Recently I received a letter from the public school system saying that every fifth and sixth grader will need to purchase a laptop computer to use in class to be able to keep up with the "rigorous" workload planned for the school year. The letter then went on to describe that a certain operating system must be used, a certain amount of memory,and that each student should have their own wireless internet connection. The laptop would cost about $1300.

I am not against using computers in school. In fact when my daughter first started this year I asked what type of computer programs they would be using to insure compatibility with home systems. I figured as she learned I could monitor and help with occassionally checking files to she what she was up to, before she loaded the contents onto a 3.5 inch diskette or a CD or some other form of transfer media.

Not good enough. The students aren't allowed to do the work at home and then transfer the files. They must have their own system set up as prescribed.

Now I seem to remember a day when the school system was concerned with some students not having access to calculators (when they cost around $100). Seems they're not worried anymore.

I look in computer shopper and the same system is offered for about $400, and I wonder, Who's getting paid the commission for the sale of all these computers?

When I ask my daughter if she has any homework the answer is always "No". She has Science once a week and Math three times a week. I remember doing Power Point, Excell, and Word with Windows 3.1 on a hundred mhz CPU. What does she need all this computing power for and why won't they let me see her work? My system is excellent and tranfer media is cheap so why does she have to purchase a specified "inferior" system that costs more than it should and isn't being used for anything verifiable?

Offhand I'd say it was because the school system struck a deal with a vendor (I'm assuming from your description that they are requiring you to buy the system from them). Did you hear about how the State of California over bought hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of software it didn't need because of such a similarly good deal? My city (stupid center of the universe) is required to buy all our computer systems through a corporation whose only customer is the city, and this corporation bumps up the price for everything two or three times what you can buy in a store under the theory that we get such amazing service from them that it makes up for the overcharge. They lie. I'm very cranky tonight. Sorry.

BTW, what happens to the kids who can't afford the new system? do they get sent to a non-computerized school or banished from getting an education?

Don't get me started on schools!

As to the current topic, nothing like that required for us yet. Our 7th-grader is required to have a laptop, but the school provides it. He only pays a $200 deposit (in case something happens to it) and $25 insurance fee. This also gets him something like 12 hours of online time.

Considering our children's irresponsible behavior with their own belongings, I can't imagine how well a 5th -grader would understand and take care of a laptop.

  ![turkey.gif](http://www.chuck-n-michelle.net/images/turkey.gif)   Sure, you can strive to fly with the eagles but turkeys don't get sucked into jet engines.

The school may provide the laptop, but the taxpayers pay for it. Our director wanted to have a loaning library of laptops so that anyone with a library card could check them out. I have a feeling we would find ourselves without laptops within a month.

Nope we're supposed to shell out the whole bog. In the fifth grade the teachers are assigning extra credit work that must be done on laptops in school. If there are only seven laptops availkable the students have to take turns...most presumably in alphabetical order...heh heh heh. I mentioned the low cost of transfer devices. A 128meg thumnb drive is under $100. plug it in your computer take it to scholl plug it in and theres your work.

Also if the student did their work and put it online say at my .com in the private file they could not go online to get their work to present to the class, even though all the computers are online, because the schools are worried about the students bringing viruses from home. They can't get a virus going online?

This is only part one of this pab. Wait till I tell you about school camp two weeks after spring break, about having to pay for foreign language instruction, about sending the kids home, at least once a week with something they're supposed top sell to raise money for the school, the list goes on and on my friends. Ask me if my two older sons had algebra in High School and about how the MEAP math and science scores mysteriously dissappeared for a year.

Stuff like things makes me glad I'm childless. My pets may be illiterate but at least they don't need their own laptops. Actually my cats ARE lap tops.

There's an evil out there called Integrated Math. The students get watered down Algebra, Geometry and some Statistics all at the same time.

The result is not enough of the math to make a difference. The student gets fed a teaser amount of everything at as pace which makes depth totally impossible. Pages of practice in solving equations is history. There are no geometric proofs to study. It's all watered down mush.

From what I understand the school systems intend to do the same thing with the Science curriculum.Team teaching is now the rule so that, even though your student may have teacher "A" for the class teacher "B" might actually teach the class. Teacher "A" may only be the name on the report card. Biology, Chemistry and Physics instruction are all history.

Foreign language...fine you can have it if you pay. It's not a regular class its extra.

This is from one of the (supposed) better school district. ROTFLA...Most of the kids going to college drop out because the don't know how to study and end up in community college doing remedial work in (you guessed it) Algebra, Geometry, Biology, Chemistry and Physics.

I had a friend who surprised me with his answer...he got tired and ran for a position on a school systems school board. Guess they'll listen to him now.

Sounds like what happens when the government pays for 'education'. The more control they take from parents and the more brainwashing they can do, the happier they are. I, proudly, am the result of 12 years of homeschooling all without any exposure to computers whatsoever. It hasn't damaged my abilities or my intelligence!

I'm sorry but I have an enlarged spleen...It needs venting.

Not everyone has parents who are qualified or able to homeschool. It's very discouraging that talented teachers are being retired out (in our City) to save money (hiring new people is cheaper than keeping the old). Integrated math sounds very much like the new math that I endured when I was in school...and was dropped because students did so poorly when tested. I wish they wouldn't use kids as guinea pigs for what seems like unreliable schemes....we blame drop out rates on the students and parents but I wonder if it couldn't also come from kids being discouraged to learn. It's all very sad. And our society will suffer the results in the long run.

Since public schools are required to provide all students with an education, and since not all students will be able to afford the perscribed computer system (if not in your school district, then in others), it sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen. jon

I think you are right, Jon. And as a taxpayer, even without a child, I rather resent the idea that children would be excluded from an education because of the lack of a computer system. These uneducated children by and large end up on Welfare rolls, where I end up paying for them throughout their life times. That doesn't seem really quite right. I also question why they aren't teaching children the basics. I know in our schools they are big on teaching kids how to use Power Point, but the same kids have trouble writing. How sad is that?

I love your thinking...We live in the Walled Lake School district that has three high schools. The Novi school district has one high school because they "selectively" pare off areas where the income is less than their average. They figure median income at 70k for Novi and 45K for Walled Lake. I'm surrounded by 300K houses and we're supporting 3 high schools? Because Novi vetoed building a new high school they redistricted to put it in Walled Lake. This doesn't seem right how can Walled Lake support all this. Every building is built in a manner that disallows "new editions" say a wall in the back of the building on property surrounded by subs. Three high schools. Where are the students going to come from there aren't enough people living here. I say the school system is on crack and education is not in their agenda. Vent Vent Vent. Ok a story I'm working on coming soon it's about a student who's not a Hyphenated-American, and his experiences in forced cultral diversity.

I can talk about the education system from the other side. You want rants? I'll give you rants! ;-) Do you know how much garbage is expected to be part of the school system nowadays? Teachers are expect to teach manners, civility, good citizenship, sex education, drivers' ed., and "real world" stuff along with "The 3 R's." (And oftentimes without parental support.) Everytime I turn around I hear how the school cirucilum is watered down, then I hear everyone complain that the schools aren't picking up the slack from what parents aren't teaching their kids any more. Oh, and we have to teach them morality, but if we try, then we're preaching religion (secular religion at that!), and if we don't, then we're abandoning our jobs as moral guides. Then you have the beaurocrats who "know" the best way to do things and force it down people's throats. I'm not just talking about people on the Board of Education, or the Education Department, but also politicians looking to impress the voters. Then you have the parents, some of whom have no clue what goes on in a classroom, meddling, up through lawsuits to get what they want for their kids. (Yes, some parents have good ideas and should be listened to, but there's a lot of them who should shut up, or at least learn about what they're talking about before opening their mouths.) And don't forget the ivory tower theorists who never spent a day of their lives in a classroom. I had an instructor for "Teaching in the High Schools" who'd never taught above grade 8! (High school = 9-12 or 10-12.) She was recommending reading books for the high school students that was appropriate for grades 4 - 6. Schools spend so much time on CYA it's pathetic. We had someone force the school to let their kid retake and pass a test so she could graduate. The teacher had informed the parents several times that the kid was failing throughout the year. The kid plagerized a major paper and was caught but was still given partial credit and then failed the final exam. The teacher gave a make-up test which the kid blew off, so she failed the student. The parents trotted out a lawyer who threatened to investigate every last moment of the teacher's life to find something to blackmail/blacklist her with. She stood her ground, but the school board caved in! I've also read about students in poor school districts who are told by their parents to be disruptive so the parents can collect Social Security money for their emotionally disturbed kids! I taught college for a while - computer classes - and I was floored by all the nonsense I had to go through. I went through useless education courses and suffered through dictatorial, fiefdom mentality from the administrators just to have students that only took the classes to switch jobs and make more money. They didn't give a damn about the actual coursework or learning; they just wanted to get high grades and makes tons of money. No, I wasn't teaching 18 years olds, I was teaching mostly 30, 40, and 50 year olds. And if these people who were paying out of their own pockets to take these classes didn't care (and these computer classes were required only for a CS degree!) then I can only imagine what an elementary or high school teacher goes through! As for home school, you get the same quality issues as a regular school. Some parents are wonderful teachers, while others shouldn't have been allowed to breed to begin with, let alone "guide" a young mind. (Some abusers keep their kids in home schooling to maintain as much control as possible.) What they need to do is to look at the countries that are kicking our butts in academic achievement and copy their methods. Part of it is cultural, but some of it is curriculum and teaching methods. I don't know where the money goes, but it doesn't go to the teachers and doesn't go to keeping the buildings in shape, that's for sure! Grrr! (Wind the Crescent up and see where she goes.)

There is an amazing program here locally called Parent Institute for Quality Education that teaches low income parents about the responsibilities of being their children's first teacher. Because of this program, a woman with four children, deserted by her drug using husband, who started out in a two bedroom apartment, was able to get her four children (including one that was learning disablied) into colleges, and educated herself along the way. She was committed to her children 100% and willing to work with the school to do what she needed to do to give her kids a chance. So it doesn't have to be that way, Crescent. It is, but it doesn't have to be. Parents need to take responsibility. But schools need to teach the basics. Two sided sword with right and wrong on both sides. I see two year olds dumped out on the street at night in the dubious care of their 13 year old brothers and sisters. No school is going to cure the education those kids are getting from their home life. But I don't think those kids are going to benefit from learning Power Point when they can't read. I am no disagreeing with you, Crescent. I wouldn't say for a second teachers have it easy. My neighbor works with kids who have already been through the legal system (on the wrong side). She has 12 year olds that come to class with switchblades in their sweet little hands. I can't tell you how much I admire her courage.

Too much social engineering and not enough of the basics. I have had more problems with some of the "remarks" my six-year old makes because of the negative re-enforcement that seems quite harmless. You can't keep telling a kid that their culture doesn't exist...there is no "American" culture its all imported. They react just like an adult would. We may be a multicultural society and learn to accept other cultures, but to teach a kid that their culture doesn't matter, that no matter how long their family has lived here that its still unimportant...causes a negative response just as much as any word or classification. I think the schools should drop the se( social engineering) facade and push the "color and socially blind" model that Martin Luther King advocated. Kids don't like to hear that everyone is special except them.