aren't angels anymore... and there is enough bad stuff on the web...
How can parents watch their kids when they don't know what their kid is doing...?
The last thing on the mind of a teenager is to look stuff up for homework...
IM,Chat,Email,Music,Games,"Cool Stuff" that's what the average kid uses their pc for...
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|Did you know that the USA is ranked in 18th place out of 50 in the world in education? That is quite low for a 1st world nation and especially for one which asserts that it is so rich as well. The money usually doesn't go where it should in the US for education and when it does, like in this situation, someone tries to divert it away for their own agenda...
And to show that it really isn't the system itself at fault. Canada uses basically the same system and we are ranked in 4th place in the world.
BTW, these computers can be configured to only access certain sites on the net and not others.
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