Tablets for Education?

Recently, I have become very aware of the the social injustices in the education system. Everyone has an absolute right to learn, but today, the education that each person receives is heavily influenced by where you live, what your parents do, and the color of your skin. 

An advocate for Teach for America came and visited my student org I am a part of a couple weeks back, and she shared her experience with teaching an AP US History class in a urban school in Atlanta. She said that she was thrown into an 11th grade classroom with 50 kids and the goal was to get every kid to pass the AP US History Exam. The only catch was that only 10 text books were available to the 50 kids in the class. I remember my AP US History class, Every student had a textbook under their desk at school, as well as, another text book that each student got to take home to study with. That is serious social injustice. 

I have to agree completely with Rotella when she says 

"Still, if everyone agrees that good teachers make all the difference, wouldn’t it make more sense to devote our resources to strengthening the teaching profession with better recruitment, training, support and pay? It seems misguided to try to improve the process of learning by putting an expensive tool in the hands of teachers we otherwise treat like the poor relations of the high-tech whiz kids who design the tool."

YES. Of course. Tablets for middle school and highschoolers? It's like we're asking for the future generations to have no correct social ability to interact or learn from other humans. Also, has anyone hung out with a 12-year-old lately? Their attention span is pretty much non-existent, and I know this because I lead a group of 7th grade girls each week and its incredibly difficult to get them to focus on anything. And to expect that they will enrich or fulfill their educational potential through a electronic tablet... that's unrealistic. The 30 million dollars are being wasted if they are being spent on tablets. If "falling behind" educationally behind other countries is a concern then the government should invest in equal education to all public school, as well as, efficiently training the educators to become better educators.