From Bruce Monroe (Thu 7/2/2009 11:21 AM)
Would someone please explain to me why there is justification for schools to use stimulus monies to purchase these laptops. Who in Maine, from a Maine company perspective has increased jobs, employed other people, improved their energy footprint, by using this money for the purchase of laptops. Did the board of education or anyone else consider that by improving the energy use in schools alone could have paid for these laptops and many other programs.
From Peter Curtis (Wed 7/1/2009 9:02 PM)
You think $968 is a good price for a laptop? I just bought a state-of-the-art HP laptop with all the bells & whistles for $599 from Staples. What kind of a deal do you think I'd get if I ordered 64,000 of them!!!!!!
From Dave Tomm (Wed 7/1/2009 2:02 PM)
The laptops are critical to the education of our kids and our entire population for that matter, especially our workforce.
During this period of layoffs, down-sizing, transition teams and underfunded programs we could use computers and training for a lot of our seasoned displaced workers too. Seasoned people who have been losing jobs from manufacturing shut and slow downs across the state need training and computers now, and hopefully - please not another study committee but training now.
We've discussed the problem with displaced workers all over Maine for the past couple years at our forums and are working to reach even more. There is some help available but much too little. We're unprepared to solve these technology issues for seasoned workers and too few are working on the problem. Local adult education people are getting well organized and we applaud their work. Companies are gearing up their own training. Unfortunately too many of our State of Maine bureaucrats are proccupied with budgets not services.
My Dad used to tell my brother and I when we misbehaved or ignored important stuff "Boys, you're just not paying attention." Hearing that we knew that an immediate change of attitude was necessary or we'd be in deep trouble.
We need to pay attention now, or as this recession ends, our business community will be in dire straits for reliable folks with the basic technology skills we need.
From susan (Wed 7/1/2009 1:32 PM)
Most people, during hard times, need to make decisions as to what is WANTED and what is NEEDED. I'm pretty sure that 64000 kids could survive a year without a new laptop. Why does everyone in grades 7 - 12 get them anyway. I thought they had been getting these for years - can't they take them with them from year to year?
From Michael Geneseo (Wed 7/1/2009 1:06 PM)
As if there aren't more important and fundamental things to fix in the Maine educational system before we spend $62M to further "educate" our children in how to surf the web. Super.
Coming from a large family of educators, this emphasis on putting a laptop in the hands of every student strikes me as grossly misguided. Having the largest technology program of this kind in the world does nothing but offer hollow bragging rights for the legislators when the rest of the educational infrastructure in this state (not to mention country) is in need of a massive overhaul.
Our insistence on providing computers to every student seems premature when the facilities to teach those students are grosly inadequate and we are constantly addressing educational cut-backs.
From ALAN MINTHORN (Wed 7/1/2009 1:04 PM)
With enrollemt expected to decline by 20,000 students over the next two years (Comm. Gendron April BOE meeting), why are we ordering a full complement of laptops when 20,000 will be available in two years?
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