About $25 million of the sales-tax money was to be used for
the program's first phase, which the school board approved in
April. The rest of the program was to be deployed in two
subsequent phases, with the second beginning in 2006 and
eventually putting laptops into the hands of every high school
student in the district. The third and final phase would begin
later and would dole out laptops to middle school students.
Each phase was subject to school board approval.
District officials did not respond to telephone calls from
an eSchool News reporter before press time. But
supporters, including Redden, have acknowledged in the past
that the plan would require a major financial investment over
several years. Still, they say, the total cost would be just a
fraction of the district's $75 million annual technology
budget.
"It's a big undertaking, and that's a little bit scary to a
lot of people," Redden told the Associated Press in April.
"But our budget every year is a little over $1 billion. The
amount of money you would spend on this is a relatively small
percentage of the budget."
Districts in Maine, Michigan, Texas, Virginia, and dozens
of other places already are providing laptops to students. But
cost proved an unforeseen obstacle in Cobb County--one that
forced Redden and other proponents of the program to redraw
their original blueprint.
"It's too much taxpayer money that they do not have the
taxpayers' permission to use," Rep. Judy Manning, a Marietta
Republican, said during an interview in April.
Citing the sales tax, Manning said most voters believed the
money would go toward routine maintenance at schools, not
brand-new laptops.
Redden and other Power to Learn proponents continued to
push for the program's approval, even after the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution--which has monitored the debate
closely in recent weeks--reported that a witness who testified
during the sales-tax hearing hinted that school administrators
were pressured into picking Apple as the program's technology
vendor.
To avoid any controversy that would call into the question
the school system's bidding process--which also entertained
proposals from Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., and IBM
Corp.--the board of education invited Cobb County District
Attorney Pat Head to investigate its bidding processes. It
also hired a third-party consulting firm, New York-based
Kessler International, to conduct an independent investigation
of its own into the bidding process.
"We don't believe there are any illegalities," Redden told
the Atlanta newspaper for a July 15 story. School officials
said they don't know how long the investigations will take.
Apple deferred an eSchool News reporter's questions
about the lawsuit to the school district.
Links:
Cobb County School District
http://www.cobb.k12.ga.us/
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