We still have school imbalance savage inequalities described by Jonathan Kozol in 1992. The imbalance is getting worse: Now, kids who have their own mobile Internet devices — laptops and smartphones — have a new, important advantage over youngsters in failing schools. The analog resources of public schooling are designed to let most students settle for a median of C+, like the high point on a bell curve. Things are very different at the ends of the bell curve. Their is deep failure and dropping out at one end. At the other end an elite is excelling with the help of Internet access through mobile devices that individual students own. Examples: private prep schools, a scattering of exceptional schools in wealthy districts, and homeschoolers.
The simple fix is to give every student his or her own mobile wireless access to the Internet.
Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt told the June 2009 graduates of Carnegie Mellon University that ubiquitous information is coming and that it is important because it is “a tremendous equalizer.” Dumping many billions of dollars on the bell curve system of schools we have now will not equalize the opportunity of students. Some students will still be in failing schools, most will be near the C+ average, a few will have every advantage. If all have devices they will be learning from the same virtual page, and in that they will be equal.
