Laptops to high school freshmen

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by David Safier

Here's a story that feels good and probably is good. The long awaited day to give computers to freshmen at Desert View and Sunnyside High School arrived, and 505 students are now proud owners of brand spankin' new HP laptops.

Here's how the program works.

To earn a laptop, they had to demonstrate what the Sunnyside district calls the four A's: attendance, achievement, activity and attitude, during their first semester of high school.

Students had to have an attendance rate of 95 percent or higher, earn at least a 2.5 GPA, participate in at least one school-sponsored extracurricular activity and avoid out-of-school suspensions in order to acquire the laptops, which are theirs to keep.

Both schools have fairly high dropout rates, and the freshman year is when you want to catch the potential dropouts. The district says they've seen attendance go up and failures go down since the laptops were promised to the freshmen.

A student without access to a computer is already educationally underprivileged. Anyone under 30 who isn't comfortable behind a keyboard is at a huge disadvantage on the job market, so just getting the computers in the kids' hands is valuable. If they use the computers to improve their educational skills and hand in more and better assignments, there's more value. And giving them something tangible to strive for, then putting the result of their work in their hands — that's got lots of potential value as well. Kids whose parents have some money get these kinds of incentives all the time. They're probably even more valuable for kids who aren't used to having much of their own.

We'll see how this all works out in the long term. It's an experimental program. If it works, it should be continued and spread elsewhere. If it has no positive results, try something else. I know "throw things against the wall and see what sticks" seems like a haphazard strategy, but it's often the most effective way to create positive change in the uncertain world of education.

The dirty little secret of education is, no one really knows what the hell they're doing. If you're good, you try and try and try some more until something works, then you try even more to find other things that work. Rinse and repeat. That's the life of a successful teacher.

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2 thoughts on “Laptops to high school freshmen”

  1. A laptop is a personal computer designed for mobile use small enough to sit on one’s lap . A laptop includes most of the typical components of a typical desktop computer.Check out this website for more information.
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    Frank.L
    http://laptop-computers.co.za

  2. interesting little publicized side-note to this project: Companies and organizations have donated tons of cash and equipment to this project, including man companies that have operations in the district boundaries. One company is very conspicuous by its LACK of donations to this project: Raytheon. Raytheon pays little or no property taxes into the district in spite of its large holdings (worth serious money).

    Props to the many that did support the project. Businesses supporting local schools is always needed, especially in tough times like this.

    (I am skeptical that it will be successful, as it seems that sustainability may be lacking, but I hope it does work. My fear is that failure could hinder plans to get more computers into schools)

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