Before the Beaufort County School District starts loaning the public's money for the Learning with Laptops program, taxpayers should be given some evidence that the program works. For the past two school years, sixth-graders in the program have been doing almost all their schoolwork on laptops.
Some students buy the computers themselves.
Others pay a little bit and the non-profit Beaufort County SchoolBook Foundation pays the rest. No public money is being sunk into the program. We have to qualify that last statement because there are more than 1,300 middle schoolers in the program, and the foundation admits it can't keep up. There's anecdotal evidence that the laptops have improved learning locally, but no real evidence. In fact, we've not seen any evidence anywhere that proves the benefits of laptops in the classroom.