Schools ask parents to pay up before kids log on

[rodeodance]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060103/ts_usatoday/schoolsaskparentstopayupbeforekidslogon;_ylt=AiJ8AgbHtf5xsc0MPdoVNzWs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-

Schools ask parents to pay up before kids log on

By William M. Welch, USA TODAY Tue Jan 3, 7:54 AM ET

Heather Sutherland was excited to learn her public school system was using laptop computers to teach elementary students such as her daughter. Until, that is, she found out parents were expected to pay the nearly $1,500 cost.


"I said, 'What? You must be joking,' " Sutherland says. "I think it's unfair that the (school district) is requiring us to 'pay to learn.' "


The public school system in this quiet city 27 miles southeast of Los Angeles is pushing the frontiers of computer technology in the classroom with a program that puts a laptop computer into the backpacks of children as early as first grade. It is pushing the boundaries of financing, too, by asking parents to pay $500 a year for three years so each of more than 2,000 elementary and middle school children can have their own Apple iBook G4 laptop..........

"It was fun to have around and to use for my own purposes," says Riley Hall, 13, who was in the program last year but transferred to another school for eighth grade. "But it didn't make school any better or more challenging. ... A lot of it at school was to show off what you know about computers." .......

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. I have to question who is doing their purchasing for them

because those are BAD prices.

[shoelace414]

3. It's an Apple laptop

they could get a Windows laptop for less than $1000

[shoelace414]

2. Deleted.. Dupe

[Book Lover]

4. Why would you put a delicate Apple laptop in the hands of a child?

Setting aside for a brief moment the fact that this is a clear violation of the CA constitution's guarantee of a free public education for El-Hi, ruggedized laptops are the only answer for kids. Why would you give a child an Apple fer chissakes?

[bettyellen]

5. because they are so darned easy to use... i question why they need new

versions of the more delicate models. they have some sturdy older models that would be a lot cheaper to purchase reconditoned. but i guess they don't care because they never planned to pay for them.

[Book Lover]

6. True - IT costs for Apples are much lower than Win machines

Then again, as you pointed out, I expect the district does not intend on providing IT support for the hardware either.

[bettyellen]

7. they'll probably force the parents to get applecare too!

it really makes me wonder about the schoolboard, springing this on parents doesn't seem right. used computers can be really cheap. what the heck do they need with state of the art? what are they going to do with kids whose families cannot pay for it?

[SoCalDem]

8. and yet, there are these..for a mere $100 each

http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=13856&cid=3&cname=Technology





Home » Technology » $100 laptops get an ODM



$100 laptops get an ODM

Every kid in the world

Nicholas Negroponte's entirely noble project to deliver a laptop computer into the hands of every child on the planet has taken a major step out of the happy song vapor with the appointment of an original design manufacturer -- Taiwan's Quanta, which already makes more laptops than any other company. Quanta won the contract for the tiny laptops in what appears to have been an actual bidding war that saw "several" manufacturers express interest, according to the project -- and it is paying handsomely for the win, an indication that the bidding might have been serious.

The laptops will start shipping next year, Quanta said.

There will be some gnashing of teeth over at Intel, which has come out laughing at the project, saying the laptops will satisfy no one. Intel chairman Craig Barrett took a few major swings at the project just before the ODM announcement, saying they would be "gadgets" and not computers.
"It turns out what people are looking for is something is something that has the full functionality of a PC," he told Reuters earlier in the week.

snip