Paul Karrer teaches elementary school in Southern California, where many of his students are English language learners. Karrer worries that the demand for more expensive tools will not be a panacea. Instead, he fears, it will widen achievement gaps and reduce the schools’ budget for art, music, and other essential studies.
Two years ago, Karrer wrote an open letter to President Obama that presciently warned of the damage that Race to the Top would inflict on children and schools. This letter was astonishing. Here is a snippet:
“Your Race to the Top is killing the wrong guys. You’re hitting the good guys with friendly fire. I’m teaching in a barrio in California. I had 32 kids in my class last year. I love them to tears. They’re 5th graders. That means they’re 10 years old, mostly. Six of them were 11 because they were retained. Five more were in special education, and two more should have been. I stopped using the word “parents” with my kids because so many of them don’t have them. Amanda’s mom died in October. She lives with her 30-year-old brother. (A thousand blessings on him.) Seven kids live with their “Grams,” six with their dads. A few rotate between parents. So “parents” is out as a descriptor.
Here’s the kicker: Fifty percent of my students have set foot in a jail or prison to visit a family member.
“Do you and your secretary of education, Arne Duncan, understand the significance of that? I’m afraid not. It’s not bad teaching that got things to the current state of affairs. It’s pure, raw poverty. We don’t teach in failing schools. We teach in failing communities. It’s called the ZIP Code Quandary. If the kids live in a wealthy ZIP code, they have high scores; if they live in a ZIP code that’s entombed with poverty, guess how they do?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Precisely why I started Scissors and Glue, LLC (not to advertise).
Every day we throw away wonderful resources for children’s projects that they love and enjoy and learn through. No money for art supplies because of computer costs means we need stuff that gets thrown away as art supplies. And it abounds. Mostly, we throw it away.
Last year 100 4th graders played an original song with percussion on oatmeal can drums they had collaged with NC pictures from wildlife magazines and Our State; plastic pretzel jars from PTO pretzel sale that we hot glued a cardinal (state bird, that I got on clearance from Oriental Trading) inside of and coffee cans. The children thought it was wonderful. And they sounded pretty good too, once we got the parts right.
Bravo, Joanna!
That sounds like a fun musical project!
Great! Have you seen this:
“http://www.scissorsandgluellc.com/About-Us.html” Our company is based on the belief that there is more creativity needed in the education landscape. We see polarized, sweeping fixes that are creating more questions about education than they are answers. We believe the value of our education is tied to the stewardship of our societies–and that is something we need to factor into the equation. Scissors and Glue connects businesses with stewardship opportunities for creative reuse in education.
Location:
Asheville, NC
So Joanna, some companies are ok? I happen to think that some companies are ok. But I read a lot here about how bad corporations are – esp those doing business with schools.
Do you agree that some companies – including yours – that work with schools are ok?
Yes, Joe, I do. I do not paint with a broad brush.
I believe public schools should be available for all children.
I agree public schools should be available to all. That’s why I’ve joined with others to oppose allowing admissions tests. It’s also why some of us helped create a system in Minnesota that allows students to move across district lines.
In some states, affluent suburbs hire detectives to insure that low income students can enroll in their districts and schools. Doesn’t happen here. Low income students have a right to enroll in more affluent districts if there is space.
Also, the central cities receive more per pupil from the state than wealthier suburban districts.
That’s the only broad brush I use.
Public schools are for all children. Let’s fix them instead of breaking them up.
Joe, also just for noting it, I first went to my school district and several people in the state to try and get school districts to do what I want Scissors and Glue to do and I was brushed off because everyone is so focused on RttT. So I am doing it myself. It will probably not be a huge money-maker, but I am motivated more by enabling creativity and curtailing waste (spent time in developing countries, had an impact on me).
I read this website because I don’t like RttT and I don’t like diverting public dollars to private interests in the realm of public education. Maybe within public education there could be private services (like custodial and food service), but my gut just tells me democracy is tied to having public schools nearby for all children.
A lot of particulars get made into universals on both sides of arguments. I value the Thomas Jefferson said that the business of America is business, but I also think we have to look hard at what makes communities strong and I do not think competition and market values trump everything.
I don’t like arguing or fighting. I like answers.
Last year’s Utah writing test for 8th grade wanted the students to talk about advantages and disadvantages of using tablets in schools. The problem was that the term “tablets” wasn’t defined, and many kids in my low-income school had never really used tablets, even if they knew what they were. So the state was actually TESTING the digital divide and then labeling schools as failing because it apparently didn’t occur to anyone that there might be places that didn’t have a lot of access to tablets.
Just to be a smart-a$$, when I was that age I would have started my essay something like, while tablets are often easier to swallow, I personally prefer capsules….” Then I might have segued into a discussion of tablets vs. three-ring binders….
Here a comment my 5th grader made about computer testing. “They don’t leave room for my visual explanation which I’m better at,” as he referred to the math exam.
Another teacher argued that kids should have i-pads to do the writing, without understanding the repercussions of money, erasing information between and after testing, if the kids use their own, the battery giving out during a test, her end of the responsibility.
My point is that people come up with “grand” ideas without acknowledging the cons, be it technology, new curriculum (which basically reiterates older materials in new jargon, and of course ed reform issues.
We’ve gotten used to “winging it” and it ends up being the teachers fault, failing to meet some clown’s expectation.
I have a few students that I could see doing that, too!
Dienne is spot on, my students (Bx public middle schools) would not automatically think computer tablet, we call them netbooks, but whi\le a few might also write about the 10 commandments on those tablets, I’m going with the pills.
Testing miscues are all too prevalent and the repercussions are minimal, huge corporations have the connections and their lobbyists maintain them, while our kids suffer through their tests.
Is the concern that the achievement gap will widen because those who are already achieving at a high level will be able to use these tools to advance even further or is it that those who are not achieving at a high level are going to do worse in an absolute sense?
Can you really not answer this question yourself after all the time you have spent on this blog?
No, I can’t answer it myself as both seem plausible. It may be the case that these tools allow the more able and aggressive students to go further in their education than they might do without these tools or it may be the case that diverting resources to these tools reduces the educational experience that the students who do not take advantage of these tools have, it may be both.
OK TE, while the first part of your “argument” may be true, the 2nd part is somewhat confusing. While yes they may do worse, the issue he raises is more about the bigger picture and not about simply putting a tablet in every kids hands and measuring the resultant test scores as if that tablet were some kind of magic bullet.
In reality, with today’s school budget problems ill those not achieving at the highest levels even get these tools ? In the real world, wouldn’t the tablet beneficiaries more likely to be in more affluent school districts ?
And for those students who live in “a zip code entombed in poverty”, i.e. students such Mr. Karrer’s, and my own in the South Bronx, our schools have more basic needs, as they serve a disproportionate share of children in poverty, special ed and ESL students, many with basic health care and nutrition needs. Addressing these special needs should come before spending big $ on high tech tools.
I am or making an argument, but asking a question. The subtitle of this blog is a site to discuss a better education for all and I am just trying to understand who counts as “all”. It seems that if the increased gap comes from the lower achieving students doing worse as a result of the high tech tools, the issue is easily decided. If the gap is getting bigger because the higher performing students are getting a better education while the lower achieving students are getting the same education, it also seems like the issue is easily decided. If some students gain and others lose, it is much more complicated.
There will be a Matthew Effect, of course. Middle-class kids (there are some middle-class households left in the United States) have computers, have had them since they were quite young, and are adept at using them. According to a recently released U.S. Census report, in 2011, 24.4% of U.S. households did not have a computer, and 28.9% did not have Internet access at home. Obviously, the kids with lots of computer experience will have a leg up when it comes time to take the online CCSS exams.
I think it would be great if we could get a tablet into the hands of every child, but I grieve that this is being driven by the desire to use this technology to test, test, test. A tablet and an internet connection is a connection to astonishing resources for learning. That’s what the new technologies in the hands of kids should mean. That’s the use for them that we should be emphasizing. That’s what should be driving the attempt to wire all the kids up.
Every student counts !
There’s certainly a gap and it’s extraordinarily complicated, whether it’s increasing or decreasing is complex, and greatly dependant on how and where it is measured.
Education is very local and decentralized so measurements of gaps taken in rural Alabama or South Dakota will not compare with highly affluent areas of NY nor with the poorest areas of LA or NYC.
And the answer about winners and losers is simple and obvious – it depends, some students and schools will gain and others will lose, so whether to give tablets or other expensive tools as a partial solution to the achievement gap – on balance – no – I don’t think so.
I don’t understand. It’s not rocket science. All educators know that scores are affected by poverty. The research has been there for not only years, but several generations. When did the people in charge get so stupid? Who let the inmates run the asylum?
Politicians, pundits, and plutocrats want easy answers to difficult questions. Solving poverty is difficult. Giving tests isn’t. Their notions–that you can give more tests and so make people work harder and lift them out of poverty over the long run–are driven to some extent, I suspect, by the presumption that when people are poor, it’s their own fault, and we have to get tougher with them. “No excuses,” they say.
What we need instead of more tests is vastly more money and effort spent to create nurturing, compensatory school/play environments for kids growing up in poverty so that they have many of the same opportunities that rich kids have. That’s expensive in the short run, but (duh) it’s cheaper than what we do know, which is incarcerate in jails and prisons one percent of our adult population.
Many years ago, I enrolled my daughter in an expensive preschool in Washington, DC. The preschool had stables with ponies and a lake with canoes and a fully equipped theater and lovely, tree-shaded walkways and an amazing library and an astonishingly low teacher-student ratio. (I know, I know. I was young and, while not from a wealthy background, had made some money by then and wanted to give my kid the best.) I remember walking the grounds of that school, those beautiful grounds, and thinking, Every kid deserves this, and it wouldn’t be THAT expensive to provide given economies of scale. It’s a matter of where we put our priorities. But we put our priorities in this country on funding military adventurism around the globe–six trillion dollars of committed spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to date, for example.
cx: “That’s expensive in the short run, but (duh) it’s cheaper than what we do now, which is incarcerate in jails and prisons one percent of our adult population. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html?_r=0)