Computers of all varieties can improve education, but not without careful planning from schools and teachers. First of all, teachers must know how to use the computers so they can make up lesson plans and guide their students. Schools must know how to integrate them into the curriculum. Second, computer labs were acceptable for initial introduction to computers, but the focus today is on using them in day-to-day learning.

Over the past ten years billions of dollars have been spent on computers for our nation’s schools. The goal was to improve and update our educational system but there is very little evidence of change through the years and taxpayers that have been paying for these upgrades in the schools want to know where the payoff is. A small Belridge school district in Mckittrick, California was proud to be the first and only in the state to provide every student with two Apple IIg computers, one for school and one for home. It reshaped its curriculum to use computers in all subject areas and they thought it was working well. The parents were shocked to hear when the annual standardized test scores came in, that the entire first grade class, along with more than a third of the 64-member student body, had scored below their grade level for both reading and math. The school’s officials argued that students had scored even worse before the help of the computer program but in fact this was just one case where the computer program had failed. Many skeptics think schools should give up but educators and parents continue the fight to keep computers in the schools. Research has proven that electronic drill and practice programs make children better spellers. Intensive preparation programs raise S.A.T. scores. So-called integrated learning systems, which deliver entire curriculums to student’s sittings at workstations in a learning laboratory, practically guarantee that grade point averages will go up. So why all the turmoil? Everyone is worried that too many tax dollars are being wasted on computers for kids when the old learning system worked just fine. They feel children do not need computers in school, that they can learn to use them at home, or in college, or even after they enter the work force. New York University’s Neil Postman writes in his article “The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School” that “approximately 35 million people have already learned to use computers without the benefit of school instruction. If the schools do nothing, most of the population will know how to use computers in the next 10 years, just as most of the population learned how to drive cars without school instruction.” The argument isn’t against computers; it’s against the blind-faith rush to spend vast sums to pack schools with them. The same schools, often enough, where classroom size overwhelms any chance for learning, where programs for the arts and sports are the first to be cut. For some schools this is a stumbling block, but for most the matter has been resolved. Parents want what is best for their children and often they are willing to chip

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