Finding good news in Cobb County.The best thing to happen to one-to-one computing computing - computer this year was Cobb County. Sure, almost every single part of the program went wrong, but that's precisely my point. Let me backtrack and cover the basics before I explain. Georgia's Cobb County School District The Cobb County School District is the county government agency which operates public schools in Cobb County. The district includes all of Cobb County except for the city of Marietta. has more than 100,000 students in 110 schools. In 2003, it passed a sales tax sales tax, levy on the sale of goods or services, generally calculated as a percentage of the selling price, and sometimes called a purchase tax. It is usually collected in the form of an extra charge by the retailer, who remits the tax to the government. referendum referendum, referral of proposed laws or constitutional amendments to the electorate for final approval. This direct form of legislation, along with the initiative, was known in Greece and other early democracies. to bring in about $70 million to update the district's technology. Officials created the Power to Learn initiative, and intended to buy 63,000 laptops to give to teachers and students in grades 6-12. After choosing Apple computers, the district started buying more than 7,000 laptops. When someone complained about the bid process, the school board requested an investigation. In July, a Superior Court judge stopped the program. The next month, Superintendent of Schools Joseph Redden red·den v. red·dened, red·den·ing, red·dens v.tr. To make red. v.intr. 1. To become red. 2. To blush. resigned, and now a Grand Jury may investigate the bidding process. So when most people, including our own columnist columnist, the writer of an essay appearing regularly in a newspaper or periodical, usually under a constant heading. Although originally humorous, the column in many cases has supplanted the editorial for authoritative opinions on world problems. last month ("Laptop Same as laptop computer. laptop - portable computer Woes," Gary Stager, Oct. 2005), think this is a major step back for school technology programs, why do I see it differently? While I agree Cobb County's experience will make it more difficult for other districts to implement similar programs, I think it should be harder to start these programs. Leaving aside the politics and potential bid rigging Bid-rigging is an illegal agreement between two or more competitors. It is a form of collusion, which is illegal in the United States. It is a form of price fixing and market allocation, and involves an agreement in which one party of a group of bidders will be designated to win in Cobb County, from what I read the district never made a strong case for the educational value of this program. Sure Virginia's Henrico County Schools has run a one-to-one program for years, but that doesn't mean every district should. Cobb County's Power to Learn initiative talked about incremental Additional or increased growth, bulk, quantity, number, or value; enlarged. Incremental cost is additional or increased cost of an item or service apart from its actual cost. gains in teachers' use of computers, a modest boost in students looking up information on the Internet and other mundane (jargon) mundane - Someone outside some group that is implicit from the context, such as the computer industry or science fiction fandom. The implication is that those in the group are special and those outside are just ordinary. benefits. It also allowed students to opt-out of using a laptop, as if the machine itself were a controversial health curriculum that could be declined. Kathy Thomas, Dell's manager of education strategy, helped me put the whole one-to-one rush in perspective. She often finds herself before school officials talking about Request for Proposals for laptop programs. And while Dell tried to land the Cobb County contract and recently wrestled the Henrico County contract from Apple, she said too often school districts are in copycat mode. Some of the RFPs that she has responded to are exact copies of Henrico's program, down to the typos in the document. She said every district thinking about implementing a one-to-one program should at least be able to answer two questions: What do you want to accomplish with this program? How will you be able to measure its success? When the response to the first question is "We want to give each student a computer," it tells her the district leaders haven't thought enough about how they plan to use computers when they get them. Not to mention that they haven't come up with a plan for how to manage such a large program, how to deliver support and training for both teachers and students or even how to address something as routine as battery life issues. So while I believe these types of programs are needed in districts, and agree with Gary Stager that if properly presented it would be easy to gain parental support, any district that doesn't articulate its plans should head back to the drawing board. Wayne D'Orio EDITOR-IN-CHIEF wdorio@edmediagroup.com |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion