Apple CEO Tim Cook elaborated on the company’s partnership with the White House through ConnectED, an initiative created to increase access to technology in U.S. schools.

For Apple’s part, the company donated "an iPad to every student, a Mac and iPad to every teacher, and an Apple TV to every classroom,” said ABC News.

Though Apple has recently had a difficult time maintaining its stronghold in classrooms since the advent of the wildly popular Chromebook and several claims that iPads do not improve learning, Cook told ABC that the increase of Apple technology in classrooms is increasing student achievement as well as attendance.

Cook alluded to the fact that the state-of-the-art technology offered by Apple encourages students to come into a classroom and participate.

“These kids are born in a digital world, and if they come to school and ... have an analog environment, it's not conducive to learning. It's not conducive to creativity,” Cook said during the ABC interview.

"We're bringing digital to the schools here, and we're focused on under served schools.”

Apple Insider says Apple’s involvement with ConnectED helped 114 schools in 29 states receive new technology and over 4,434 hours in assistance implementing it.

This translates to helping over 32,000 students and 9,000 teachers in 2016 alone, Apple Insider says.

The learning value of iPads in the classroom has been hotly debated recently after Maine’s Department of Education worked directly with Apple to exchange its districts' iPads for MacBooks after a state-wide survey found most teachers and students thought the tablet held no educational value.

Still, teachers who have received iPads from the ConnectED partnership have had positive things to say.

"Learning should come from within. And so using our iPads as a tool, we can cause that to happen. It does not take the place of good teaching but it is an essential tool,” said principal Pamela Price-Haynes to ABC.

See the full Tim Cook interview with Robin Roberts here.

Nicole Gorman, Senior Education World Contributor

9/14/2016