Expanded school laptop program gaining supporters
Saturday, November 22, 2003
Portland Maine Press herald/Associated Press
More educators and business leaders are joining former Gov. Angus King in a move to expand the state's middle school laptop program to high schools.
The group hopes to raise enough money to add ninth-graders next year and one grade each year thereafter until students in grades seven through 12 have laptop computers as part of their education.
"I don't think it's fair to say 'you can have these tools for a couple of years' and then take them away," King said.
Maine's first-in-the-nation laptop program was proposed by King in 2000. The $37 million program now puts laptop computers in the hands of all public school seventh- and eighth-graders.
Beginning in the ninth grade, those students no longer get laptops. But a growing number of educators, including former Education Commissioner J. Duke Albanese, and business leaders want to take it a step further.
Supporters would like the program to grow with this year's eighth-graders, adding a grade every year until grades seven through 12 have laptops.
Peter Geiger, a vice president at Geiger in Lewiston and a member of the Maine Coalition for Excellence in Education, is concerned that the state will miss a golden opportunity to enhance education - and the future of Maine's work force - if it doesn't keep the laptops through high school.
"Can you learn without the laptops? Sure. But we have a very good thing going in this state," Geiger said.
"We're getting such excellent results," said Ron Bancroft, a Portland businessman and the chairman of the Maine Legislature's laptop advisory board and the Maine Coalition for Excellence in Education. "We want to extend this kind of opportunity for high school students. It's going to be a little bit of a tragedy if it doesn't happen."
The problem is money.
The middle school laptop program costs about $10 million a year, including teacher training. Supporters of expansion said it could cost between $6 million and $7 million to bring the laptops to ninth grade next fall.
Once the infrastructure is in place, King believes it would ultimately cost $18 million to $25 million a year to run the program for grades seven through 12.
That's about 1 percent of the money spent on education in Maine each year, King said.
"It's not that huge a part of the overall budget. It's really a question of bang for the buck," he said.
Lee Umphrey, spokesman for Gov. John Baldacci, said the governor is open to expanding the laptop program. But the state must also deal with a host of other budget priorities, including a $113 million Medicaid shortfall.
Expansion supporters are working on ways to get around those budget hurdles. Some have talked with private businesses about forming partnerships with local schools or donating money to pay for the computers.
The state has received more than $2 million in donations and pledges for teacher training, but companies don't usually like paying long term for a government-run program, King said.
