For the sixth consecutive year, scores for Maine’s 8th graders have hardly budged on the state’s educational assessment.
Those results have some critics questioning whether the state’s 2-year-old initiative to put laptops into the hands of every 7th and 8th grader has been worth the $15 million it has cost.
Maine’s 8th graders, who have used the laptops for three semesters, improved slightly in mathematics in 2004 compared with a year earlier, but not in writing, the results released in August showed. 69´«Ã½ scores dropped slightly, while science scores were unchanged.
Defenders of the program say it will take more time for the impact of laptops to show up in school performance.