Truly shocking news: rather than user school-issued laptops for educational purposes, high school kids instead used them for instant messaging, Web browsing and porn immersion. Say it ain’t so. So school districts around the country, which were convinced that giving kids laptops would, I don’t know, make them smarter, are scuttling in-school laptop programs, making kids learn the old fashioned way, with books and pencils.
The best thing is that, in numerous comparisons between schools with laptops and schools without, schools with laptops saw no test score improvement, since test scores are how you measure smartitude these days. But what I’d like to know is what the school districts expected these kids to do with the laptops. Learn? Hah! How many hours per day does the average cubicle-dwelling worker bee spend goofing off on the computer? I remember back in high school we were more concerned with trying to get around the Websense filtering system than researching whatever busywork assignment we were given.
Bottom line, laptops don’t improve education by their mere presence alone. But let’s keep throwing money at schools, that’ll solve the problem.
Another thing—what’s with kids and ironic t-shirts? “I’m a drinker not a fighter.” Kid, you’re a dork.
Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops [New York Times via Techdirt]