Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for December 7, 2005 LAPTOPS FOR ALL IL 7th GRADERS?

A wonderful idea in theory, but...

They cite "positive feedback" from other states that have done this...test scores rise! Seems that I remember reading a few stories where they started this program...and soon stopped it...after many, many of the laptops came up missing.

Oh, well...guess it's the old "half-full/half-empty" argument.

From today's Southern Illinoisan...

Closing the digital divide: Lt. Gov. Quinn visits Carbondale to promote I-Connect initiative

BY NICOLE SACK, THE SOUTHERN

CARBONDALE - Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn was at Carbondale Middle School Tuesday afternoon to propose his I-Connect initiative that would provide personal laptop computers to all 169,000 seventh grade students in Illinois public schools.

"No Illinois child should be left on the wrong side of the digital divide," Quinn said. "Laptops are the textbooks of tomorrow."

Under Quinn's proposal, each seventh grade student in Illinois will be issued a laptop at the beginning of the school year and would be allowed to keep the computer over the course of six years. School districts will decide how the laptops will be utilized in the classroom and teachers will receive professional training on how to integrate the computers into everyday curriculum.

The program will cost about $50 million per year. To pay for the initiative, the state will close a long-standing loophole in the Illinois tax code that allows retail merchants to pocket 1.75 percent of the state sales tax collected by retailers as a collection commission.

The loophole reform would lower the retail sales tax collection commission from 1.75 percent to 1 percent; the extra funds would be siphoned to the I-Connect program.

"We will be using that money not to subsidize Wal-Mart or other retailers, but to invest in our children's future," Quinn said.

He hopes to have the legislation introduced in January and signed into law by the start of the 2006-2007 school year. He said the state will wield its purchasing power to minimize the cost of acquiring the laptop computers.

Quinn said laptop computer initiatives in other states have significantly improved academic performances among students. Henrico County in Virginia introduced a similar laptop program for students in grades 6-12. Last school year, students in that school district achieved the highest SAT verbal and math scores ever recorded in the county, just four years after the program began.

While Quinn was at Carbondale Middle School, he received a personal performance from Carbondale Elementary second- and third-graders who learned to play the violin through the district's innovative Thomas String Program.

Approximately 30 little ones played their pint-sized violins for the lieutenant governor. Quinn admitted that the public school children had a skill that he himself lacked.

Watching the musical performance, Carbondale Elementary School Board President Nancy Stemper commented on how providing children with every possible advantage results in a lifetime of benefits.

"You can tell the difference between those who have received advantages and those who haven't," Stemper said. "The trick to public education is giving those advantages to everyone."