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ED INK: The Lap(tops) Of Luxury?

Newtown has authorized its educators to get started on a $800,000

technological upgrade of the school system so that our classrooms may start

the 21st century with the tools they need to take full advantage of the

burgeoning Age of Information. The improvements are needed, and for the most

part, the schools have come up with plans that wisely address their computer

needs. A decision by Head O' Meadow School, however, to spend $67,170 on 25

laptops for the teachers at the school, may help taint public perception of

the entire technology initiative as excessive and extravagant.

Bill Bircher, principal at the school, said this week that each of his

teachers needs a new $2,680 Apple Powerbook. Three reasons are given: to give

teachers more opportunity to learn software programs; to give teachers access

to student records; to help teachers prepare lesson plans. We aren't sure

exactly how computers are going to enhance the teachers' path to these goals;

they seem to be doing an excellent job already. We are being asked, however,

without much supporting detail or study, to accept that laptop computers for

every teacher will make things better.

It would be easier to accept the premises and purposes of this particular

expenditure if the need had been precisely described to begin with, when the

town was first examining the school budget and its plans for new spending on

computers. At that time the laptops (30 were listed in the original technology

equipment list, not 25) were said to be earmarked for classroom use by both

students and teachers. Getting more computers into the hands of children was

implicit in the request, and we reported that at the time without

contradiction from school officials seeking funds for the laptops. Now, it

seems the children have been dropped from the equation. Certainly, computers

used for developing lesson plans and for distributing confidential information

on test scores and student records will not be made available to students.

We hope that vague and shifting underpinnings of this particular expenditure

are not used by critics to question the entire technology program. Newtown

has, and should continue, to commit itself to equipping the schools with the

best tools for learning, from textbooks to T-1 Internet connections. But if

school officials are to move ahead with the backing and confidence of the

public, they will have to provide better justification for their plans than

they have for the computers local taxpayers are now dropping into the laps of

Head O'Meadow's teachers.