But not many realised it then that it was a tax and marketing coup. He created a generation of users, and looked like a hero. After kids learned how to use Apple IIs at school, parents bought them for the home, at full price, writes Stephanie Buck in Timeline. Read on:
Apple didn’t exactly have the cash to donate $21 million worth of computers. So, Steve Jobs changed the rules. He went directly to the California legislature for tax exemptions that never existed before 1982. Only then could he offer a free Apple IIe computer (“e” for enhanced) to every school in the state. The only snag was convincing teachers to learn how to use them.
Apple’s first major success in educational computing came in 1978. The company signed on to an initiative called the Minnesota Education Computing Consortium, which installed 5,000 computers in schools across the state, complete with groundbreaking software (see: Oregon Trail). The program led to a noteworthy increase in Apple II sales. “One of the things that built Apple IIs was schools buying Apple IIs,” said Jobs in a 1995 interview.
Jobs saw a bigger opportunity. With only 10 percent of American schools having access to a computer, according to his own estimates, Jobs made it a public goal (and a private marketing opportunity) to install Apple computers in every elementary and high school in the country — amounting to over 100,000 units.
But Apple had yet to devise a financial solution that would allow the company to make such a large donation. At the time, the existing tax law only awarded breaks on computers donated to universities. Then in 1982, at age 28, Jobs met U.S. Congressman Pete Stark on a flight. By the time the plane landed, Jobs had convinced Stark to introduce legislation that made it easier for Apple to score a federal tax break if it donated school computers. Jobs did the lobbying. “I actually walked the halls of Congress for about two weeks,” he said later.
Unfortunately, though the House voted 323–62 to pass the Computer Equipment Contribution Act, the lame duck Reagan administration meant the bill never made it to the Senate. Defeated but still determined, Jobs pivoted to focus on his home state. On September 29, 1982, the California legislature passed a 25 percent tax credit to companies that donated computers to public and private schools.
It was time for the spin. Jobs called Apple’s newest push the “Kids Can’t Wait” program, and proclaimed that the country couldn’t afford to dawdle when it came to arming children with competitive programming knowledge. “We realized that a whole generation of kids was going to go through the school before they even got their first computer, so we thought: The kids can’t wait. We wanted to donate a computer to every school in America,” said Jobs. Not mentioned: Apple was in a race with IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and others.
In January of 1983, Jobs offered every elementary and high school in California with at least 100 students its own Apple IIe computer with 64k bytes of memory, a monitor, a floppy disk drive, coupons for software, and a manual for Apple Logo, a proprietary programming language aimed at students. With the retail value of each package at $2,364 and 9,250 eligible schools, Apple was on the hook for over $21 million worth of donated gear. But with a 25% retail tax credit and only a $5.2 million gross cost, Apple would be responsible for a mere $1 million.
“Yes, we may make some money off the program down the road,’’ said program manager Steve Scheier, “but we have no way of knowing that and in the ‘Kids Can’t Wait’ program we don’t really care.’’ Inc magazine called Steve Jobs a “prophet by profit.”
The applications poured in. By July, roughly 90 percent of California’s schools had responded to Apple’s offer. The company began shipping.
Besides size of school, Apple’s only other criteria was that one educator from each location had to complete a brief training course with a participating electronics retailer before receiving their machine. For Bay Area schools, where computers were already commonplace, a one- or two-hour certification course was a formality. But some teachers in mid-sized and smaller cities turned nervous. One administrator in the San Juan school district, near Sacramento, was “frightened” about what the training program could do to educational computing. Tom Lester, a computer teacher in the same district, feared teachers would just “give out so many [programming] recipes” to students. So many teachers were behind, he said, “some know one day’s knowledge more than the people who are taking the training.”
The anxiety felt among educators reflected a general nervousness around computers. In the early 1980s, as the first computers entered home, workplace, and school, a curious case of “computerphobia” took hold. According to a 1996 book, Women and Computers, this “can take such forms as fear of physically touching the computer or of damaging it and what’s inside it, a reluctance to read or talk about computers, feeling threatened by those who do know something about them, feeling that you can be replaced by a machine, become a slave to it, or feeling aggressive towards computers.”
But Apple’s offer was too sweet, and nearly 100 percent of California schools bit on it. Though many already had computers, for some more rural schools, the Apple IIe was their first. Administrators implemented a “pull-out” system that extracted individual students from class an hour at a time to learn programming. In turn, those students tutored their peers. This way, about 100 kids could learn to operate the computer every week.
Or, as Apple predicted, the answer was to buy more equipment to round out their computer labs. And after kids learned how to use Apple IIs at school, parents bought them for the home, at full price. Ten years later, after Apple had hooked an entire generation, even its outdated equipment remained in demand. One small investment became a vastly successful study in cause marketing.
“Today California, tomorrow the world,” wrote Infoworld. Truly. The IRS now allows tax write-offs for donating computers to qualifying non-profit organizations and most school districts. But the country’s tax code is still appallingly outdated, designed more for the industrial age, not today’s digital tech giants, and Apple still cleverly manages to avoid billions in taxes every year.
Apple didn’t exactly have the cash to donate $21 million worth of computers. So, Steve Jobs changed the rules. He went directly to the California legislature for tax exemptions that never existed before 1982. Only then could he offer a free Apple IIe computer (“e” for enhanced) to every school in the state. The only snag was convincing teachers to learn how to use them.
Apple’s first major success in educational computing came in 1978. The company signed on to an initiative called the Minnesota Education Computing Consortium, which installed 5,000 computers in schools across the state, complete with groundbreaking software (see: Oregon Trail). The program led to a noteworthy increase in Apple II sales. “One of the things that built Apple IIs was schools buying Apple IIs,” said Jobs in a 1995 interview.
 |
| An Apple IIe computer being used in a middle school classroom in 1984. (Lyn Alweis/The Denver Post via Getty Images) |
Jobs saw a bigger opportunity. With only 10 percent of American schools having access to a computer, according to his own estimates, Jobs made it a public goal (and a private marketing opportunity) to install Apple computers in every elementary and high school in the country — amounting to over 100,000 units.
But Apple had yet to devise a financial solution that would allow the company to make such a large donation. At the time, the existing tax law only awarded breaks on computers donated to universities. Then in 1982, at age 28, Jobs met U.S. Congressman Pete Stark on a flight. By the time the plane landed, Jobs had convinced Stark to introduce legislation that made it easier for Apple to score a federal tax break if it donated school computers. Jobs did the lobbying. “I actually walked the halls of Congress for about two weeks,” he said later.
Unfortunately, though the House voted 323–62 to pass the Computer Equipment Contribution Act, the lame duck Reagan administration meant the bill never made it to the Senate. Defeated but still determined, Jobs pivoted to focus on his home state. On September 29, 1982, the California legislature passed a 25 percent tax credit to companies that donated computers to public and private schools.
 |
| The Apple IIe — monitor sold separately. (Wikimedia) |
It was time for the spin. Jobs called Apple’s newest push the “Kids Can’t Wait” program, and proclaimed that the country couldn’t afford to dawdle when it came to arming children with competitive programming knowledge. “We realized that a whole generation of kids was going to go through the school before they even got their first computer, so we thought: The kids can’t wait. We wanted to donate a computer to every school in America,” said Jobs. Not mentioned: Apple was in a race with IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and others.
In January of 1983, Jobs offered every elementary and high school in California with at least 100 students its own Apple IIe computer with 64k bytes of memory, a monitor, a floppy disk drive, coupons for software, and a manual for Apple Logo, a proprietary programming language aimed at students. With the retail value of each package at $2,364 and 9,250 eligible schools, Apple was on the hook for over $21 million worth of donated gear. But with a 25% retail tax credit and only a $5.2 million gross cost, Apple would be responsible for a mere $1 million.
“Yes, we may make some money off the program down the road,’’ said program manager Steve Scheier, “but we have no way of knowing that and in the ‘Kids Can’t Wait’ program we don’t really care.’’ Inc magazine called Steve Jobs a “prophet by profit.”
The applications poured in. By July, roughly 90 percent of California’s schools had responded to Apple’s offer. The company began shipping.
Besides size of school, Apple’s only other criteria was that one educator from each location had to complete a brief training course with a participating electronics retailer before receiving their machine. For Bay Area schools, where computers were already commonplace, a one- or two-hour certification course was a formality. But some teachers in mid-sized and smaller cities turned nervous. One administrator in the San Juan school district, near Sacramento, was “frightened” about what the training program could do to educational computing. Tom Lester, a computer teacher in the same district, feared teachers would just “give out so many [programming] recipes” to students. So many teachers were behind, he said, “some know one day’s knowledge more than the people who are taking the training.”
 |
| Apple co-founder Steve Jobs with an Apple II in 1979. (Ralph Morse/The Life Images Collection via Getty Images) |
The anxiety felt among educators reflected a general nervousness around computers. In the early 1980s, as the first computers entered home, workplace, and school, a curious case of “computerphobia” took hold. According to a 1996 book, Women and Computers, this “can take such forms as fear of physically touching the computer or of damaging it and what’s inside it, a reluctance to read or talk about computers, feeling threatened by those who do know something about them, feeling that you can be replaced by a machine, become a slave to it, or feeling aggressive towards computers.”
But Apple’s offer was too sweet, and nearly 100 percent of California schools bit on it. Though many already had computers, for some more rural schools, the Apple IIe was their first. Administrators implemented a “pull-out” system that extracted individual students from class an hour at a time to learn programming. In turn, those students tutored their peers. This way, about 100 kids could learn to operate the computer every week.
Or, as Apple predicted, the answer was to buy more equipment to round out their computer labs. And after kids learned how to use Apple IIs at school, parents bought them for the home, at full price. Ten years later, after Apple had hooked an entire generation, even its outdated equipment remained in demand. One small investment became a vastly successful study in cause marketing.
“Today California, tomorrow the world,” wrote Infoworld. Truly. The IRS now allows tax write-offs for donating computers to qualifying non-profit organizations and most school districts. But the country’s tax code is still appallingly outdated, designed more for the industrial age, not today’s digital tech giants, and Apple still cleverly manages to avoid billions in taxes every year.
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