'A Kindle in every backpack'

Can Amazon.com's Kindle save America's floundering education system? That's the idea floated in a new report from Democratic Leadership Council, a Washington, D.C. think tank which touts a plan to bring electronic book readers like the Kindle to millions of K-12 students throughout the country.

The report -- titled "A Kindle in Every Backpack: A Proposal for eTextbooks in American Schools" -- is certainly bold in its vision. And I am sure Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos is lapping up every word of the 10-page report, which reads at times like an advertisement for the company's electronic reader device.

"The “Kindle in every backpack” concept isn’t just an educational gimmick—it could improve education quality and save money," writes author Thomas Freedman, who worked as an adviser to President Clinton and served on the Obama-Biden transition team.

But is this really a good idea to dump expensive electronic reading devices in the hands of elementary school kids and high-schoolers?

Gizmodo's Wilson Rothman, for one, has serious doubts. He points out the problems with smashed screens, and notes that the financial estimates in the report appear to be incorrect since they don't take into account the $489 price tag on the Kindle DX. That's the device with a 9.7 inch screen that's designed for educational use.

"Doing the math here, my numbers are a lot higher than the DLC's, and furthermore my estimates on E-Ink's future price drop are way more pessimistic," writes Rothman.

Meanwhile, several UW college students expressed possible limitations of electronic book readers in the classroom in an interview with TechFlash last February.

Nonetheless, the Democratic Leadership Council is pressing forward. It writes in the report:

"While the upfront hardware cost of providing a Kindle-like device to every child would necessitate a high front-end investment, costs for eTextbooks themselves would quickly produce a savings compared with print textbooks.  While the total cost per student for paper textbooks is expected to rise, from $109 now to $115 in 2016, the per-student cost of eTextbook materials would be about $200 initially and then could dive to about $80 by 2012."

Does this make economic and educational sense?

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