School of One

New York City's Middle School 131 could be the school of the future. The pilot program there, called , consists mainly of students working individually or in small groups on laptop computers to complete math lessons in the form of quizzes, games and worksheets. Each student must take a quiz at the end of each day; the results are fed into a computer program to determine whether they will move on to a new topic the next day. The program allows learning in a way that no traditional classroom can, because it tailors each lesson to a student's strengths and weaknesses, as well as the child's interests. The program cost roughly $1 million to develop for the summer, with two-thirds of the money coming from private donations. In a grant proposal aimed at donors, administrators predict that the cost will grow to $9.1 million in 2010 and $13.3 million in 2012, when the program is expected to be used in 20 schools.