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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."
Some students and some classes could and should be taught online. However, these decisions need to be made by school districts, parents, and students. The governor shouldn't be placing a huge unfunded mandate on local schools just because Apple cut him a check.
The quality of education is not a result of the amount spent on technology. It is almost pointless to fight it, though, because these decisions are made for political reasons in a vacuum of real debate, metrics, or general considerations about what gets the best results. On some level the teachers have a right to resist this, as it's a further encroachment on their autonomy and freedom to teach as they prefer. On the other hand, if teacher unions did not fight every attempt to rationally measure student success, they might get a seat at the table discussing how to handle certain kinds of problems.
1. Lost/Stolen devices. Who pays for replacements? Why?
2. Damaged systems that need replacement. Who pays? Why?
3. Virus infections and such. What's the turn-around time on support for those? Will the school have extras to loan while they "clean" the students' machines?
4. Upgrade policy. Will the freshman class have better equipment than the senior class?
And so forth.
Throwing tech at a non-tech problem is stupid. And tech gets old really fast. And tech needs expensive support.
The first major push for computers in schools had more than just some computers. In addition to putting the Apple IIs (usually) into school computer labs, there were also initiatives like MECC to produce useful software for them, research from educators like Seymour Papert on how to use them to teach technical skills, etc.
By the late 80s this had mostly withered away, so that when my own high school in the 1990s replaced its Apple IIs with Macintosh LCs, the main thing they were used for besides word processing was... running the old Apple II software on the IIe attachment card.
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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.
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In Colorado, on-line schools have been shown to be less effective than face time with the teacher -- dramatically so.
There's no reason to think that doesn't scale, and if it scales that means that those on-line courses would be ineffective.