The NYTimes speaks to everyone from parents to a professor of engineering. Opinions vary from seeing the iPad as a necessary element for a child's technological literacy development to another example of frivolous government spending. My opinion is that it's probably a little of both. When taken at face value, $750 seems like a lot of money to spend on a new supplemental toy. If a strong integration plan is enacted, iPads may actually be able to save schools money. iPads would eliminate the need for additional computers, classroom performance systems, interactive white boards and even textbooks. Publishers like Houghton Mifflin Harcourt are already on board, producing academic texts and supplemental material for the iPad and other iOS devices. The other benefit of digital texts is the ability for realtime updates so students are no longer dependent upon outdated resources.
Frivolous or essential, I'm sure we will see more and more of the iPad across schools nationwide. I personally welcome the addition of any new technology, and am thankful for (and a little envious of) the schools that are willing to be the leaders in adopting new academic technologies.