CBS 46 Atlanta - More controversy in Cobb plan to buy student laptops

CBS 46 Atlanta - More controversy in Cobb plan to buy student laptops: Marietta
More controversy in Cobb plan to buy student laptops
Apr 16, 2005, 10:38 PM

MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) -- A much-debated plan by Cobb County educators to spend more than 100 (m)million dollars on student laptops ran into more controversy when a local newspaper revealed that a study on the proposal is being funded by Apple Computer.

The county school board voted last Wednesday to order an evaluation study by the University of Georgia to decide whether the county should spend 100-point-eight million dollars to give laptop computers to every high school student in the suburban county.

Cobb Superintendent Joe Redden pitched the study, but left out one detail: a computer company arranged for U-G-A to conduct the study and not the school district. The Marietta Daily Journal reported the Apple financing in today's editions.

The school board voted four-to-two to start buying laptops in phases. At first, according to the plan, 71 hundred teachers and 87 hundred students at four of Cobb's 14 high schools would get Apple G-four iBooks at an estimated cost of 25 million dollars.