I see the appalling lack of resources in schools every day. Xerox paper is often so scarce that teachers have to buy their own or pay for copying outside of school. School libraries are either closed for lack of funds for a librarian or have sparse collections of patched up books. Kids in classes whose teachers were the slightest bit tardy in submitting their requests for textbooks often get the 10 year old dog-eared textbooks left in some dusty corner of a bookroom. Way too many lab activities are "paper labs" instead of a chance to manipulate lab equipment and experience phenomena that physically happen in the lab (like a change in color or something that fizzes). But...nowadays, most classrooms have SmartBoards and/or laptops for the kids. The former things I mentioned are so much more important than these last things, yet are now stretched to the limit.
While there are many worthy online activities for students which would justify the laptops, I also constantly see kids opening multiple windows on the computers during class. They are filling their MP3 devices from the laptops, looking at movies, watching clips of sports events, and admiring pages of high-dollar sneakers (?!) when they are supposed to be answering questions on various academic websites. Your tax dollars at work.