Students, laptops & life lessons

A high school student who lives on her own and works 20 hours a week is about to graduate - until the school finds out that she lost her school-issued laptop. No laptop, no graduation, the principal tells her - unless she comes up with "a down payment of $300 on the $700 computer," the Boston Globe reports. The principal told the Globe, "These are the tough lessons in life." The student will graduate after all, though, because "a 'good Samaritan' called [the school] at 7:20 this morning and donated a laptop to replace the one that [was] lost," the Washington Post later reported in an article about school "bureaucracy gone silly." But this is also about the various costs, human and financial, of providing students with technology - especially students who can't afford it at home. Not that schools should ever stop loaning students laptops. A commentary in today's San Francisco Chronicle suggests that "we don't need a research study to point out the real difference in quality of life between an individual who has 24-7 broadband access and a person who has no Internet access at all or has to wait in line at the public library to get it."