Education Money Well Spent?

Henrico Schools Switch from Apple to Dell. My daughter is a Henrico County High School student and has had an iBook for 3 years. I've been very disappointed with the program. When it breaks (as it frequently does) she does not have the use of a computer-no loaners. Interesting to note that both Apple and Dell have a 2% "loaner" base included. We've never seen one.

The iBooks cannot be updated with printer drivers so she can print papers at home, without emailing the work to herself and then using one of our computers to rewrite, reformat and print. She usually just uses the home computer from the git-go. I wonder if they are going to include the ability to add printer drivers to the Dells.

Using a computer is probably now necessary for high school students. But in Henrico, I do not see much being gained from the laptop program. Not all classes teach from information based on computer use and networks. When they break, the students don't seem to need one.

All of my kids have had access to computers since the mid 80's. All of them used computers for various things in school. Mostly they used them as typewriters. I'm certain that I would not let one of my kids go to school without home access to a computer, word processing program and the Internet. As cheap as computers are today, I don't think we need to waste scads of bucks on a school-sponsored program. I don't think the value is acheived from this program and our tax money could be better spent.