The Alabama Ahead Act established a state board responsible for replacing paper textbooks with eBooks & helping districts purchase computer equipment. However, the Legislature neglected to actually fund the act. That's why the co-sponsors are back again this year, pre-filing an updated bill to authorize a $100 million bond issue to provide for laptops & tablets for students in all grades in Alabama public schools. 
One hundred million dollars sounds like a heck of a lot of money, but the sponsors say that it could save the state $15 million a year. In Part 1 of this series, we looked at the technological challenges facing school districts and focused on the Huntsville City Schools, which implemented this program beginning with the 2012/2013 school year.
Today, we'll address the issue of cost – which in this case is inextricably linked with technology. If you haven't already read Part 1, consider reviewing it because we'll build on the issues discussed there in this article.
Let's get started on the flip…
A "Boneheaded Move?"
Madison County HD-06 Representative Phil Williams didn't pull any punches when he told The Huntsville Times: “I’m concerned we’re about to make a boneheaded move.”
Williams is chair of the House Technology Committee and vice chair of the Education Policy Committee. He said fellow lawmakers that are pushing to spend money on hardware fail to understand how quickly technology changes or how technology is even used by children.
“The device is the mistake,” he said, meaning the state was already missing the latest trends by focusing on hardware purchases.
Williams said the “pen-enabled tablets or mobile computers” called for by the Alabama Ahead Act could be obsolete in two or three years. One of the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Jim McClendon, says if passed this session, the state could start saving taxpayers between $15 to $20 million a year by avoiding the replacement of traditional textbooks every seven years.
Bill co-sponsor Rep. Phil McClendon scoffed at Williams' concerns: "I guess he thinks we need to stick with Gutenberg technology."
Well, kudos for making a cool historical reference and including a logical fallacy (the False Dilemma) in the same sentence, Rep. McClendon. And that attitude is just what parents in Huntsville encountered when they questioned how the transition to digital was being handled by school officials:
"Parents are either supportive of this initiative or we are anti-technology, anti-progress, anti-anything good for our kids," Claflin said. "This is ridiculous and I am tired of being vilified so that the district office and Wardynski can distract everyone from the fact this digital initiative has been a negligent disaster at best."
So let's stop ridiculing people who suggest that school systems may be moving too fast, without understanding the technical challenges or having a good handle on the real costs.
If Alabama fails to adopt this new bill, we won't all suddenly become Southern Luddites or wake up Amish. Insulting people who raise perfectly valid concerns does nothing to enhance the discussion.
Additional Costs For Schools To Switch
Let's look at the cost challenges that come along with not only purchasing the technology, but building the infrastructure that will support it. That's the real discussion we need to be having when people start waving around promises of expected cost savings. In Part 1, we looked at the Huntsville City Schools' launch as a prototype for this effort, so let's go back to that topic and look at the costs involved when the system made the switch:
Equipment Costs: $6.9 million to HP for laptops
eTextbook costs: $21 million to Pearson
Then there are the additional costs, as the HCS acknowledged this month:
In the short term, rolling out laptops for students can create added costs, rather than reduce spending. Infrastructure improvements are often needed, such as expanded access to broadband internet, or additional wireless internet routers.
In Huntsville, total spending in 2012 on instructional services and support -- which would include digital technology -- was nearly unchanged relative to the same category of spending in 2009.
Cost savings? Hmmmm
Building Home Infrastructure For Students
Initially, the HCS tablets/laptops did not have the textbooks loaded onto the devices. Students needed Internet access not just to complete homework assignments, but also to even access their texts for study. This created problems for students who participate in after-school activities because the inevitable downtime and travel time was wasted. No more doing homework while waiting for a sibling to finish soccer practice.
But the bigger issue was with students from lower income households that didn't have a home wifi network installed – or even Internet access of any kind. This year, the school system is considering a partnership with the Huntsville Housing Authority to expand wifi access in public housing units that contain school-age children. The public authorities will partially subsidize the wifi, with residents contributing $2/month.
Free wireless is already available at the Oscar Mason Community Center on Holmes Avenue and several other housing authority facilities. But board member Delvin Sullivan said children need wireless access at home to take full advantage of their school-issued laptops.
"It's called homework," said Sullivan. "You should be able to do homework in the house."
Lundy has been working to improve computer access for school-age children in public housing whose families cannot afford Internet fees.
Madison County is wealthy compared to many other Alabama counties. It has median household income of $57,453, compared to the Alabama median household income of $42,934. Compare even that lower state number to Hale County ($29,236), Cleburne County ($37,875), Greene County ($23,004), and DeKalb County ($36,853). How many of these less wealthy counties – particularly mainly rural counties that already lag behind in broadband access – have the resources to provide any home Internet access to students, discounted or not?
Additional Costs To Upgrade School Infrastructure
Co-sponsor Rep. McClendon acknowledges these challenges, noting the importance of reliable Internet access:
McClendon says the bill would require each school system that participates to cover a quarter of the hardware costs. The updated bill also allows them to spend money on “infrastructure readiness.”
“Wireless connectivity is the number one thing that has to be done before we put in wireless devices,” McClendon told our news partners Wednesday.
There's a big problem here though that the Alabama Ahead Act doesn't address: many areas in rural and small town Alabama lack broadband access. Check out this state map (and note that you need broadband to access it!). Large swaths of the state have few broadband options and it's often limited to broadband wireless access (like over your smart phone) – not wired Internet. That's less reliable and hard to use if you live in hilly terrain or try to access the connection indoors.
This is a problem for kids trying to do homework at home and also for school systems that need to install wireless networks that are capable of handling the bandwidth load of an entire school full of students.
OK then…. Here it appears that Rep. McClendon is acknowledging that his "Alabama Ahead Act" may save the state money, but it's going to cost local school systems – at least in the short term. That makes sense; it tracks with that the HCS digital initiative found. But let's revisit those numbers from Huntsville.
The city is spending $2.3million per year to lease laptops for 5th-12th graders for 3 years. That doesn't include the costs for the iPads for the lower grades or the insurance on the hardware. It also doesn't include extra money spent to upgrade in-school Internet connectivity or the latest initiative to offer home Internet access. Yet, the "Alabama Ahead Act" doesn't cover all the expenses school systems will incur when they do this. Wealthier, urban counties in Alabama can probably swallow this extra expense with no problem, but remember that they're the exception in the state, not the rule.
The Big Question: Is $100 Million Enough?
Under the Act, the state wil contribute 75% of the cost of equipment. School districts will be able to make their own decisions about what to purchase, and Rep. MacClendon noted that some districts may have to economize:
Dial and McClendon say their approach would cover about 75 percent of the cost of new digital devices and school districts. They said school districts would have to decide which kind of device they wanted and submit applications showing how they'd be used.
"Of course, everybody wants high-end equipment, but they need to talk about what they can actually afford," McClendon said.
In Hunstville, the school system leased 11,000 HP laptops for 3 years at $207 per laptop per year and think they got a deal because (they say) that the units retailed for $1100. Ahem... who pays retail? $621 per leased laptop in a bulk buy doesn't sound like a great deal.
If other school systems make similar "deals," the equipment costs for public school students would be huge.
In 2011/2012, there were 735,000 public school students in Alabama. Let's do some math and calculate costs for the first year (numbers are rounded):
735,000 x $207 per laptop: $152,145,000
State portion 75%: $114,108,000
School districts 25%: $ 38,035,000
State textbook spending: $15.88/student 735,000 x $15.88: $11,671,800
It appears that the state sharing portion for equipment purchases alone could suck up the entire bond issue in the first year - even before the first eTexbook is purchased.
Who's Actually Benefitting From The Switch In Huntsville?
The switch to digital is a good deal – for some. Just look at the total costs for the Huntsville City Schools system:
The only people who had any input into this decision are people who directly benefit from the transition happening:
Pearson making $21,902,845 over six years.
HP making an as yet still unofficial amount of $6.9 million. (This is unofficial because as you can see the published contract does not contain any hard numbers. I have asked about this, but of course I’ve received no answer.)
PPT Solutions (the IT Consultants headed by Laquita Nelson in charge of the updated network) making from November 2011 thru July 2012 $438,216.00.
Now let's consider the nature of Alabama government. Some legislator, somewhere, surely has a brother-in-law with a bunch of old laptops he'd be happy to unload for the bargain price of $600. And Speaker Mike Hubbard may expand his business model to include wifi connectivity.
Somebody's going to make a lot of money if this goes through, but will the money be well spent? And is the state bond issue nearly enough to make the transition smooth and effective?
In Part 3, we'll move away from the cost issues and look at whether digital learning actually benefits students – particularly younger students.