Lap Dancing

Here is some more data about the effect of laptop computers in the classroom.  I thank Katie Newmark of AEI and A Constrained Vision for the links and much of the commentary that follows.  And thanks to Joe Knippenberg for getting me in touch with Miss Newmark.  Of course all conclusions are my own.  As you may recall, the South Dakota Legislature will consider funding for laptop computers for every high school student in the state.  It is my position that this technology will have little to no effect on student performance and thus the money ($13 million from the state and $26 million from school districts) would be better spent on other items, such as higher teacher pay.  It turns out that there is considerable data on my side. 

Take a look at this study.  As Katie Newmark put it in an email to me, "Focusing on California, [the study] found that the additional investments in technology had no statistically significant impact on test scores either one or two years after the government program began."

There is also this study (pdf alert), which is nicely summed up here. Katie writes:

University of Munich researchers studied detailed data on 174,000 students from around the world and found that once they controlled for family income and school characteristics, greater computer use led to lower test scores. They also found that, if used properly for education, computers can slightly increase test scores. But they caution that the optimal amount of computer use at school is low, somewhere between "a few times a year" and "several times a month."

Get that. Greater computer use led to lower tests scores. 

Finally this study (another pdf alert), which I was already familiar with.  Katie Nemark, once more:

Two economists studied a program in Israel that used money from the lottery to buy computers for elementary and middle school classrooms.  The program design and detailed data allowed for a rigorous methodology that controlled for many school and student characteristics. They found no evidence that increased computer use
improved test scores. In fact, for fourth grade math classes, which saw the greatest impact on classroom techniques as a result of the new computers, test scores actually had a statistically significant decline.

Let's see that one again: In fact, for fourth grade math classes...test scores actually had a statistically significant decline. 

The evidence is clear.  A pervasive use of laptops in education at best has no effect, and in fact there is some evidence that significant use of computers in the classroom actually leads to lower educational achievement.