By William M. Welch, USA TODAY
Heather Sutherland was excited to learn her public school system was using laptop computers to teach elementary students such as her daughter. Until, that is, she found out parents were expected to pay the nearly $1,500 cost.
"I said, 'What? You must be joking,' " Sutherland says. "I think it's unfair that the (school district) is requiring us to 'pay to learn.' "
The public school system in this quiet city 27 miles southeast of Los Angeles is pushing the frontiers of computer technology in the classroom with a program that puts a laptop computer into the backpacks of children as early as first grade. It is pushing the boundaries of financing, too, by asking parents to pay $500 a year for three years so each of more than 2,000 elementary and middle school children can have their own Apple iBook G4 laptop.
But asking parents to pay for it isn't.
"I can see where that issue raises concerns," he says. "I'm not aware of anyone else who has tried that."
The Fullerton program, at four of 20 district schools, has created a storm of controversy for the school system and its superintendent, Cameron McCune. It also has raised broader questions about how far public schools here and elsewhere can go in using costly technology in the face of tight school budgets and limited funding.
Some parents worry that whatever its educational benefits, the program has created an expensive burden for struggling families and has forged new divisions in the public schools.
Sutherland, who kept her 11-year-old daughter out of the program, is concerned that it creates "a horrible form of financial segregation."
"It's mind-boggling that they would even suggest such a thing," Sutherland says.
Some parents say the financial expectations and price tag violate California's constitutional guarantee of a free public education -- a principle also in other state constitutions. The parents are threatening a lawsuit and have enlisted the help of the American Civil Liberties Union.
"The California constitution is very, very clear: My children attend a free public school," Sandra Dingess says.
Dingess moved three of her four children to another school within the district to avoid the big computer bill and what she says was the embarrassment her children faced from being unable to pay. Her fourth child, an eighth-grader, remained in the program for a final year.
McCune, who created the program, acknowledges that his school system is trying something controversial, but he says lower-income families can get help paying for the computers. "In all four schools, nobody has been denied access because of a lack of ability to pay."
There are other concerns. Some parents say transferring to another school is not fair. Others object to requests for tax returns and financial records to obtain aid. "We don't think you have the right to ask for that information," Dingess says. "You're not the IRS. You're a public school."
Computers now common in class.
Schools have come a long way in embracing technology in the past decade. More than 99% of public schools had Internet access by 2002, according to federal statistics. It is commonplace for even elementary classrooms to have one or more computers.
In high schools, computer labs with multiple machines allow students to research subjects and type up and print papers. The computers also let kids use Internet-based prep courses for college entrance exams such as the SAT and fill out online college applications, National PTA official Chuck Saylors says. "At the PTA, we would encourage technology in the classroom,' says Saylors, of Greenville, S.C. "Whether you are (going to be) a food server in a restaurant or the CEO of a major corporation, every child that leaves school now, regardless of what they do in adult life, is going to have to have some knowledge of technology."
Well-stocked labs lessen pressure on parents to buy computers for their children, Saylors says, but "not every school district and not every family can have the resources to make that happen."
He says teachers, in assigning outside work, generally are sensitive to differing computer resources in their students' homes. In Greenville, he says, the school system has invited big employers to donate their used computers to the schools, which in turn lease them to the families of students for as little as $10 a year.
"We'd love to see computers in classrooms and in every home, but realistically that's almost impossible," Saylors says.
That brings up the issue of disparity in education.
Reg Weaver, president of the National Education Association union, which represents 2.7 million teachers, says the issue isn't computers but money.
"If there was (adequate) funding there, no kid would have to worry about whether or not their parents choose for them to have a computer," Weaver says.
Attempts in recent years to start similar programs with parents purchasing laptops were suspended in the face of controversy at a San Diego County school district and in Palo Alto, Calif. In the face of a potential suit, Fullerton's elected school board has halted plans to expand it to all sixth-graders next year and ordered a reassessment.
Educational value worth the price?
Students seem to like the brave new world, though what they're learning may not be so educational. In Fullerton, computers are used in all subjects and as much as 60% of the class work. Some of what they learn is how to e-mail friends and download music.
"It was fun to have around and to use for my own purposes," says Riley Hall, 13, who was in the program last year but transferred to another school for eighth grade. "But it didn't make school any better or more challenging. ... A lot of it at school was to show off what you know about computers."
In designing Fullerton's program, McCune points to Henrico County, Va., where 24,000 laptops have been put in the hands of high school and middle school students, and Maine, where 38,000 laptops have been provided to seventh- and eighth-graders. In both cases, the county or state provided the laptops. Parents weren't asked to lease or buy them.
Fullerton officials say their system can't afford that.
"Our problem here in California is we're underfunded so much, we just don't have the money to pay for it," school board member Minard Duncan says. "I don't blame the parents for objecting to paying for what we call free public education."
Copyright 2006 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
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