For example, schools with 81percent or more economically disadvantaged students, as defined by federal education Title I eligibility, have one multimedia computer for every 32 students while a school with less than 20 percent economically disadvantaged students 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. Additionally, just over 50 percent of the schools with 70 percent or more poor students have Internet access compared to nearly 80 percent of schools which have less than 11 percent lower income 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.
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. Statistics by the Educational Testing Service show a much lower students per computer ratio of 24 students to one multimedia computer.