Some schools don't get the choice... (Score 1)

The discussion about computers in the classroom is kind of moot if there are no funds to actually buy and maintain the machines and to supply ancillaries such as software.

A friend of mine is a teacher in a Daly City school (a city near San Francisco). The only reason she has computers in her classroom is because she went out and got them from a company that was donating old machines. (She got into trouble with her principle for doing this - he paniced about the political implications of having a teacher obtaining computers without his intervention.)

Because of her efforts her students now have access to eight 486's and two pentium 133s. Without her efforts they would have nothing. The local school system has no funds for computers - they barely have funds for books.

I get the impression that this is fairly representative of the situation in many schools. A lot of retoric and showcase IT programs has obscured the fact that many schools, especially in poorer districts, have little or nothing of substance in the way of computers they can use.