And schools should be giving take-home laptops because?
Given that we are taking about pubskewl here, it’s iffy. A student could buy a netbook for $299.
A fair question. Lower Merion is a well-to-do area. Like our school district, LM took advantage of a state grant to fund this. The laptops in our high school stay in school. In my experience, there are very few youngsters in our school district who don't have access to a computer at home. I'm sure Lower Merion is similar. For our kids, thumb drives are required equipment at the outset of the school year. They work on projects at home and bring them to school on thumb drives. There is no need to drag a laptop around, needlessly exposing it to breakage. They also have access to computers in their school library and the public library. Some school administrators just spend money needlessly, as do state governments. I wasn't too happy when our school district created a new position for a grant writer, expressly to seek funds from federal, state or other funding bodies. We have one of the more affluent communities in the state, and in my opinion, we shouldn't play this game.