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Education Experts Skeptical of Microsoft Settlement

Daily Policy Digest

Education Issues

Thursday, November 29, 2001

As part of its antitrust settlement, Microsoft has agreed to contribute more than a billion dollars' worth of software, computer equipment, technology training and cash to some 12,500 impoverished schools.

But education experts question whether the gift technologies will really help children from low-income families learn.

The 1996 Coleman report found that no clear link exists between school resources and results.

And study after study has shown that adding computers to otherwise unchanged schools does not raise student achievement.

Computers can even worsen matters by giving teachers more ways to distract children rather than teach them, a number of education specialists agree.

By contrast, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation sponsors a number of promising low-tech education reform efforts -- such as replicating successful schools and replacing vast high schools with smaller units -- as well as experimenting imaginatively with technology.

Technology may be part of a successful mix, but only as an instructional tool akin to good textbooks and well-stocked library shelves.

Source: Chester E. Finn Jr. (Thomas B. Fordham Foundation), "Microsoft Settlement Won't Benefit Schools," Wall Street Journal, November 28, 2001.

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