One-to-One Computing

It’s Not Whether Every Student Gets a Computer, It’s When

By Andrew A. Zucker

Putting personal computers into the hands of students is an idea whose time has come. All of the more than 34,000 middle school students and teachers in Maine are given a laptop to use during the academic year, with wireless connections to the Internet provided in each school, and the state is interested in expanding its program to high schools. More than 20,000 Henrico County, Va., students in grades 6-12 use personal computers on loan from the district, just the way textbooks are. Interest in this innovation is growing quickly, and Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Vermont, Texas, and hundreds of individual schools and districts across the United States are making investments in so-called one-to-one computing.

Why are policymakers interested in one-to-one computing? One reason is economic competitiveness. Here’s how former Gov. Angus S. King Jr. of Maine, who started his state’s laptop program, put it: “For more than 100 years, Maine has always been in the bottom third of states—in prosperity, income, education, and opportunity for our kids. In my 30 years of working on Maine economic issues, no idea has had as much potential for leapfrogging the other states and putting Maine in a position of national leadership as this one—giving our students portable, Internet-ready computers as a basic tool for learning.”

Equity concerns are another reason for policymakers’ interest. Mark A. Edwards, who was the superintendent when Henrico County began its laptop program, was concerned about the inequitable distribution of computers and access to information among student haves and have-nots. Thousands of students in the county who did not have easy access to computers, the World Wide Web, and a wealth of digital resources now have such access. And because students can take the computers home, homework assignments can...