[OLPC-Chicago] Children's Low Cost Laptop Bill

Fri Mar 21 14:05:54 EDT 2008

Hi OLPC Chicago community,

I was very surprised, and certainly excited, when I heard that the State of Illinois has progressed as far as they have on House Bill 5000 (the Children's Low-cost Laptop Act). In correspondance earlier this week with Ryan Croke, Policy Advisor to Lt. Governor Quinn, he told me they expect the bill to be voted on by the House during the first week of April!!! If we are going to help get the bill passed, rapid action will need to be taken.

The progress of the bill can be followed at http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/billstatus.asp?DocNum=5000&GAID=9&GA=95&DocTypeID=HB&LegID=35963&SessionID=51 .

The full text of the bill can be found at http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=09500HB5000ham002&SessionID=51&GA=95&DocTypeID=HB&DocNum=5000&print=true.

An obvious way to help is to alert everyone we know to contact their Illinois State Representative and express support for the bill. The more personal that those appeals are the better. Emails help, but faxes, calls, and letters are even more effective. If the bill passes the House it would move to the State Senate next. People can find contact information for their state representative at http://www.elections.il.gov/DistrictLocator/AddressSearch.aspx.

Another very important step we, as the local OLPC community, can do is to inform our legislators about the educational benefits derived when every child has a laptop! We must be careful to not make this just about the XO (though I believe it is hands-down the best option). After all, OLPC reminds us frequently that this is an education project, not a laptop project. Help our legislators understand how education can RADICALLY CHANGE if yesterday's primary communication device (the pencil) is replaced with tomorrow's (the laptop).

The goal right now is to get the bill passed so there is money. Later, we can focus on schools to help them understand why the XO is a superior selection. My long-term concern is that the biggest threat to all OLPC goals is that the one laptop for every student ideal is lost. Once there is funding, I fear schools will view this as a great way to fund the purchase of laptops for labs or classrooms - but not for the kids to be able to take the computers home. Although the bulk of that effort will be in the future (after the bill passes), right now it would likely be helpful to drive that point home to legislators. Laptops for kids to POSSESS and MAKE THEIR OWN, not just laptops they can visit in a special room. This powerful learning paradigm should not stop when students exit the building called "school".

Another way to assist the effort is to anticipate concerns that legislators will have when considering their vote on the bill - and then educate them with the answers to those concerns. As most of you know, Birmingham, AL is at the leading edge of bringing a city-wide deployment of XOs to the United States. The following articles points out several concerns that representatives will have (or that others will bring to their attention):

Ala. city eyes developing-world laptops

By JAY REEVES, Associated Press WriterWed Mar 5, 3:13 PM ET

If $200 laptop computers are good for kids in Peru and Mongolia, why not Alabama?

Birmingham's City Council has approved a $3.5 million plan to provide schoolchildren with 15,000 computers produced by the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child Foundation, which aims to spread laptops to poor children in developing countries.

The foundation says the deal marks the first time a U.S. city has agreed to buy the machines, which also are headed to such countries as Rwanda, Thailand, Brazil and Mexico in addition to Peru and Mongolia.

Birmingham's school board still must agree to the deal, and some members have reservations. They want more evidence that computers designed for the African bush or the mountains of South America would be a good fit for an American city.

Reviews of the foundation's green-and-white "XO" laptops have been mixed, with praise for their simplicity, ruggedness and low price but complaints that U.S. children may be turned off by the machines' particular configuration. The user interface is built on the Linux operating system rather than the more familiar Windows.

In hopes of getting past such objections, the City Council agreed to spend $3 million buying machines from Cambridge, Mass.-based One Laptop Per Child and to give schools $500,000 to sort out technical issues. A laptop will be available for every child in grades 1 through 8.

Mayor Larry Langford, who pushed for bringing XOs to Birmingham and hopes to see them distributed by the fall, said the machines will give many inner-city children their first access to a computer.

About 80 percent of the system's 28,000 students are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, and the schools are dealing with declining enrollment and funding shortages. The board recently voted to close 16 of its 65 schools.

Birmingham school board member Virginia S. Volker likes the idea of laptops for students. But she said Langford didn't think through the plan before committing millions of tax dollars to pay for the machines. Birmingham schools lack wireless networks needed to get the laptops online, she said, and the system doesn't have enough technology workers to train teachers, much less students, on the computers.

"Thinking of public money, I am very reluctant to make a commitment on this until we are sure we can afford it," Volker said.

Let's start brainstorming a list of potential objections that will be raised in the Illinois House of Representatives (and later in the Illinois Senate) and start developing a list of powerful answers and deployment success stories to counter those objections!

Best Regards,
Larry Langellier

________________________________
From: olpc-chicago-bounces at lists.laptop.org [olpc-chicago-bounces at lists.laptop.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Crews [kcrews at imsa.edu]
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2008 12:25 AM
To: Jason Rock
Cc: OLPC chicago mailing list; OLPC IMSA List
Subject: Re: [OLPC-Chicago] Children's Low Cost Laptop Bill

To let everyone know, IMSA and not, this is, as Jason mentioned, extremely exciting.

Thanks to Larry and Steve out of MVCC for pointing this out as it emerged through the technology committee--I went ahead and started doing some of my own research after that.

My uncle, Jack Franks, is in the House.  I contacted him about this bill, and he was so excited he is now one of the sponsors.  Max McGee, the IMSA President and former State Superintendent of Education, is equally excited about this and has it on his radar.

We are planning some sort of presentation and/or follow-up in the near future, either with some of the sponsors or other interested parties.  I think that we can work to all prepare the information available and make easily accessible to the legislators.

Thoughts?

Kevin

On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 10:48 PM, Jason Rock <jrock at imsa.edu<mailto:jrock at imsa.edu>> wrote:
Hi,
Mel brought some fairly recent Illinois legislation to my attention.  The legislation creates, "A low-cost laptop pilot project whereby low-cost laptop computers are provided to each student, teacher, and relevant administrator in a participating elementary school and the use of open-source educational software and computer skills training is implemented."  If anyone wants to they can read more at http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=5000&GAID=9&DocTypeID=HB&LegID=35963&SessionID=51&GA=95&SpecSess=0.  Personally I will be writing a letter to congressmen and women asking for their support of this bill.  It would be great if you would join me, as the passing of this bill would obviously help advance the OLPC project.

Thanks,
Jason Rock

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