Thirty years is a long time.

If the current bond proposal passes the district has promised to purchase computers for students who will move entirely thru the school system -- from Pre-K to graduation -- in 14 years. Think about that. At maximum the time a child will spend in our schools is less than half the duration of that loan. The district proposes to borrow money, provide a child a laptop; and when that child has graduated, in 2020, perhaps married in 2022, maybe has bought a house in 2023, and finally sent his OWN child to a Lancaster school, sometime in 2028 -- then our district will STILL be re-paying that 2007 bond. We, and our adult home-owning, taxpaying, used-to-be laptop-using-children, will still continue to owe principle and interest on the 2007 Bonds for another nine years. If the laptops are only provided to students in fifth grade and higher, those students will graduate ( I hope ) in 2013. Then their children might be entering LISD school in about 2022. Those kids will move from Pre-K thru 12th, and graduate in spring of 2035 -- and the Lancaster ISD will STILL have TWO YEARS of payments on the 2007 Bonds. This is assuming that the district doesn't decide on a 40 year bond. In that case the district won't make the last bond payment until 2047, when the current fifth-graders' GRANDCHILDREN could be starting school.

Our consultant, Red Whiddon, points out that in the 2004 Bond, there were similar purchases of technology. Maybe, having gotten away with it once, we have established a legal precedent and can expect to get away with a bigger,more expensive, and grandiose experiment. After all, there are other districts who've provided laptops to students, and look at the ... results? ( Even no results are results, right? )

The comptroller told in 2004 that the state would study the use of laptops in classrooms and let us know how well it works, in 2007.

Three years. Just to study how much bang for the buck a school gets with a laptop.

Three years is a LONG time.

But not as long as thirty years.