"Education Sales & Profits Down? Why Not Just Raise Prices?"

a column by teacher Steve Wood posted here. "Someone from Apple Computer really, really needs to explain the contradiction of Apple's variously stated 'commitment to education' and the $100 price increase of the new entry-level iMac introduced at MacWorld Tokyo last Thursday." [I won't defend Apple's decision to increase the price of its entry level iMac to education by $50 in return for 50MHz in CPU speed, FireWire and AirPort capability. Apple will have to do that. However, an alternative perspective is that Apple decreased the price of a wireless networking-capable and digital video-capable iMac by $100 in return for a CD ROM drive instead of a DVD ROM drive. I am sure that wireless networking is a major economic plus for many school systems planning to advance beyond the single room computer "lab" and digital video is a fabulous teaching medium. Are either or both worth $50 (the $899 iMac is discounted to $849 for education) over the previous low end iMac? The principal problem in our eyes, that Steve reiterates, is that we have allowed our school systems to turn over a critical teaching tool decision to self-interested IT "professionals" and their eager allies, the shortsighted green eyeshade crowd. This decision should be made jointly with teachers for the good of good education. Teachers' unions?--Bill]