Maybe you read about this here, here, or even here. It is less likely that you have read this press release. The short version of the story is as follows: The Forney Independent School District, just enough East of Dallas to be not quite a suburb, has decided that rather than buy traditional textbooks for the 5th and 6th graders, they will buy notebook computers with the textbooks and 2000 works of literature on them.
The official reasons for this decision include the fact that the District expects to be short about 600 textbooks, and it takes 3 months to order and receive books. Furthermore, the director of this program points out that “A child’s set of textbooks costs $350. If they can get these notebooks down to $500, it gets cost-effective in a hurry.” Of course the students can tell you that $350 is less than $500, and a lot less than the $1350 that each computer will actually cost. Based on a quick check of prices, it seems unlikely that this price includes the content. I sincerely doubt the computerized versions of the textbooks cost less than their paper-based brethren.
IBM for it’s part points out that works of literature — such as the complete works of Shakespeare — that are already on the computer represent physical books the district does not need to purchase. How many of those 2000 works of pre-loaded literature will actually be read anyway? Does anybody really want to read them on their computer? How many of them are remotely age-appropriate? Most American students are not officially exposed to Shakespeare until 8th or 9th grade, but that seems to be beside the point. The party line from IBM and their content partner, Vital Source Technologies, is that computerized is better. After all, it’s indexed, it’s searchable, it’s all in one relatively lightweight box that fits nicely into a knapsack or locker. It’s even ergonomically friendly compared to a student carrying every textbook they use.
Math pop quiz! Which is less money: 600 textbooks times $350 (that’s the price for a complete set of books, despite the fact that they “only” expect to be short 600 individual textbooks), or 459 students times $1350? I bet you could buy a lot of books with the difference between those figures. Congratulations, Texans. This is your tax money at work.
Now that we’ve utterly debunked the idea that somehow this saves money, we can deal with the unintended consequences of this decision. Let’s start with computer literacy. Are the teachers really prepared to use these computers, let alone teach from them? Are they ready to spend the first 10 minutes of each and every class debugging somebody’s computer textbook problem? And is it fair to the other kids in class to waste this time in every class period? I’m sure they’ve got better things to do.
Which brings us to the next problem. How are you going to make sure the kids are reading their textbooks instead of playing games? Don’t tell me these computers have no games on them. One trip home fixes that problem. If these computers are equipped with wireless modems, it doesn’t even take that. In fact, games may be the least of the unauthorized software that ends up on these computers.
Speaking of one trip home, we should consider parental support at home. Are the parents capable of helping the kids use and perhaps troubleshoot the computer? There’s nothing to troubleshoot in a book. Don’t dismiss this problem: computerized textbooks may exacerbate the achievement gap between rich and poor students. How? By making parents less able to help their children.
There is also an obsolescence issue to consider. The school officials in this case claim that paper textbooks can be several years out of date. However, does this really change anything? Experts are not going to decide that the Declaration of Independence wasn’t really signed in 1776, or that a water molecule isn’t really two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. How much of what a 6th grader really needs to know about any given topic is really the topic of heated academic debate? There is still valuable information in a 5 year old textbook. On the other hand, see what you can accomplish with a 5 year old computer. Good luck.
Speaking of 5 year old computers, let’s talk about the environmental impact of this project. Those computers will have to be disposed of someday, and computers aren’t exactly landfill friendly. In addition to added disposal costs, there will be ongoing costs to operate these computers. One light bulb can make a dozen students able to read a standard textbook. However, each of these computers will require its own power.
I haven’t even gotten around to talking about theft and damage. Officials at schools where such programs have been tried say this is rare, but frankly I find that hard to believe. I am more willing to believe that a certain number of parents are just willing to suck up repair and replacement costs.
Finally, what if when fall comes, it turns out the school is short computers? After all, the reason for this purchase was an anticipated textbook shortage. At least you can photocopy pages of a textbook until a book order arrives.
The only person who really stands to benefit from this deal is one IBM salesman.