Well, I'm restricted by my district as far as XP goes. They're primary reasoning for going with apps and other peripherals that aren't yet compatible with Win 7? "Oh, they'll need XP in the real world." Of course that was years ago but now we're saddled with a nearly obsolete OS. I would dare say that working with Snow Leopard probably prepares them better for Win 7 than XP does.

As far as your friends and their support issues go, I see more friends with Win 7 support issues than Mac hardware stuff. I guess it comes down to my friends/family against yours? : )

I don't want to start a platform holy war but I hardly think that going with Macs is a "horrible idea" any more than going all Windows would be. One of the things we strive for at my school is giving the kids exposure to multiple platforms with the idea that they will develop a greater understanding and appreciation of when and how technology should be used to solve problems. That being said, I do not agree with the district's choice to force parents to buy a particular make/model. I can see forcing a common platform choice if the district was footing the bill but even then only if it had benefit for teachers and students. All too often IT people in education forget that their convenience is not the overarching goal.

I don't know the nitty gritty on why they chose to go this way but I'm hoping that it's driven by pedagogy and not IT convenience.

If things did go as badly as you say, it's more likely that there was little or no money spent on professional development. Too often schools buy technology but fail to back it up with effective training, thus wasting their investment in hardware.

I bet you walked five miles to school everyday too right? Uphill both ways?

Gee, was this posted in 1988? Because most of it was only true back then. Next you'll be telling us that Macs only come with a one button mouse. First of all, it's really rare to find hardware peripherals today that aren't compatible right out of the box. In fact often times drivers are preloaded for Macs when Windows machines need to do the futile search online if the included drivers are out of date. (Pretty common with Win 7.) As far as Pwn2Own goes, I see it as kind of a textbook exercise. We all know that Charlie and his bunch can crack a Mac in milliseconds but in the real world where I live, and manage over 400 Macs and about a hundred XP boxes, I've never seen a Mac with any kind of malware. It could happen tomorrow but not so far. The XP boxes on the other hand, are always getting infected despite the entire network being behind a pretty tight firewall.

Now ignoring all of that remember that every Mac nowadays is also a Windows machine. ( I run a few Mac Minis exclusively running XP, no trace of OS X.) With the ability to run OS X, XP, WIn 7, Ubuntu simultaneously with virtualization, it means that there's virtually no application that can't be run. In my eyes that's truly preparing kids for the future. BTW most of the kids I work with can jump back and forth between XP and Snow Leopard without blinking an eye. I hardly think their Mac experience will be the hindrance you describe.

I don't know why the district decided to go only Mac. If I were the IT director, I'd urge choice within some basic requirements. However I can see may different reasons that the Macs offer the better alternative.