THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 22, 1995 TAG: 9504200009
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
There have been a number of articles in your paper recently regarding the lack of computer and technology education in our public schools, both locally and nationally.
As a technolgist and computer teacher, this is not surprising to me. It is very expensive to teach technology skills due to the expense of the equipment and software and additional expertise required of the instructor. Also, there are no off-the-shelf textbooks or curriculum manuals for technolgy teachers to use in their classes. Since hardware and software advances come so rapidly, no publisher is willing to invest in the printing of textbooks.
The Virginia Beach city manager and the City Council should be commended for rejecting the recent bond proposal to buy new computers for the school system. The computers will be obsolete in three to five years, but we will be paying off the bond for 15 or 20 years. It would be like buying a car on a 30-year mortgage.
Many private schools that I have visited commit anywhere from $250 to $500 per student per year for computer-literacy training. Costs for a large public school will be similar. When you amortize the cost of the equipment, sofware and equipment upgrades over three years (the typical life of technology advances), each computer will cost the school district $115 or more per month. Given our short school day, that computer may actually be in use a total of 20 hours per week, which means a school with 1,000 students will need at least 37 computers to give each student one class per week.
This equates to more than $51,000 per year just for equipment. Since computer training is best done in small classes of 12 or fewer students, this school would be required to hire at least three teachers to teach these classes. At $35,000 (including benefits), the instructor-cost alone would run $105,000 per year. Add in supplies of about $60 per student per year and currriculum costs of $10,000 to $20,000 (assuming it could be purchased or leased), this school will spend at least $226,000 per year for an adequate computer program or about $226 per year per student. Schools with fewer students will spend more on a per-student basis.
Until we decide to include these amounts into our operational school budgets and provide continuing computer and technology training for our teachers, we are not likely to have the type of program that we need for our students today.
LOU VESCIO
Virginia Beach, April 8, 1995 by CNB