Good read, though not <i>really</i> about the OLPC.<p>Cites a bunch of studies that show that introducing computers into schools in a cack-handed manner doesn't help. Tends to suggest this is the computers fault rather than the people rolling it out though.<p><i>"The World Bank studied a program in Colombia that increased the number of computers in schools ... and found no impact on student outcomes ... it was clear that the teachers simply weren't using the computers"</i><p>Found the info about the rise of private schools in slums and the impact of deworming (in both Africa and the US) surprising and interesting but I'm not a big fan of "you can't provide computers/open source software/better government until you've done X". Why not do both? In fact why not do anything that's shown to help, and prioritise by ROI?<p>Also interesting to see one of the easy and effective education reforms (grouping by ability, not age) is referred to as 'tracking'. I recognize the buzzword because the 4th series of the Wire mentions in passing that this is politically frowned upon in US schools.