In his first State of the State address Tuesday, Maine Governor John Baldacci told lawmakers the he plans to expand the state’s middle school iBook program into high schools. Calling the original US$37 million laptop program a success, Baldacci proposed expanding it from all public middle schools to all Maine high schools, starting next year with high school freshmen. Maine’s original laptop program, the brainchild of former Governor Angus King, put iBooks in the hands of every one of the state’s 34,000 seventh- and eighth-graders. Rebecca Wyke, Baldacci’s finance commissioner, said expanding the laptop program would cost the state an estimated $5 million.
