The debate over the Maine Learning Technology Initiative – laptops in schools – began several years ago with widespread doubt about the value of the technology, proceeded to limited acceptance of the technology but doubts about the specific Maine initiative, thence to a reworking of the plan and a doubling back to doubts about the value of the computers before finally arriving at acceptance, even admiration, of the value of the technology. This occurred just as lawmakers discovered they no longer had money to pay for the program.

Whoever said progress was easy?

The Legislature’s Education Committee has scheduled a hearing for tomorrow to consider an administration plan to use school renovation money in the ’04-’05 school year to overhaul high-school computer capabilities statewide. The $8 million upgrade would install wireless technology in the 155 high schools and introduce laptops to freshmen and sophomore grades. The freshmen would already be accustomed to laptops, having used them in middle school.

Spending renovation money to renovate technology and not, say, school roofs is a little unusual but legislators, who dawdled and nearly defeated the original laptop funding, shouldn’t blame the Education Department. Had the program begun as intended, the funding would have been ample. Instead Maine now has a patched together method of funding for technology that the rest of the country also has figured out is well worth investing in. If the department is to be faulted, it is for the way the proposal was presented – as a done deal when lawmakers have been working for months to squeeze savings from the budget. The renovation fund isn’t the best choice, but given the absence of alternatives, it is the best around.

Or it is until the ’05-’06 school year when the department wants school districts to start paying a share of the initiative’s costs. The program is voluntary so this isn’t an unfunded mandate, but it is a risk. One of the most important points of MLTI is that it provided this effective, innovative, exciting learning tool to every student, not just those who lived in districts that could afford it. The Education Department has proposed paying 55 percent of the cost, with the districts picking up the remainder, but that is not close to adequate. Some towns can afford only the most minimum share of the program but should still be able to participate if they choose, and no town has a substantial amount of money banked for laptops, as valuable as they are.

While Maine middle-school students have measurably enhanced their educations through using laptop technology, a substantial number of lawmakers have fumbled with various means to pay for it. The plan they have before them is flawed in the risks it assumes, or forces the towns to assume, but it keeps the initiative going, and lawmakers should support it and try to find a way to ensure all schools can afford to participate.