Public schools in the US are almost universally cash-strapped. Regardless, my point stands: no school should be spending a half million in tax money on corporate video games.
There are plenty of cheap/free games that could serve the purpose just fine, if indeed there is any educational merit whatsoever to this initiative (which I highly doubt).
How is this any different than public schools buying baseballs from Rawlings (co-owned by the MLB). Or football pads, basketball goals etc... I guarantee that the district in question spends far more than $450k purchasing sports equipment from corporations.
And since public schools are mostly locally funded, some districts aren't cash strapped.
>my point stands: no school should be spending a half million in tax money on corporate video games.
This decision is made at the district level, if the people don't like it, they can very easily vote in a different school board. The local voters are the ones who get to decide what they "should" spend their tax money on.
> if indeed there is any educational merit whatsoever to this initiative (which I highly doubt).
Participation in after school activities has been shown to positively impact educational performance.
Are there cheap/free games that kids actually want to play? It's not like this is a mandatory class, it is an elective like joining the football team. If the kids don't want to play the games the team competes in they won't join in the first place.
View this more like schools spending lots of money on football teams, not as an educational experiment.
There are plenty of cheap/free games that could serve the purpose just fine, if indeed there is any educational merit whatsoever to this initiative (which I highly doubt).