Number of Computers in Schools Doubles

Microcomputers were added to thousands of public-school classrooms during the past year, according to a new survey.

The number of the nation's 81,506 elementary and secondary schools using at least one microcomputer for instruction more than doubled from 24,690 (30 percent) in the fall of 1982 to 55,765 (68 percent) in the fall of 1983, according to a survey by Market Data Retrieval, a private marketing research firm.

The firm estimates in its report, "Microcomputers in Schools, 1983-84," that there are a total of 325,000 computers distributed among the 55,765 school buildings using computers. That figure, according to the report, represents one computer for each 125 of the 40.6-million students enrolled in the public schools and one computer for each 92 students in the schools that reported having...