Wired Kids

One would think that giving every child a laptop would provide tremendous educational benefit, but the evidence suggests otherwise, reports Randall Stross in the New York Times (7/11/10). In fact, the effect often is just the opposite: "We found a negative effect on academic achievement," says Ofer Malamud of the University of Chicago, who co-authored "a study that investigated educational outcomes after low-income families received vouchers to help them buy computers." Ofer says he was surprised by this, but other studies report similar findings.

A pair of Duke University professors, in a report called "Scaling the Digital Divide," studied "the arrival of broadband service in North Carolina between 2000 and 2005 and its effect on middle school test scores during that period." Math scores dropped significantly after the first provider appeared, and reading dropped "when the number of broadband providers passed four." The decline "was largely confined to lower-income households, in which, the authors hypothesized, parental supervision might be spottier."

In Texas, a four-year, $20 million experiment in "technology immersion" used federal money to distribute laptops to 21 middle schools (link). The kids were allowed to bring the laptops home. Another 21 schools that didn’t get the laptops were the control. In this case, results were mixed, with test scores in some subjects improving "slightly," but results "included lower scores for writing" among the laptopped kids. The machines blocked "email, chat, games" as well as objectionable keyword searches — but only in English, not Spanish. So, at least one educational benefit was teaching themselves how to circumvent the blocks, or maybe learning some Spanish.