Why Tablets in the Classroom Could Save Schools $3 Billion a Year

A group of publishers and tech companies gathered in Washington tday to talk about getting digital textbooks into U.S. classrooms. The gathering, convened by the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Education, included everyone from Apple to Intel to McGraw-Hill, and it was premised on the idea that digitizing classrooms is a good thing. And for argument’s sake, let’s say it is. But not because doing so will save schools much money. At least not anytime soon.

• The model assumes that the tablets the students use cost $250 a piece today, and will drop in price to $150 in the “future.” Presumably this assumes that device-makers end up working some kind of bulk purchase price with school districts.
• But even as hardware costs drop, other costs won’t. Which means that while a school that equips its kids with a tablet and a mobile data plan will theoretically save $34 a student per year today, those savings creep up to only $60 a student in the “future,” even though tablet costs will have dropped by $100.
• There are more than 49 million students in public elementary and secondary schools in the U.S., so $60 a student per year is still real money — nearly $3 billion. But that’s still less than 2 percent of the outlay per student per year. Which means there had better be lots of other reasons to make the switch.