First School to Go All Digital Reports Rising Test Scores

August 21, 2007 – News station KVOA Tucson reports that grades and test scores are on the rise in at Empire High School in the Vail School District in Arizona. The first school in the country to go all-digital in 2005, Empire High School students read, write, and research on laptops loaned to them each year and communicate on a school-wide wireless network. The laptops have completely eliminated textbooks at the school. Instead of flipping through a book, the entire curriculum is posted online for students and they use the laptops to access assignments and send completed work back to their teacher. Teachers then grade the work online and send it back to their students. Two years into the program administrators, teachers, and students are praising the technological tools as the reason the students’ Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS) scores are going up.