Maine pupils get iBook learning

BOOTHBAY HARBOR, Maine -- Along with their textbooks and lunch money, every seventh- and eighth-grader here lugs another school-day essential from class to class: an Apple iBook.

In science, the students use the laptop computer to design a Rube Goldberg contraption. In social studies, the class logs on to a website to see if Congress reflects the nation's diversity. And in English, they tap out essays about a healthy diet.

The state put a laptop into the hands of every Maine seventh- and eighth-grader three years ago. It's a statewide program that Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts hopes to replicate on an even grander scale, saying that students need high-tech skills to succeed in the workforce.

Romney's proposal, which would be the largest of its kind in the nation, calls for spending $54 million to equip about a half million students -- every Massachusetts student in the sixth through 12th grades -- with a low-budget laptop. His plan, unveiled last week, depends on the availability of a laptop costing about $100, similar to one being developed by MIT.

Some key lawmakers say they have other educational priorities and are concerned about the cost and technical hurdles, similar to the concerns in Maine when then-governor Angus King first made international news with his plan.

Three years after laptops were first handed out, teachers and students generally rave about it. But there is no hard proof of an educational payoff, and funding issues loom.

Maine's four-year contract to lease the 34,000 computers is due to expire at the end of the school year. The state has spent $37 million to lease the computers and train teachers. Governor John Baldacci supports the program, but is looking for ways to fund it, said Lynn Kippax, a spokesman for the governor.

While Romney proposes letting students own the laptops, students in Maine don't get to keep them. The machines are treated much like textbooks, with students returning them at the end of the school year. Only some districts let students take laptops home; in others, the schools stow them in a cart overnight.

At Boothbay Region Elementary, a K-8 school, students use them for most classes and sometimes after class.

Educators said that they believe using the laptops has improved students' writing, because it is easier to check spelling, revise sentences, and find facts. Students are also willing to spend more time revising work, teachers said.

''They'll actually give me more information if they're able to type it, because handwriting is a hindrance," said Nicole Pendexter, a special-education teacher in Lewiston. ''They're showing so much more of what they know."

Students said they like the ease of research on the computers, linked to the Internet through a wireless connection.

''It's a lot easier than looking it up in the encyclopedia," said Robert Cronk, 13, an eighth-grader at Boothbay Region Elementary.

There have been some glitches. At a math class in Lewiston this week, one girl had to work on something different from the rest of the class because her laptop was undergoing repairs. During the same class, her teacher struggled to get everyone logged on to a site to view video lessons about fractions.

Maine can't point to the kind of results the public is most interested in seeing: rising test scores. For the last two years, average scores on the state's eighth-grade test were about the same as those for eighth-graders before they were issued laptops.

But David Silvernail, a University of Southern Maine professor hired to evaluate the program, said he didn't expect the laptops to make much difference on state tests. ''The test doesn't test the right things . . . except possibly in writing," he said. ''Our test is like most tests. It's still kind of testing recall -- 'Do you know this fact?' "

Even as Romney proposes a large-scale laptop program, a smaller project is underway in North Adams and Pittsfield, where seventh-graders will receive computers this fall using $2 million in state funds.

Romney vetoed the funds for the program last year because it wasn't apparent that the money was meant to pay for school laptops, said Eric Fehrnstrom, a Romney spokesman. The Legislature overrode the veto.

Lawmakers probably won't hold a hearing on Romney's laptop plan until November, said Representative Patricia A. Haddad, cochairwoman of the Joint Education Committee. Haddad, a former middle-school teacher, said that for all of the promise of laptops, they will bring all kinds of practical problems: What happens when students forget laptops at home? What happens when they break them?

She even fears that some parents might sell their children's computer.

''That's probably a very unkind thing to say, but you think it's not going to happen?" Haddad said. ''So where does that put that child? Are you now going to penalize this kid?"