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Unveiling the Wireless Initiative
Berkshire Eagle | January 6, 2006
Editorial

If the young people of the Berkshires are to keep up with the increasingly fast pace of the world they will be sent into upon graduation, their schools must match the pace of that world. The Berkshire Wireless Learning Initiative, which gets under way today in Pittsfield and North Adams, is an ambitious, innovative attempt to help prepare students for the increasingly competitive workplace they will someday join.

Three years in the making, the $5.3 million initiative officially kicks off today, and a week from now all 711 seventh-graders in Pittsfield's Herberg and Reid middle schools, North Adams' Silvio O. Conte Middle School and St. Mark Catholic School in Pittsfield will have received Apple iBook G4 laptop computers. The teachers have already received their laptops for the pilot program, which could inspire similar efforts throughout the state.

The three-year program is unique not only in its goals but in its makeup, which consists of a collaboration of the Legislature, three school districts and the private sector, largely through the Berkshire Chamber of Commerce. The involvement of the local business community, which has raised $900,000 of an anticipated $1.6 million for the initiative, is an acknowledgment that a good school system not only produces qualified employees it attracts new people and businesses to the region. (The Berkshire Eagle is a sponsor of the initiative and is represented on the 11-member steering committee by Advertising Director Mark French.)

The laptops will enable Pittsfield seventh-graders to participate in a new math and science curriculum that will ideally help boost the scores of the city's two middle schools on the MCAS exams. Young people, familiar as they are with iPods, video games and other manifestations of the rapidly expanding world of technology, should take to the computers quickly. If education becomes more interesting, that will add to the benefits gained from access to new programs and curriculums.

A program this new is sure to present problems that can't be anticipated, but there is enough involvement from professionals at every level to help make adjustments. Boston College's technology and assessment study collaborative will evaluate the program as it goes along and the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts is also involved. The program is only as good as those who teach it, and it is important that teachers not only get the assistance they need but are allowed to provide feedback about strengths and weaknesses.

It has been less than three years since former state Representative Peter Larkin of Pittsfield brought former Maine Governor Angus King to town to talk about a similar program in his state. It has been less than two years since the Legislature, pushed by Mr. Larkin, overrode a veto by Governor Romney to fund the program. Public funding could be a concern in the future, but there is nothing to be gained by timidity. The Wireless Initiative is a bold effort to help Berkshire students, and by extension the Berkshires.