According to her survey of all 2,500 school systems in the U.S. with at least 4,000 students, more than 23 percent said they are implementing 1-to-1 computing programs in at least one grade. Compare that to the last known survey on the topic, market research firm Quality Education Data's "Technology Purchasing Forecast" for the 2003-2004 school year. In that survey, only 4 percent of respondents said their districts were planning any kind of 1-to-1 program that year.

"Because our sample survey [includes] only the top 2,500 districts, who are generally slower to adopt new technologies than very small districts and independent schools, I was surprised" by the results, said Hayes, the former head of QED, who left that firm in 2004 and now runs her own consulting company, the Hayes Connection. "That's a big jump in two years."

Hayes' survey, which was conducted along with the Greaves Group, also found that 48 percent of school district chief technology officers said they were likely to purchase a computing device for each student by 2011.

A number of recent developments could be helping to fuel the growth in 1-to-1 programs among schools. For one thing, early research into the effectiveness of these programs appears promising, though experts caution that further study is still needed.

Districts and states implementing 1-to-1 programs so far report higher attendance rates, fewer discipline problems, and improved writing skills among students.

Michigan's Freedom to Learn initiative, which had supplied laptops to nearly 21,000 students across 95 school districts by last fall, has led to more independent research and student discussion in classrooms, according to an evaluation conducted last spring. Nearly nine out of 10 students say they're glad to have laptops, and the same percentage of lead teachers say the program has increased student motivation. Whether that will lead to increased student achievement remains to be seen; at press time, test-score evaluation data were expected later this spring. In Maine, one of the pioneers in the 1-to-1 computing movement in schools, evaluators there tell a similar story. The results have been encouraging enough for state education leaders to renew Maine's contract with Apple Computer on Apple's iBook laptops for four more years.

Another factor in the growth of 1-to-1 programs: After years of budget deficits, the fiscal climate in many states is improving (see story, Page One). As state budget scenarios improve, state and local education leaders are looking for ways to better engage students in learning and make their school experience more relevant to the 21st century. Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota are among the many states that aim to follow Maine's and Michigan's lead. All have proposed or are embarking on laptop computing programs of their own.