In Cobb County Georgia, the school district’s administration proposed in February to provide an iBook (Apple Computer Co.) for every teacher and students, grades 6 -12. It would have been a major transformation in the way education would be implemented in the district. Cobb is the 2nd largest school district in Georgia. The proposal would have been the largest laptop program in the United States. It’s been stopped in its tracks. Some say that the superintendent and his staff mislead the public in the use of county funds (it would have been a $100 million project), and influenced the final decision of which computer company would ge the contract. The public (according to the Marietta Daily Journal–which in my opinion was biased against the superintendent’s plan) was incensed, and it appeared that the support that was needed eroded over the past 6 months. There are deeper issues, however, that were avoided in the discussions in newspaper, and in the school committee’s public meetings (five of the seven members of the school board supported the superintendent–as of now, it is 4-3, this Thursday, the fate of the superintendent could be decided). The deeper issue is what impact the use of laptops for each student, grades 6-12 would have had on the nature of teaching, the curriculum, and success of students. The only instructional issue I noticed being brought up was the affect the computers would have on student achievement, eg.how would it impact test scores. The problem that I see is the deeper consideratioin of how such a transformation would change the nature of teaching and learning in the district. How would it impact the goals of the curriculum? What would become of the curriculum? Perhaps the lack of discussion of these issues indicated that change is difficult, and the in reality, the public was really not interested in moving in this direction. Yet, in other parts of the nation, districts are moving in this direction. A small district in Arizona, for example, announced that each student will be getting an Apple iBook, and that the curriculum would reflect this fact. It was, according to the superintendent, a district that has taken risks in the use of technology over years. Maybe Cobb simply is not ready for that.