Teachers Resist High-tech Push In Idaho Schools

First time accepted submitter Jack W writes "This morning's NY Times highlights the issue of learning in our public schools and the proper role of technology. The Idaho governor and his state school superintendent are advocating a legislative bill for a massive infusion of computers and on-line technology in schools and is meeting resistance from state teachers, particularly the part of the bill that requires high school students to take online courses for two of their 47 graduation credits. Superintendent Luna is quoted as saying, the computer 'becomes the textbook for every class, the research device, the advanced math calculator, the word processor and the portal to a world of information.' The article notes that the governor had received campaign contributions from technology companies and that Apple and Intel had played a part in drafting the bill."

Comments

teachers' unions

[bcrowell]

I'm a dues-paying, card-carrying member of a teachers' union (at a community college), but I can't help feeling that this is the kind of thing that teachers' unions in the US have brought upon themselves.

What should happen is that K-12 teachers should be professionals, and they should be treated just like other professionals, such as doctors and engineers. When is the last time you heard an engineer claiming that although his bridge fell down, he shouldn't be held accountable? When's the last time you heard a premed saying that it was unreasonable to expect him to do well on the MCAT, because African-Americans do worse on it, on the average, than whites and Asians, thereby proving that the test is racist? Or a doctor whining that it was unreasonable to expect him to use MRI scanners, because he hasn't had the training?

What left the K-12 teaching profession vulnerable to political interference was its history of failing to hold itself to high professional standards. That opened the door to NCLB and a general tendency of politicians to try to tinker with things that ought to lie within teachers' own sphere of professional competence and discretion.

What the politicians in Idaho are doing is stupid, but that kind of incompetent tinkering is the natural result of K-12 teachers' unwillingness to act like professionals.