Dive Brief:
- Project LIFT, a network of semi-autonomous schools in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district, has moved away from its student-laptop initiative and towards closer collaboration with its district.
- The network was originally launched as an experiment in extra freedom for schools and space to try innovative approaches.
- It was funded through a private-public partnership and, early on, launched a one-to-one laptop program using a little-known company called XO Champions; the schools have since moved away from the laptop program and joined a district-wide push.
Dive Insight:
Independent evaluators who looked at Project LIFT's laptop program released a report this year that detailed a set of discouraging findings: Students typically used the laptops for a single lesson a day, and the use was typically superficial. Students rarely used the laptops at home and were irritated, along with teachers, by hardware problems.
The report also laid out a set of challenges that should prove a cautionary tale to any administrator looking to launch a big tech initiative: unreliable internet access, incompatibility between online testing and the devices, and a lack of clarity around how the laptops were supposed to be used in the classroom. The network also jumped into the program quickly, without much planning, as part of the larger launch.
"When schools are given the freedom to innovate, they get really excited," Arielle Rittvo Kinder, a partner at the NewSchools Venture Fund, a nonprofit that invests in education innovation, said. "But understanding the possible unintended consequences is really important."
