Published: January 1, 1992

Back To The Future

The Belridge School in McKittrick, Calif., is an oasis in a desert. Surrounded by scrubcovered mountains and miles of oil fields where pumps--like mechanical vultures--suck oil from the sand, it is virtually isolated from the rest of the world.

The tiny K-8 school district struck it rich in 1988. Tax revenues from oil development allowed officials to buy every teacher and student at Belridge a computer for school and another for home use. The building was endowed with laserdisc players, a television station, videocassette recorders, sophisticated music equipment, and enough software to keep the machinery whirring constantly. The ambitious project--called "District and Community of Tomorrow Today,'' DACOTT 21/20 for short--was supposed to propel Belridge into the next century.

The goal was to develop a "community of learners''--including students, teachers, and parents-- who could use technology to tap into vast sources of information. The district was perfect for such a venture. The school was blessed with small class sizes, and parental involvement seemed to be high; one school board member reports that 70 percent of the parents participated in technology training classes...