aine Governor
Angus King, trying to bridge the ''digital divide'' in one of the nation's
poorest states, will today propose giving all students in the seventh
grade laptop computers to keep as their own.
King's proposal, the first of its kind in the nation, would provide
laptops and Internet service to 16,000 seventh-graders beginning in fall
2001, and to all seventh-graders in the years following, so that within
six years, every student in the seventh grade and up will have a computer.
The proposal also calls for paying half the cost of new computers for
teachers above the sixth grade, with districts paying the other half.
The ambitious plan reflects a world in which computers are no longer
seen as just an accessory, but as a necessity. A month ago, Ford Motor Co.
said it would give its 350,000 employees desktop computers, printers, and
Internet access for $5 a month. Some individual school districts are
providing students with computers. And increasingly, colleges require
students to bring a computer along with their other dorm furnishings.
Such mass distribution of computers is not without critics, who
question whether students will use the technology for anything more than
sending e-mail to classmates. Anticipating the criticism, King's plan also
includes $1 million to train teachers in how to tie technology to the
learning of the state's new academic standards, which are measured by a
statewide test.
''If we don't do this, someone else is going to, and why not Maine?''
said Dennis Bailey, the governor's press secretary. ''We can really
leapfrog into the forefront of computer literacy with this, and the
governor's convinced that that's where everything's going. It doesn't
matter what field you're going to go into today, if you're not computer-
and Internet-literate, you're going to be left behind.''
Those left behind tend to be those in poorer rural and urban areas. A
US Commerce Department study in July found that households with incomes
above $75,000 are 20 times as likely to have computers as those with lower
incomes.
And Maine lags behind many states in classroom technology. According to
the state's department of education, there are 1.8 Internet-ready
computers for each seventh-grade class, and 10.3 for each high school
class.
Those computers tend to be in labs. King's plan, administration sources
said, is to make them a more integral part of learning - not just
something down the hall, but in the backpack, at home, and in class.
Ideally, aides to the governor said, teachers would put homework on Web
sites and integrate Internet research into classroom projects. From home,
students could log on and ask their teachers or peers questions about
their homework. As part of the Internet service, students will have access
to the Maine School Libraries Network - which, administration sources
note, filters out pornographic Web sites.
The governor would set up a $75 million trust fund that would generate
income to pay for the computers, using $25 million in private and federal
money and $50 million from the state's estimated $300 million surplus.
''If we don't do this now, we may not have this opportunity again,''
Bailey said.
The King administration admits there are details to be worked out, and
a significant hurdle to jump in a Legislature with its own ideas on how to
spend the surplus.
One question is what kind of computers the plan will buy. The plan aims
to give every student e-mail, word processing, and spreadsheet capability,
but officials say that might mean newer technology that pairs Palm
Pilot-size screens with keyboards, or more common laptops. The
administration is predicting each computer will cost $500, which even
their technology consultants admit is low for laptops. But through the
consultants, the state has talked to IBM, Compaq, and Hewlett Packard
about getting computers within that budget.
''Based on where technology is trending right now and where prices are
trending, they think it is going to be feasible to do what the state wants
to do,'' said Eric Smith, a consultant to the state and vice president of
Inacom, a computer reseller. ''I think [administration officials] are
being very realistic in what they want to do.''
Some educators also question the wisdom of giving seventh-graders
delicate laptops, which may not survive adolescent rambunctiousness or
trips home on the bus. But the state already has a program where companies
donate used computers that are then retrofitted as Pentium-class computers
by the state's prison inmates. And administration officials note dryly
that seventh-graders seem to be able to take care of their Game Boys,
which are hand-held computers.
Still, critics have a host of other concerns, from young hands
developing repetitive stress injuries, to a lack of socialization among
children who spend their afternoons staring at a screen.
''There is the concern about the digital divide, and what this does in
one fell swoop is eliminate it from urban and rural schools - that's a
real plus,'' said Larry Cuban, a professor of education at Stanford
University who has written about technology in the classroom. ''But people
confuse availability with use, and that raises a number of very complex
questions.''
Promises that teachers will be trained, he said, are ''too glib.''
''It's how you train them and toward what ends. For test scores to go
up you have to have a lot of connections between what a teacher does on a
daily basis that's connected to the academic standards, that are connected
to the tests and textbooks. It's that connective tissue that people
generally don't take into consideration. They get carried away with the
glamour of just spreading the computers around.''
Brian McGrory
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