The movement toward the use of digital resources to replace textbooks in public schools – putting 21st-century tools in students’ hands, as one principal put it – makes absolute sense. But the costly transition to the new technology will likely exacerbate the already large socioeconomic gap in education.
The only real solution is for the General Assembly to figure out how to ramp up funding to school districts to replace aging textbooks with digital devices.
“I fully support that direction, but the problems remain,” Beverly Emory, superintendent of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County schools, told the Journal’s Arika Herron. “You’ve got to fund it.”
State money for purchasing traditional textbooks has declined markedly in recent years. This school year, the state allotment went from $60 per student to $14, Forsyth school officials told the Journal. The typical textbook cost between $50 and $75 each. Many instructors are teaching from textbooks that are 10 or more years old. And because the supplies are limited, students are not allowed to take the books home.
To encourage the transition to digital devices, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County schools this year began a “bring-your-own-device” program that is now in place in several schools, according to Kevin Sherrill, the district’s chief operating officer for technology services. This fall, the program will be launched in every school.
Sherrill told the Journal that the program will help offset the number of devices the district will have to provide to make sure every student has access to the technology.
That sounds good in theory, but it seems clear that students from poorer families will be at a disadvantage, not only because other students will have the devices sooner, but they likely also have Internet service at home.
Vickie Sigmon, who heads Open Arms Community, Inc., a nonprofit, faith-based neighborhood organization that works with low-resource children, sees the “bring-your-own-device” program as further widening the educational opportunity gap between rich and poor.
“Our kids are already negatively impacted by the technological divide – very, very, very, very, very few of them have internet access at home,” she wrote in an e-mail to the Journal editorial board. “Not one of these kids owns or has access to a tablet.”
She has a valid concern. The “bring-your-own-device” program is a way to start the transition, but the school system must find a way to provide equal access to technology to all students, regardless of their socioeconomic status.
Gov. Pat McCrory’s budget proposal for next year includes $46 million for textbooks. The General Assembly would be wise to work with the governor to move much of that money and more toward the digital transformation of our public schools. We’re already behind.
