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KEARNS -- Two United States senators are criticizing a Utah high school's plan to buy iPods for all its students this year.
Kearns High School would use $1 million in federal stimulus money for the iPod Touches.
Granite School District officials say students would use them to download textbooks and lessons, but senators John McCain, R-Arizona, and Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, put the plan on their list of 100 questionable stimulus projects nationwide.
The senators released a new oversight report Tuesday, saying the projects featured in the report "cannot be considered as an investment in long-term priorities to create and sustain economic growth that the stimulus was designed to do."
The Granite School District says Kearns is moving toward the future by giving students the iPod Touches.
"We feel like textbooks are really on their way out the door, and we will be utilizing these devices," said district spokesman Ben Horsley.
He said it's also an incentive to get kids to graduate: "Kind of a reward, and keeping them on task toward graduation," Horsley explained. "They don't get to keep it unless they meet graduation requirements."
About the concerns that have been raised, Horsley says the stimulus funds can only be spent on technology in education and could not be used anywhere else.
Still, Coburn and McCain wrote in the report, "We owe it to every American to rebuild our economy without doing additional harm and in a manner that expands opportunities for future generations of Americans. Job creation should be a national priority, but torrential, misdirected government spending is not the way to do it."
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Story compiled with contributions from Cleon Wall.
