Consider that children from lower income areas and many disadvantaged minority children, children less likely to have computers at home, are unfortunately also less likely to have computers in their schools. Title I eligibility, have one multimedia computer for every 32 students while a school with less than 20 percent economically disadvantaged will have a multimedia computer for every 22 students. Schools with 90 percent or more minority students have one multimedia system for every 30 students. Now consider that the very students with the least technology available to them are the ones who can be helped most by its use. This was borne out by a recent City University of New York study that noted dramatic increases in test scores for disadvantaged students once computer-aided instruction was introduced or increased in their curricula.
Computers are patient, persistent and operate with total equanimity.
These are also the very youth helped most by this legislation because of its incentive clause to encourage equipment donations where they are needed most, to enterprise and empowerment zones. The New Millennium Classrooms Act is an act of empowerment. Even outside the target zones delineated in the bill, our schools stand in dire need of technology upgrading. That's about ten students for each computer. The best that can be said about these systems is that they're a step above typewriters, but even that statement is suspect.