Somehow, I missed this Journal Sentinel editorial wishing for something like Massachusetts’ plan to give $100 laptops to each Massachusetts middle/high schooler to happen in Wisconsin the first time around. I first twigged onto it during Joe Scialfa’s show on WTMJ last night (he was filling in for Mark Reardon), and in a search to see if the Wisconsin blogosphere also missed it, I found Owen’s quick hit on the MJS’s reflexive suggestion to say, “Spend more money.” and Folkbum’s reflexive negative reflection. I guess a full amateur fisking of said editorial is in order…
The purse strings have been tight in education this decade in Wisconsin and elsewhere, and retrenchment has been the rule. Even as schools have striven to boost academic achievement, budget woes have driven them to scuttle such “frills” as art, music, driver’s ed and library service.
I guess that over-paying (mostly, WEAC’s own insurance company) for such “frills” as no-employee-contribution health insurance is more important (I wouldn’t have brought that up, but the JS edit board did first).
That’s why a costly, ambitious education plan that crossed our desk (or, rather, our computer screen) from another state the other day caught our eye. Republican Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts is proposing to give every middle and high school student in the state a laptop computer. He would also add 1,000 new math and science teachers and give the state’s best teachers $5,000 bonuses. The tab for the plan: $46 million next year, $143 million the year thereafter.
Romney’s plan holds lessons for industrial states like Wisconsin, which is trying to make a transition to a knowledge economy. Massachusetts is a leader in the knowledge revolution, and the governor is taking steps to ensure that it remains in the vanguard.
Probably because the price tag is so high, not because of any of the specifics. Without having the specifics of Massachusetts’ education system handy, the other 2/3rds (otherwise left unmentioned) sounds a lot like the usual government “throw money at it solution”.
To be sure, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle did boost education spending by a whopping $861 million over two years. But he was mostly playing catch-up. Previously, due to a huge budget deficit, Doyle had reneged on Gov. Tommy Thompson’s vow that the state would cover two-thirds of the cost of education. Well, in the latest budget, Doyle reverted to keeping that vow. Yes, schools did benefit. But the two-thirds funding helps local property taxpayers more than it does schools.
Could it be that Craps had other people to pay off 2 years ago, and that, in this last round before the gubernatorial election, he’s making up for ignoring WEAC last time with inflated spending?
Thanks to new technology, Romney’s plan is not quite as lavish as it sounds. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has recently developed $100 laptops for Third World students. Romney figures these hardy, versatile computers would work just as well in American classrooms.
What use, exactly, will laptops have in a middle/high school classroom? I’m a fair typist, and I can’t type fast enough to take notes with a computer. One could argue that the writing pad/tablet feature would take care of that, but there are two “slight” problems with that argument – the lack of storage (not to be confused with the 1 GB of RAM that’s currently forecast), and the steep learning curve of any handwriting-recognition software to convert handwriting into text. The lack of storage also would seem to crimp what these students can use them for. If the intent is to, as Folkbum says, “…turn schools into training grounds for private enterprise…”, the choice of Linux as the OS is a step against that.
Further, there are use and ownership issues. While the bare-bones nature of the processor and limited storage would prevent these machines from becoming Doom3 fragging gamers, that they’re both Wi-Fi and cell-phone enabled, and that they come with 4 USB ports, will inevitably be abused. Middle/high school kids tend to lose and break stuff, especially stuff they don’t own. Speaking of ownership, what happens to the machines at the end of the 7 years; do they come back to the school systems, or do they have to continuously buy those machines for each incoming class?
If there really is a pressing need, why couldn’t the parents come up with the money? I wonder what is more important; the $100 laptop, or the $150 pair of shoes?
Note that I do not address that the $100 laptop is currently vaporware, or that at the moment, $100 seems to be overly-optimistic. If we’ve learned anything, computer technology is both explosive in growth and quick to become dirt-cheap. Indeed, if the machines are intended to be corporate training tools, that these machines would be obselete long before that 7th-grader gets through high school is another argument against this plan.
By the way, Massachusetts ranked fourth in education spending among the states in the 2002-’03 school year. It averaged $11,877 per pupil, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. At $10,085 per pupil, Wisconsin ranked 12th.
State government picked up a greater share of the tab in Wisconsin than in Massachusetts. Accordingly, in local taxes going to education, Massachusetts ranked 3rd and Wisconsin 19th. That factor gives Romney more room to maneuver than Doyle has.
Another factor working for Romney is that while education spending is higher in the New England state than in Dairyland, the spending is less of a burden there than here. Wisconsin spends $54.11 for every $1,000 in personal income, ranking 14th, while Massachusetts spends $45.76, ranking 38th.
I’m actually surprised that the JS edits included this last bit of info. They, however, use this as “proof” that more spending does equal better results, ignoring, for example, MPS. They also don’t see that this suggests that Wisconsin taxpayers can’t afford ever-growing educational spending.
We don’t necessarily endorse the specifics of Romney’s plan, but its expansiveness against a backdrop of austerity is worth pondering.
Translation; it’s not enough to spend and spend and spend; you have to be a Democrat. Guess those “principles” of being non-partisan and fiscally-conservative weren’t worth the electrons inconvenienced in posting them.
Revisions/extensions – How in the heck did I miss Owen’s take on this? I must be going blind :-)
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