Why Hoboken is Throwing Away All of its Student Laptops

WNYC News -- The Hechinger Report ^ | 7-29-14 | Jill Barshay

[afraidfortherepublic]

Inside Hoboken’s combined junior-senior high school is a storage closet. Behind the locked door, some mothballed laptop computers are strewn among brown cardboard boxes. Others are stacked one atop another. Dozens more are stored on mobile computer carts, many of them on their last legs.

That’s all that remains from a failed experiment to assign every student a laptop at Hoboken Junior Senior High School. It began five years ago with an unexpected windfall of stimulus money from Washington, D.C., and good intentions to help the district’s students, the majority of whom are under or near the poverty line, keep up with their wealthier peers. But Hoboken faced problem after problem and is abandoning the laptops entirely this summer.

“We had the money to buy them, but maybe not the best implementation,” said Mark Toback, the current superintendent of Hoboken School District. “It became unsustainable.”

None of the school administrators who initiated Hoboken’s one-to-one laptop program still work there. Toback agreed to share Hoboken’s experiences so that other schools can learn from it.

[afraidfortherepublic]

How interesting!

[Steely Tom]

Who didn’t see this coming?

[dfwgator]

How many of the laptops were sold to pay for crack?

[GraceG]

so home much “Stimulus money” was laundered through education to make it to Apple to be donated back to Dems?

[Chode]

do I really have to say it???

[Jonty30]

Learning is a multi-faceted experience. The more immersive the environment, the more likely a student will learn. The more that is done for the student, the less he will learn.

If it were up to me, a student would have a textbook, pens and paper, and math or science charts only.

[dfwgator]

If it were up to me, a student would have a textbook, pens and paper, and math or science charts only.

I agree.

[The Great RJ]

I taught for several years in a technical college where every student had a laptop (paid for with student fees). While the faculty was trained in using the laptops in teaching and they opened some new teaching opportunities, most students spent their class time posting to facebook, texting and surfing the web. I started having my students close their laptops during my lectures. Our local school district has now given junior high students tablets and I’m sure their real experience will be little different.

[Fungi]

You haven't seen anything yet. Los Angeles Unified has had the “writing on the wall” for some time and they have reused to face the premonition.

[lurk]

Laptops for everyone. What could go wrong?

A perfect picture of a collectivist program and its results.

[ClearCase_guy]

an unexpected windfall of stimulus money from Washington, D.C., and good intentions

Liberals.

What more can you say?

[Political Junkie Too]

In hindsight, those laptops are useless if Excel can't handle CommonCore math.

-PJ

[rockrr]

“Kill ‘em all and let God sort it out”? ;’)

[newnhdad]

Obama’s stash dried up and what he has left is going to illegals... hopebroken and change...

[Steely Tom]

Here's the executive summary:

1. The students smashed the laptops.
2. They got specially reinforced laptops, and the students smashed those too.
3. The laptops were used to view pornography. When anti-porn software was installed, it caused the laptops to crash.
4. The laptops were used to play on-line games. When anti-gaming software was installed, it caused the laptops to slow down and crash.
5. The laptops were stolen. The administrator of the program had to spend time testifying in court in theft cases brought by the school district.
6. The only teacher who would talk about something positive that he wanted to do with the student laptops (a math teacher) said that the laptops were so slow - due to all the anti-porn and anti-game software that had been installed - that the graphing calculator app he wanted to demonstrate wouldn't work.
7. Every person involved with launching the program and implementing it has left the school district.
8. Now it's going to cost money to throw away the laptops that are left.

[angry elephant]

If it were up to me, a student would have a textbook, pens and paper, and math or science charts only.”

Like we used to have back one could learn something in public school. Although later some students required a slide rule or an abacus.

[RIghtwardHo]

What a bunch of idiots. I know they do it at several schools around here and it works great.

They sure hire idiots.

[grania]

Students deliberately sabotage the computers, and they’re very good at it.

[Jonty30]

There is no better way to learn. I think the only way one could improve upon that is through virtual reality where a student could interact with a teacher repeatedly until the subject material was mastered.