Many parents would like to think that having a netbook would help their child get better grades.  Sometimes it doesn’t work out and it leaves the parents with a bad taste in their mouth and out several hundred dollars.

In Kentucky, a school system decided to pick up 7,000 HP netbooks to give to their students.  They ended up stopping payment for the computers because they didn’t feel that they were getting service fitting of all the money they spent.

The computers proved unable to deal with being used by school aged children.  The netbooks, each costing over $400 each, developed cracks in the casing and contributed to students getting worse grades.  It turns out that when you put a computer in the hands of a kids they will use them to distract themselves from their school work.

To add insult to injury some parents have had to buy multiple netbooks because existing units would just stop working.

[Via Bizjournals.com]

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