I wish that all those who appreciate the wonders of technology would frankly admit its limitations. I wish they would speak out when hucksters and naifs claim that technology will close the achievement gap between rich and poor or that learning by machine is “personalized learning.” Personalized learning is what happens when humans beings interact, face to face, when a teacher who knows you is engaged in helping you learn. An interaction with a machine is impersonalized learning.
Baltimore County Public Schools system has bought the hoax: under the leadership of its superintendent, Dallas Dance, the school board has agreed to invest at least $270 million so that every student will have his or her own computer. It is a decisive move towards a fully digitized schooling, with everyone wired, including 5-year-olds. Some parents are very unhappy with this decision. They would prefer to see money invested in reducing class sizes, arts programs, and capital improvements. Some worry that the evidence for the benefits of going digital does not exist. Some argue that the program does more for big business than for children. Some think the program should be pilot-tested before it is implemented across the district. Some worry about the potential health effects of a fully digital classroom.
One parent wrote:
The real overall costs of STAT are now projected at $272.1 million for the “BCPS Proposed 6 Year Instructional Digital Conversion Plan.” That’s nearly $70 million higher than previously discussed.
And, breaking news to most: On top of that, $63 million or more would be required every year thereafter — with 92 percent (!) going to the laptop leases alone, according to officials and budget proposal documents released in early January.
Every. Year.
That means in one decade BCPS would spend at least $630 million to lease laptops, which schools would turn over every four years, amid other costs. Ten new state-of-the art schools could be funded at that price, likely with some snazzy new tech options, too. Operating vs. Capital Expenditures aside (day-to-day vs. buildings), money is money.
My own view is that it is far too soon to adopt technology as the primary vehicle for education because there is no evidence that it improves learning or that it reduces achievement gaps or that it is especially beneficial to children from low-income homes. Last fall, the OECD released a study concluding that some technology use in the classroom is good, but too much technology is not. This was the conclusion: Overall, students who use computers moderately at school tend to have somewhat better learning outcomes than students who use computers rarely. But students who use computers very frequently at school do much worse, even after accounting for social background and student demographics.
Was the Baltimore County school board aware of that study before it committed $270 million to provide a computer for every student?
We saw the disaster unfold in Los Angeles when former Superintendent John Deasy decided that every student and staff member in the LAUSD should have an iPad; worse, he sold this idea as a matter of “civil rights.” Frankly, it cheapens the meaning of civil rights (the right to vote, the right to be treated the same as others, the right to equality of educational opportunity, the right to serve on a jury, etc.) when “the right to an iPad” is called a “civil right.” It would make more sense to talk about the right to a job with a decent living wage, the right to good housing, the right to medical care, and the right to sound nutrition, than to turn the ownership of an iPad into a “civil right.” As we know, the $1 billion-plus transaction turned into a fiasco when questions were raised about favoritism shown to Apple and Pearson, and the whole deal was canceled.
Many of us still remember the story in the New York Times in 2011 about the Waldorf School in Silicon Valley that has no computers; its students include the children of high-tech executives who believe their children will have plenty of time for technology in the future. Instead of working online, they are learning through physical activity, creative play, hands-on projects, and reading. While other schools in the region brag about their wired classrooms, the Waldorf school embraces a simple, retro look — blackboards with colorful chalk, bookshelves with encyclopedias, wooden desks filled with workbooks and No. 2 pencils.
The Baltimore County school board not only approved STAT but renewed Superintendent Dance’s contract, which will run until 2020. When he was first hired as superintendent in 2012 (at the age of 30), he needed a waiver, because he had only two years of teaching experience and state law requires three years of teaching experience for superintendents. He also ran into trouble when he became involved with SUPES Academy, the same company that had hired disgraced Chicago CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett. A local reporter wrote: Dance was heavily criticized — and admonished by the school board — for accepting a position in the company in August 2013 without informing the board. The board had approved a three-year $875,000 contract with SUPES to train personnel in December 2012. Dance ended up resigning the SUPES position in 2013.
Maine blogger Emily Talmage recently criticized Superintendent Dance. She wrote:
Meanwhile, as the corporate-driven personalized, digital learning craze sweeps the country, Dance has jumped in headfirst and is bringing his district along with him.
As a keynote speaker at the 2015 International Association for K-12 Online Learning, Dance called himself a “pioneer.”
He also said that teachers were “talking too much,” and that students should be assessed at any time.
“In order to personalize learning for young people, we should be able to assess students at any moment to figure out what level they’re on, what standards they’ve mastered, so they can move along the continuum,” he said….
“This is taking place in a school district that is in desperate need of improvements to infrastructure, transportation, class size reduction, and social programs, issues that have been financially pushed to the side in favor of STAT,” a teacher wrote.
“Personalized learning is being presented to constituents as the solution to close the equity gap in education,” said the Baltimore teacher, “[but] no input has been garnered from parents, and the expectation is that teachers will fully embrace the program without question.”
It would be nice if a school board asked for evidence of effectiveness before blowing away nearly $300 million on the fad of the moment. Technology will change rapidly, and BCPS will be left with obsolete machines unless they make an annual commitment to buy or lease new equipment. This is money that will not be spent on teachers, programs, and maintenance of buildings.
Oh my, this is one of the stupidest wastes of money I’ve every heard of, and my job title is “Digital Manager.”
“Operating vs. Capital Expenditures aside (day-to-day vs. buildings), money is money”
I disagree with there. Money isn’t money. Some investments appreciate and others depreciate. Putting the tech purchases under “operating expenses” shouldn’t make the bigger debate moot- what is the added value not just of the tech purchases but of the “opportunity cost”- the investment the tech expenditures are replacing? Does this investment add value as compared with another? Does it add enough value to justify the cost? Does it appreciate or depreciate? The devices depreciate. We know that. What part of the investment appreciates?
Ed reformers are wrong. It isn’t “plus/and” for school districts. That’s a fairy tale. School districts have budgets and those budgets are shrinking. A decision to invest in one place is a decision NOT invest in another. Budgets are really lists of priorities. When the budget is allocated the list ends.
The US Department of Education and the President promote this “plus/and” fantasy as if it’s real. If adding tech is their priority they should admit that means schools WON’T be focusing elsewhere. Decisions have to be made. A lot of time it’s either/or.
Thanks for this text. I plan to borrow some of it when talking to our school board. You explain it so clearly and succinctly.
I’m reminded of Sugata Mitra’s experiment with putting a computer in an outside wall of a building in rural India and just letting the kids have at. Turns out, with no prior computer knowledge, within weeks the kids were using the computer for drawing, word processing, internet browsing, etc. So, yes, technology can enhance education. But one of the key features, IMHO, was that there was one computer for many kids. So the kids had to share their discoveries and learn together. Whatever one kid figured out how to do or whatever one kid learned online spread throughout the group – the kids taught each other. Humans are not meant to be educated in isolation. Relationships with adults are important, but so too are relationships with each other. One of the negative side effects of technology is that people are losing the ability to interact unless it’s through an electronic medium – the phenomenon of kids sitting in the same room not talking but texting each other.
I should add, in this experiment, the kids got to use the computer in whatever ways they wanted. Usually when schools go to one-to-one technology, it is the technology that uses the kid – the students are plugged in to one specific program that is “teaching” them information directed from on high, rather than students using the technology to explore and meet their own needs and answer their own questions.
Sujata Mitra is the charlatan’s charlatan. He’s the guy who says teaching knowledge is obsolete because…Google. I actually don’t believe his story about the kids in India doing wonders with the computer. I bet he made it up to advance his career in education charlatanry. Does anyone ever fact-check TED talks?
I don’t think you have to throw out the whole story, ponderosa. I agree with you that Google does not take the place of content knowledge. It is impossible to be fluent in advancing your understanding of a topic if you have to refer to google as a surrogate for your brain. Those children obviously had to be literate at some level, at least as an aggregate, to be able to do any of what Mitra claimed. Their use of the computer presupposed a certain level of knowledge. That being said, being given the opportunity to tinker with things can provide opportunities for a powerful learning experience.
Dienne “Usually when schools go to one-to-one technology, it is the technology that uses the kid – the students are plugged in to one specific program that is “teaching” them information directed from on high, rather than students using the technology to explore and meet their own needs and answer their own questions.”
The same is true if you replace computer by teacher in the above. We need a better argument.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
Information Technology, in the early days of Apple, PC. etc., was once about distributing informational power to the people, and it was a heady time indeed, but corporate power gained the upper hand and started taking the power back, capitalizing, centralizing, commercializing, concentrating, and corporatizing informational power in all the ways it could.
Like James Howard Kuntsler says, ‘techno-narcissism’.
Thank you Daine Ravitch for again highlighting what so many parents in Baltimore county know. Our voices are not heard over the din of the cheering for the STAT initiative that is both so costly and has no proven effectiveness, and the potential health risks are dismissed as unimportant. They are putting our children at risk with this costly initiative.
Some facts about going digital:
1) I used to work at a school that serviced, helped and guided disadvantaged kids, especially the ones in foster care…It was CLOSED by the superintendent in order to pay for devices.
2) I work at a very overcrowded Title I Elementary School in BCPS and the county “alleviates” overcrowding by installing trailers with NO bathrooms or running water. (We are up to 10 trailers). What is the allowed ratio for student to facilities? Maybe we can come up with one that is directly related to the smell oozing out of the existing bathrooms–constantly.
3) The county does NOTHING to alleviate and/or ADDRESS the overcrowding, probably because our parents don’t complain…They are mostly blue collar, busy, single parent, hardworking.
4) Class sizes are enormous. Teachers are overwhelmed and asked to do so much with such LITTLE time.
5) Students that have IEPs and/or need ESOL services are meeting with teachers in closets and bookrooms.
6) Our superintendent seems to spend most of his time at the “good” schools, and not enough time at the most disadvantaged ones.
We love our students–we just wish others loved them just as much.
I use technology every day in my classes. I also have a great love of technology even from my youth which was a long time ago. However, I don’t believe that my students just need technology to be able to learn. Sometimes we use old tech such as pencil and paper. In fact for some of my assignments they have the option of using the computers in the room and simple paper and pencil. Many will choose to use the paper and pencil. In my photo classes what they seem to enjoy most is the pinhole cameras over the digital cameras. I believe that a variety of old and new tech is more valuable because they experience a little of history. Also I have them to a lot of human interaction. They already spend too much time on their personal tech so it’s good for them to learn to deal with people face to face. Technology can never be the teacher. It can only be a tool for the teacher to teach with.
When Dallas Dance leaves this job, who will hire him? For an answer, look at John Deasy, the former Superintendent of Los Angeles Unified who lost more than $1 Billion tax payer dollars to buy iPads for every student in the second largest school district in the U.S.
Schools dealing with thereafter of LAUSD’s iPad fiasco
Hundreds of thousands of Los Angeles Unified students are relying on the district’s iPads this spring to take the latest California state test – or at least that was the $1.3 billion plan.
“We unfortunately haven’t been able to use many of the [iPads] that were delivered,” said Wil Page, a sixth-grade teacher at Thomas Starr King Middle School in Los Feliz.
“They were here all last week trying to get the iPads working and that really never got off the ground. We are [instead] using MacBooks that are seven or eight years old,” Page said.
http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/04/17/51093/schools-dealing-with-aftermath-of-lausd-s-ipad-fia/
Where is John Deasy today?
News that former Los Angeles Unified Superintendent John Deasy is taking a job at The Broad Center, an education reform nonprofit funded by philanthropist Eli Broad, came as little surprise.
Deasy attracted millions of dollars from Broad and other education reformers while he was superintendent from 2011 until his resignation in October. The foundations supported Deasy’s push for tougher teacher evaluations, an expansion of charter schools, the controversial iPad program and other changes that riled labor unions.
http://www.scpr.org/blogs/education/2015/01/16/17807/ex-lausd-superintendent-attracted-millions-from-fo/
My (grown) son works in this industry and went to an ordinary public school with very few bells and whistles. He loves this stuff and has since he was 8 years old. I don’t know anyone who would tend to be MORE supportive of “blended learning”.
He thinks the huge investments are reckless and driven much more by hype than real evidence of value.
He also thinks low and middle income kids won’t be given the creative aspects of this work- they won’t be creators they’ll be passive users. He believes low and middle income kids will get canned, cheap garbage that replaces human beings because human beings are expensive to employ.
Show me something that proves that the people pushing this are aware of that risk and have something in place to prevent it. If this turns out to be a cheap way to “educate” low and middle income students IN REAL LIFE, can we get our money, time and teachers back?
Your son is correct. BCPS is moving toward replacing, or rather downgrading, teachers with cheap, canned tech. Principals have told me so in private. Teachers cost too much. They are making teaching less attractive to avoid having teachers with long careers. Benefits have been cut (made more expensive), tenure is harder to achieve and retirement vesting is now 10 years. Cycle young teachers in and out and meanwhile rely on technology.
It is certainly appropriate to have a set of laptops in each classroom and integrate them into lessons where appropriate. They have more than replaced the set of encyclopedias that sat on the shelf in the classrooms of my youth. However, they can never replace a teacher. Personalized instruction is just a foil for selling technology and tests. They always ignore the real evidence and instead push these nonsensical “programs” that do nothing but enrich corporate interests. Beware the Technology-Testing-Education Complex.
I recently left BCPS after teaching 18 years. The principal at our school allows students to walk the halls texting and wearing headphones. They are allowed to have cellphones out on desks as long as they aren’t using them. Right. Students are very distracted by their phones and now BCPS is hurtling forward with more tech. I wanted no part of it and am so glad my children are grown and out of BCPS. The principal knows better but has abdicated her responsibility to preserve her and promote her job.
@Volunteer Did you work at Kenwood High School?
No.
But we had several former Kenwood teachers.
It’s as if LAUSD’s disruptive rheephorm innovations never existed…
Well, let’s it hear straight from the horse’s orifice [which end, your choice]:
LATIMES, editorial, 11-25-2015, on their [formerly] rheephorm supernova that was burning out, John Deasy:
[start excerpt]
What became apparent over time, though, was that setting high-profile goals was only one part of the job; where Deasy stumbled was in getting down to the unglamorous work of making those dreams come true through meticulous planning, accounting for contingencies and addressing valid concerns raised by others.
As a result, Deasy left a legacy of big, bold plans but too few accomplishments. The iPads-for-all policy could reasonably be called a fiasco. The district was lambasted in independent investigations for buying problematic educational software and having little idea of how the new technology would even be used in classrooms. The college-prep graduation requirements had to be rolled back because they were imposed with little planning for how students would pass the necessary classes. Instead of fixing the district’s dysfunctional student scheduling system known as MISIS, he supported a lawsuit blaming the state for it.
[end excerpt]
Link: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-lausd-superintendent-vision-20151111-story.html
So when it came to monies actually spent—a third of a billion dollars—on iPads and MISIS, the fiercely pro-charter/privatization LATIMES editorial board said the former [long after the fact, of course] “could reasonably be called a fiasco.” And MISIS was such a catastrophe [had failed elsewhere—red flag!—before implemented in LAUSD] that Deasy tried to shift responsibility to somebody, anybody, else.
The heavyweights and shot callers of self-styled “education reform” have proven again and again and again that they are incapable of self-correction.
Relabeling, rebranding, spinning and making the worse appear the better cause in the service of $tudent $ucce$$—
All part of their Marxist foundational principles:
“Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.”
Groucho. Today. Tomorrow. Forever.
😎
“All part of their Marxist foundational principles”
Actually, the corporate public education demolition derby is all part of a capitalist short-term profit agenda. If they were Marxists, they would be nationalizing all private sector schools and moving them into the existing community based, transparent public schools, and people like Eva Moskowitz, a capitalist in the truest sense, would be off to a Gulag in northern Alaska to freeze and perish.
In classic Marxist theory, Communism is the final stage of the evolution of human socioeconomic relations. In the Marxist model, the feudal state is overthrown by the rise of the bourgeoisie, ushering in the capitalist epoch. Capitalism is then overthrown by the rise of the proletariat, which ushers in not communism, but the Socialist state.
A capitalist is a person who has a lot of money, property, etc. and who uses those things to produce more money—-for them and F*** Rooney else.
Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners—the 1%—for profit, rather than by the state.
Marxism is the system of economic and political thought developed by Karl Marx, along with Friedrich Engels, especially the doctrine that the state throughout history has been a device for the exploitation of the masses by a dominant class, that class struggle has been the main agency of historical change, and that the capitalist system, containing from the first the seeds of its own decay, will inevitably, after the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, be superseded by a socialist order and a classless society.
Marxism/Pure Socialism is not what Stalin and Mao ruled over. Don’t confuse Stalin and Mao who have much more in common with people like Eva Moskowitz than a real socialist.
Lloyd Lofthouse: you are describing realities—not to be confused with rheephorm rheealities.
To mangle an often-used observation:
“Rheephorm Marxism is to Marxism what rheephorm pedagogy is to pedagogy.”
Just as in all things that lead to $tudent $ucce$$, they pick and choose whatever serves their purposes and ignore whatever else contradicts their guiding principles.
Hence they get furious when someone points out the [Maoist] equivalent of “quoting the Chairman against the Chairman” [re the Little Red Book].
For example, they don’t like to be reminded of this example of rheephorm math that illustrates the depth of their approach to data analytics:
“My favorite poem is the one that starts ‘Thirty days hath September’ because it actually tells you something.” [Groucho Marx]
This sort of rheephorm criterion is not exactly a ringing endorsement of claims like 100% charter graduation rates and high scores from “little test-taking machines” [$ucce$$ Academy] and taking one’s students from the 13th to the 90th percentile all by one’s lonesome [Michelle Rhee minus that pesky “co-teacher” and any evidence whatsoever of the claim].
But a swelling bank account and ego—
Now THAT’S something rheephormers can bank on.
🙄
Thank you for keeping it real.
Not rheeal.
😎
I get it. The Rheephormers are ruled by avarice and lust for power. Facts that define what the truth should be only gets in their way. It would be an insult to pudding to say their brains were of the same consistency if they have brains and their skulls aren’t empty spaces.
And technology isn’t helping create parity or benefitting disadvantaged students either. This from the 65-country intergovernmental OECD study released in late 2015:
“And perhaps the most disappointing finding of the report is that technology is of little help in bridging the skills divide between advantaged and disadvantaged students. Put simply, ensuring that every child attains a baseline level of proficiency in reading and mathematics seems to do more to create equal opportunities in a digital world than can be achieved by expanding or subsidising access to high‑tech devices and services.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/15/how-much-computers-at-school-are-hurting-kids-reading/
The report itself, see Executive Summary http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/students-computers-andlearning_9789264239555-en
I added links to this post to my comment on Wendy’s piece. I copied most of the linkks from this post into the comment.
This also, a link to a piece further exploring ballooning costs of Baltimore County Public School’s “digital conversion,” much like L.A. California’s; Hoboken, New Jersey’s; Broward County, Fla. (which bailed); as well as across New York State, and other school districts nationwide.
http://towsonflyer.com/2016/01/31/op-ed-answers-thin-logic-thinner-in-bcps-tech-initiative/
Please see our blog about Baltimore County Public Schools and the STAT initiative that Diane Ravitch is so eloquently writing about:
https://statusbcps.wordpress.com
Thank you for bringing national attention to this issue that is so concerning to parents of Baltimore county.
Technology is the new educational Baal.
“Baal”. Read: “idol”? Yes. It numbs and stuns people’s critical thinking faculties. I bet if we could do a holistic cost-benefit analysis of tech in schools over the past 20 years, factoring in all the time teachers and administrators have spent talking about, thinking about and adapting to new products as well as the vast sums of money spent, it would show a net loss. Technology is not improving education in America, yet the cult lives on.
This article has some interesting commentary.
http://news.schoolsdo.org/2016/02/digital-divide-leaves-some-1-to-1-kids-unconnected/
Thats all well and good, for the first week, month, maybe year of school. I taught at BCPSS in a building that had Technology on the NAME, and you know what the joke was? At any given time as many as 1/3 to 1/2 of the computers in our computer lab were inoperative or out of commission. Teachers were expected to provide their own laptops because the district ran out. So, once they blow the 300M on the initial investment, how long until only half the kids in the class have a working computer, and no money to fix the broken ones?
Many of us still remember the story in the New York Times in 2011 about the Waldorf School in Silicon Valley that has no computers; its students include the children of high-tech executives who believe their children will have plenty of time for technology in the future.
The parents may be high-tech but their children aren’t. Most of the graduates from the Waldorf School in Silicon Valley go on to attend art schools or small liberal arts colleges. These type of kids would’ve have floundered in a competitive STEM-oriented Silicon Valley public high school.
It is ironic that no one would ever say that low-income black and Hispanic kids will have “plenty of time for technology in the future” after high school.
A list of all the colleges that the Waldorf School graduates matriculated into: http://waldorfpeninsula.org/curriculum/high-school/college-guidance/after-waldorf/
Triumph, one of the tech exec parents interviewed in that story mocks the idea that lacking tech in school will hobble their kids’ tech agility. He says, rightly, that the applications in use ten years from now will look nothing like today’s applications, and that companies are now making tech so easy to learn and use that extensive prior practice is not necessary. Ed tech is sold with lots of fuzzy rhetoric like “21st Century Skills” that no one analyzes. Let us analyze. Let us have technology and computer programming classes, but why must computers invade all subjects including English and history? Why must computers start replacing human teachers? Shouldn’t schools’ primary mission be to build great human beings –and utilize tech only to the extent that it manifestly contributes to that process –rather than turning schools into a stage for showcasing technology and trying to figure out ways to make students and teachers cooperative appendages to that technology?
Research Mueller and Oppenheimer, Princeton Univ. Laptop devices vs longhand. And Intergovernmental Organizon for Economic Co-operation and Development, 65 nation study of learning outcomes using computers compared to limited time on computers. And Duke Univ study on 5th – 8th graders using home computers. Results persistent decline in reading and math.
I would like to make some counter points. I believe there are a lot of good things happening in Baltimore County Public Schools and most of the changes are truly improving teaching and learning. I think our students are ultimately benefitting from the S.T.A.T. Initiative. Is it perfect? No. Change is tough. But it doesn’t do any good to make sweeping criticisms without discourse. So here is one teacher’s contribution to the dialog.
1. “Some think the program should be pilot-tested before it is implemented across the district.”
The S.T.A.T. program is being piloted. The 1-1 device rollout (only one part of S.T.A.T.) is being piloted in ‘lighthouse’ schools. Ten elementary schools piloted grades 1-3 last year before the devices were rolled out county-wide in grades 1-3. Those same schools are now piloting in grades K, 4, & 5. Seven middle schools are currently piloting in grade 6 and next year will pilot grade 7 before the devices move into middle schools county-wide. And three high schools will be piloting grades 9-12 next year. As a result of the pilot process, the middle school and high school device rollout has been slowed to address concerns. Another part of S.T.A.T. is the shift to more learner centered instruction and incorporation of 21st century skills (creativity, collaboration, problem solving, critical thinking, communication, and innovation) which is also slowly being piloted in the lighthouse schools and implemented county-wide. The digital curriculum implementation, learning management system (called BCPSOne), and grading policy updates (all parts of S.T.A.T.) are also all being piloted before being rolled out. To be fair, these pilots are moving forward quickly with little quantitative data but plenty of qualitative data (an independent entity is evaluating the program as it goes so there is only one year of quantitative data so far). I’m sure that the program will adjust as it continues to be implemented and evaluated.
2. “The real overall costs of STAT are now projected at $272.1 million for the “BCPS Proposed 6 Year Instructional Digital Conversion Plan.” That’s nearly $70 million higher than previously discussed.”
The previously discussed plan was also only a five year plan. So consider that it’s really only a $30 million increase in a total BCPS budget of $1.7 billion. And the price tag for this program is not purely an addition to the current budget. The system is realigning and adjusting expenses in order to afford this. For example, less money is being spent on expensive print textbooks that are quickly outdated because the curriculum resources are being converted into a digital platform. Also, a print management system has been introduced to reduce waste across the district. Office budgets have been streamlined and many budget expense items that have been school-based in the past are now centralized in order to get bulk rates and reduce redundancy. A significant amount of money was spent on technology before S.T.A.T. so that had of course been realigned. The 2017 proposed budget is only a modest 2.7% increase from 2016 and includes things such as additional staff, a foreign language program, capital projects, and professional development.
3. “My own view is that it is far too soon to adopt technology as the primary vehicle for education…”
This is a gross misunderstanding of the S.T.A.T. initiative. The 1 to 1 devices are not the primary vehicle for education in BCPS. The devices are the vehicle to access curriculum and resources, but students’ education continues to rely on sound instructional practices and good teachers. No computer is replacing that. The professional development that teachers are receiving from their S.T.A.T. Teachers (professional development teachers) center on pedagogy and the meaningful integration of technology. This means that the computers are used only when it enhances the lesson. It is true that not all 8,000 teachers are using the computers effectively all the time. But they need the time and the support to learn and it’s only been one year. The availability of the computers to be used as a learning tool at any time is powerful. Technology integration is more meaningful when things like like lab schedules and computer reliability aren’t barriers.
4. “In order to personalize learning for young people, we should be able to assess students at any moment to figure out what level they’re on, what standards they’ve mastered, so they can move along the continuum,” he said….”
This is called formative assessment. This is a good thing; a standard practice for effective teachers. Why is this statement by Dr. Dance being painted with evil overtones? This is not a mandate for standardized tests or computerized assessments. BCPS is training teachers on formative assessment practices as part of its grading and reporting policy revisions. Excellent instruction should be driven by ongoing assessment and observation of student understanding. Teachers have been doing this since the beginning of time. It’s true that technology is being introduced as one way to formatively assess students, but not in an impersonal, high-stakes way… Just a way to streamline the process and possibly lighten teacher workloads. And there are many more non-technology ways that teachers are formatively assessing their students.
5. “This is taking place in a school district that is in desperate need of improvements to infrastructure, transportation, class size reduction, and social programs, issues that have been financially pushed to the side in favor of STAT,”
I personally don’t believe we are in desperate need of any of these things, but regardless, the system is addressing them, not pushing them aside. As for capital versus operating, it would set a very dangerous precedent for us to reallocate any operating budget money to capital budget. There is already ten year plan to address facility issues including air conditioning in every school, which many believe isn’t fast enough. But with 174 buildings to maintain, it has to be done at a reasonable pace. And 120 building and construction projects are slated for next year… That’s already a lot! Concerns about a few failing facilities should not trump all other expenses. Money can be simultaneously spent on improving facilities and improving instruction. These issues can be addressed at the same time S.T.A.T. is being implemented. It’s not a “one or the other” deal.
6. “BCPS will be left with obsolete machines unless they make an annual commitment to buy or lease new equipment.”
The devices we purchased are leased. By my understanding, they can either remain ours or be “traded in” for newer models after four years. In my opinion, leasing is a very fiscally responsible way to purchase technology. In the past, millions of dollars were spent on computers that are now collecting dust or filling landfills. Additionally, the “cost” of the device includes complete replacement coverage for accidental damage and full technical support including technicians and imaging. And before anyone questions it, the computer does not come pre-loaded with any packaged curriculum. We have a software and instructional materials approval process and we develop our own curriculum. So any software that gets installed is chosen and controlled by us, not a third-party vendor.
Final thoughts to contrast the BCPS S.T.A.T. Initiative with the LA Unified iPad disaster:
– our program is centered on instruction, not computers
– our device selection process was very thorough and thoughtful and included field testing and student input of multiple devices; we didn’t just choose the latest trendy tablet
– our district has been very transparent about S.T.A.T. and very proactive with the device deployment
– job-embedded and district professional development has been present from the beginning. Teachers got the device in the spring before any student did in the fall so they would have time to learn and become familiar with it. PD teachers called S.T.A.T. teachers exist in every school in order to provide full-time support for instruction.
– changes to the curriculum and infrastructure have occurred in advance of any device rollout. So before elementary schools got computers, their curriculum was updated to incorporate technology
For more information, go to http://www.bcps.org/academics/STAT
What specifically were the concerns about the 6th grade pilot that BCPS is willing to acknowledge, and is addressing? In the interest of transparency, could you please point to where this information can be found?
“Technology integration is more meaningful when things like like lab schedules and computer reliability aren’t barriers.” Could you please point to information about the reliability? How is Daly performing? How is the wifi? Where is this information, and how was it collected?
I believe this is our chief communications officer responding- good to know that Diane Ravitch got your attention.
1. A true pilot program would wait for the results before continuing to roll out district wide. Like you said there is lots of qualitative data and getting those kids to talk about how much they love their computers doesn’t tell us anything. Show us the quantitative data that this costly initiative is doing anything more than small classrooms do (other than lining the pockets of ed tech companies) BEFORE you sign more contracts for multiple year commitments.
2. “…it’s really only a $30 million increase in a total BCPS budget of $1.7 billion.” Okay, first of all, that statement is astounding to parents and stakeholders… *only $30 million*??? And secondly, why don’t you talk to the teacher who stands up at every board of education meeting she can, to talk about the lack of printers in schools because of the “print management system” or the teacher who states this “Many schools did not get it because they found out it was not cost effective, so they stopped it. BUT… our budget was cut to help pay for it. We never got the printers.”
3. If the tablet is only used when it enhances the lesson as you stated, why can’t they march on down to a computer lab to do so? Or maybe they could have a cart on wheels so that each grade could have enough computers for one class at a time? Since technology teachers (who taught students) were removed last year and STAT teachers (who only teach teachers) replaced them, you have already removed teachers who teach children from the classroom. What’s next to pay for this initiative?
4. I bet you are looking to reduce teacher workload, by making them use computers with 6 year olds- their dexterity is not exactly at their childhood peak.
Here’s a transparency question for you: How many computers have been broken, we understand from teachers that many break and DALY does not fix them in the 48 hours as contracted.
5.Does this make any sense in a school district in which there are so many students without air conditioning and schools with their foundation sinking into a pond (Landsdowne High) and others with brown drinking water and bursting pipes (Dulaney High) and bus drivers being paid so little that they transfer to other counties and children are left behind to wait on corners for hours, literally.
6. “fiscally responsible” and “only 30 million dollars over budget” do not go hand in hand. The multi year contracts require that the school system pay annually 58 million dollars (which by the way is the equivalent of 967 teacher salaries) for computers or again, you are left with obsolete machines.
I would love to understand just what you mean by “– our district has been very transparent about S.T.A.T. and very proactive with the device deployment”. Indeed you have been proactive, but where is the transparency? Why won’t the superintendent explain where the money is coming from to pay for STAT teachers- it’s not explained in the budget and it is a legitimate question. These STAT teachers do not teach students, as you stated, they do PD for the teachers. The technology teachers (who actually taught students) were removed last year. Where is the transparency about class sizes growing?
And why is that when asked at a Board of Ed meeting, nobody, not even Mrs. Verletta White, Chief Academic Officer can answer the question from BOE members- “how much screen time are our youngest children getting”?
Here’s a question for you since we have your attention- how does it work to spend all this money on computers that you are stating will only be used minimally during the day? And if they are not being used only minimally, how much will they be using them? Why can’t parents track how much screen time their kids are getting? Our youngest learners are 6 year olds, they need to touch, write, play and draw to learn, not stare into computer screens.
https://statusbcps.wordpress.com
There are currently 33,000 students without air conditioning in Baltimore County Public Schools and temperatures have been recorded to be as high as 104 degrees in classrooms with children with asthma who have been taken away from schools in ambulances- does that really seem like something that is not in “desperate need of improvement”?
Some interesting details, yet this does not invalidate any of the criticisms above, including, as even the comment writer notes “To be fair, these pilots are moving forward quickly with little quantitative data.” The point is there is no evidence that this works for kids, and the pilots have had no time to be properly evaluated before plans are made to roll the initiative out wider. Some elements of this program appear to be helpful, but many students are also falling through the cracks: Bright students whose grades are suffering because they are NOT given other options than computer screens, because they are downloading video games at school, or whose devices don’t work when everyone else is on them and are told by school tech support, “These cost more than $1,000, and I can’t really ask for another one.” These ongoing issues are more widespread than admitted and additional “qualitative data” that needs to be taken into consideration. This is not about change; this is about logical change. And the math doesn’t pan out on that only $30 million a year figure. Divide $270 million by 5 years…. (not to mention additional personnel and other costs, as well as between $60 million to $70 million annually after full implementation.) Tech doesn’t have to be one-laptop-per-student in all grades for digital options to work, and overreach will not help a large school district with many pressing needs–lack of drinkable water, working heat/AC, or usable textbooks print or online, as well as large class sizes, severely outdated buildings, and the many other problems or needs not currently being addressed.
No, I am a teacher at a BCPS School. And I am only sharing my opinion as another side to the discussion. I think that too often only the complainers get their voices heard. I love the changes that I am witnessing in my classroom and did a lot of research to try and articulate my points and counter some of the arguments made by opponents. I am also a parent of a BCPS student and very eager to see him experience S.T.A.T. I can’t answer most of your questions since they were directed at district officials, so I will let my original points stand alone for better or worse. I appreciate your responses. Again, you can’t have a meaningful discussion without multiple perspectives. And it’s not that I think your points are completely invalid, I just don’t believe this is a big, bad, black-and-white issue. And I don’t want a national audience to only hear from one perspective.
My child attended BCPS. You’re clearly a supporter of this deal. I would ask you to consider how all the resources you just mentioned could be better used to improve kid’s lives, and spent rolling out a very questionable business scheme. You “personally don’t believe we are in desperate need of improvements to infrastructure, transportation, class size reduction, and social programs”, I could not disagree more.
Something for people to keep in mind, unlike most school Boards in the U.S.,the Baltimore County School Board is unelected, and appointed by the Governor, who is currently a Republican. My feeling is that the “reform” has just begun to hit the fan here.
Still, there are cooler heads in the County government, and this S.T.A.T. deal may be backed away from, before too much damage is done. It’s the wrong direction, for so many reasons.
In the following article, note Supt. Dance’s willingness to immediately drop infrastructure improvements, but not this S.T.A.T. thing.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-co-school-budget-20150129-story.html
@BCPS Teacher, if indeed “only the complainers get their voices heard” then why was the Board of Education meeting that was meant to be for community input filled up with literally hours of paid employees promoting STAT? It sounds like your child has not been in a classroom where STAT is used- many parents can tell you it’s not everything you see in the press. We are talking about children as young as 6 years old- do you understand that is what you are advocating for in your response?
It’s obvious that Dr. Dance and the BCPS school board are not interested in evaluating what the results might be before charging ahead with this boondoggle for the digital tech ed industry. For example, the BCPS school board Chairman Uhlfelder had this to say on 3 February 2015 when decisions were being made concerning the expansion of the STAT program: “I don’t have to wait for a study. I can’t imagine the study is not going to be anything but positive.” And this year the same sort of thing happened: rather than wait for the results of any kind of study whatsoever, the board charged ahead and voted to continue expanding this digital program. The administrators who voted to expand STAT are not interested in whether or not this program actually works – they are only interested in cramming this program down the throats of the students, teachers and parents as fast as they can before anyone will notice how damaging this untested technology really is.
If anyone has any doubt that our kids are being used by BCPS as guinea pigs in a giant educational experiment, they only need to look at the National Education Technology Plan, issued by the White House in November 2010. In it, you will find evidence that nobody had a clue how to create the kind of vast, computerized educational program Dr. Dance launched in Baltimore County 2.5 years later.
Through an extensive public relations campaign, Dr. Dance has been giving us the impression that all the fundamentals of his STAT program are based on evidence. But, if that’s true, then why does this November 2010 report call for fundamental research and development in this area? Has there ever been any evidence that Dance’s STAT approach has been proven to work, or are we the first to get this type of experimental treatment?
From page 78 of the 2010 National Education Technology Plan:
“What we do not have is an integrated system that can perform all these functions dynamically while optimizing engagement and learning for all learners. Such an integrated system is essential for implementing the individualized, differentiated, and personalized learning called for in this plan.”
From page 80:
“…we have yet to see highly effective systems that can be brought to scale. ”
The educational giant Pearson was apparently not able to provide a working digital curriculum for the fiasco in LA, and yet we are supposed to believe that the teachers in BCPS are able to cobble together such a program in their spare time/summer vacations and make such a program work when Pearson could not? Where did the curriculum writers in BCPS get trained in writing a digital curriculum? From Dr. Dance with his 2 years of teaching experience? And where has this digital curriculum been tested and proven to work if not on the fly?
If the STAT program showed enough troubles that it needed to be slowed down in the middle schools, then why did Dr. Dance decide to railroad a troubled program into 3 high schools next year? And what’s the Plan B if these high school “lighthouse” pilot programs turn out to be a failure? How will the high school kids catch up? Who is going to provide remedial assistance to those students whose high school education was completely messed up by this arrogant push for untested technology? Is Dr. Dance going to employ them to do his dishes and trim his toenails if they all turn out not to be college and career ready?
What’s the backup plan for this blindly ambitious social engineering experiment?
The comment stating that Baltimore Co. abolished technology teachers confirms one of my great fears: that EVERY teacher is going to have to be a technology teacher. Our school’s tech teacher does wonderful things, but she is a specialist and devotes ungodly amounts of time to stay abreast of the tech. Now WE ALL have to do this? Don’t tell me this is not going to reduce our efficacy at delivering our content (oh, I forgot, teachers “talk too much” and shouldn’t “tell” students anything; so maybe that’s a good thing.)
It’s hard for me not to see the urgent push for 1:1 as tech companies’ and teacher-despising superintendents’ conspiring to have computers deliver both content and assessments on a daily basis so that they can further marginalize “incompetent” and “unengaging” teachers, and to more readily gather data not just on students, but on teachers too. The new online Amplify ELA curriculum has spying features that allow administrators to see if teachers have made their quota of six comments per student writing. It’s like the little hand-held computers they give Amazon warehouse workers –little “minders” that set insane quotas and shame workers if they can’t meet them. The digital classroom will be a control freak’s dream. No matter if the digital applications turn out to be no better than a glorified textbook –just as insipid and cheaply made. No matter that all of the “21st Century Skills” can be taught equally well, if not better, without the mediation of yet another gadget in kids’ lives.
@Paz, It is not fair to imply the situation in BCPS is the result of having a Republican governor. Superintendent Dance was hired by a school board whose membership was comprised entirely of appointees of the previous governor, Martin O’Malley. It is only within the past few months that Governor Hogan has made any appointees to the Baltimore County school board and it is those new members who have actually begun to question the STAT initiative.
I’ll just put this here… http://bit.ly/wifi_research
Thank you Diane Ravitch for continuing to raise national awareness. The OECD study was not hard to find.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-dance-technology-20151201-story.html
With all this push and pull, the bottom line is computers/tablets/devices are just tools, and not always the best ones for learning–or teaching. Aside from the eyestrain endemic to screen viewing, known as computer vision syndrome, the results coming in on tech-sponsored PARCC tests show students actually do better with, guess what? Pencil and paper.
See this recent EdWeek story: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/02/03/parcc-scores-lower-on-computer.html
In the comments BCPSTeacher claims that a new print management system is going to save BCPS some money. The funny thing about that is that the print management system was such a debacle it was disbanded weeks ago. Might want to have the facts when defending the expenditures of BCPS. And I’ll bet BCPSTeacher is not working in one of our building in complete disrepair or even teaching all day. Or seeing the brown water in the fountains. To date we’ve not heard classroom teachers singing the praises if the “digital transformation”. This is an equity issue, pure and simple. And there just isn’t an infinite supply of money no matter how theyvtry to spin it.
I would agree that this is a horrible waste. I teach 10th grade English and we are using computers every day because the work is entirely online. However, I have not seen the drastic improvement in using computers everyday. Rather, my 11th grade English students, who don’t use computers, have actually drastically improved in their writing and critical thinking. These students occasionally visit the media center and occasionally use their own devices. However, they all maintain and post their own blogs from home with occasional visits to the media center to help them with the technology piece.
Last year I taught 7th grade students in a computer lab every day. However, I did not restrict their learning to just the computers. Rather, they were frequently up, writing and brainstorming in groups on dry erase boards, then they would go to their computers to complete independent or closure type work. These students improved greatly.
The point I am making is that investment in teacher training, teachers, and sound educational resources, and facilities is what is needed. A one-to-one ratio of students to computers is a bad idea when the ration of student to teachers is high. The kids who normally fall between the cracks will still fall between the cracks.
Timothy Baldwin’s response is incredibly thoughtful, and on point. This large school district would have to forego many of the essential needs described here—low student-teacher ratios as well as basic environmental upgrades and fixes–to maintain the expensive one-laptop-per-student program in all grades, when tech options can be provided without the overreach approach. Common sense, sound fiscal management, true evidence-based techniques, and actual critical thinking are “21st century skills” for students and leaders alike. Let’s hope they can be applied more thoughtfully here.
Mr. Frisch,
Time will tell.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/bs-md-school-board-appointments-20150702-story.html
http://www.avenuenews.com/news/local/article_22bc8393-8378-525d-92f0-229344e034f3.html
As I said, we really do need good arguments for human teachers
Diane Ravitch, Is it okay that we have reposted your post with reference both to you and a link to this post?
We are new to blogging and just realized we probably should have asked first.
Thank you.
Status, no problem
Thank you!
Diane, let me introduce you to how technology works. A tablet costs about $400-500 once. A laptop costs about $1000 once. It takes costs to maintain it and for licenses but those are just a couple hundred at most. Replace these every 3 or 4 years and the cost is no more than $500/yr. That represents at most 1/20 (5%) of the per pupil cost per student. It’s equivalent to increasing class size by one student.
No longer do we have arguments about whether the neediest students have technology. No longer must students write, re-write, and re-write their papers. They write them once and focus on editing. They can view lectures at home. They can read lessons at home.
This is the best money ever invested. As I’ve said before the grand cost of the online learning software my kids’ school uses (both diagnostic tests and unlimited lessons between K-8) is a whopping…… wait for it…….. $35 a YEAR!!! How dare somebody spend $35/student to increase efficiency! How dare somebody start to bring public education into the 21st century! How dare somebody provide our K-12 students the same resources that the military and nearly every company in existence today provides its employees!!
I know change is hard. It was hard for the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. It was hard for the royal family in England. It was hard for the French to let go of their empire. It was hard for the airlines to deregulate. But I have confidence in teachers to adapt. Even if neither Diane nor Wendy nor Emily nor Randi nor anybody else has confidence in you, Virginia SGP does!
Did you read this post and the previous post on Baltimore? Your calculations are nothing like the costs in Baltimore County. I can guarantee you that if the finances were as you describe, this discussion about choosing technology over necessary infrastructure would not be going on. Your tone is belittling as if you know what is right for everyone. Our school district has already removed teachers who teach children to pay for this initiative and it costs approximate what it would cost to pay 1000 teachers per year just for the computers. Teachers need support to run these programs so the numbers you state are leaving a few things out.
Maybe you can go try to learn in the un-airconditioned, asbestos-laden buildings with brown drinking water and exploding pipes and see if your computer keeps you focussed on learning. Our population is almost half on Free and Reduced Meals and our school district does not offer food on snow days, holidays or summer for those kids like most districts with those needs. Technology is being pushed at great expense to our community. And the actual effectiveness of 1:1 computers with early elementary children is just not proven.
” A tablet costs about $400-500 once. A laptop costs about $1000 once. ”
If every kid gets a tablet that means $100 extra cost per year per student. In a class of 20, this means $2000 extra cost. This could also be an extra pay for the teacher—a 4-5% raise in TN. (A total of $100 million in TN )
As we observed it many times, all these 21st century developments in education are taking kids and teachers farther and farther away from the ideal teaching environment which was already practiced 2500 years ago and where kids and teacher are having a conversation.
The question is, why are you trying to replace teachers by computers? What’s the advantage?
How about replacing parents by computers?
and in LAUSD whee sleazy Deasy purchased iPads, that now sit in warehouses, because it is expensive to update, and get access from apple, after the purchase.
In want to add that Computers “DO NOT IMPROVE” pupil results, and this was reported by the OECD.
Investing heavily in school computers and classroom technology does not improve pupils’ performance, says a global study from the OECD.
The think tank says frequent use of computers in schools is more likely to be associated with lower results.
LOWER results—not HIGHER, Virginiasgp.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34174796
Lloyd, maybe you should retake some of those CC lessons. “Students who use computers moderately at school, such as once or twice a week, have “somewhat better learning outcomes” than students who use computers rarely”
This is not to say that an online charter school is a good idea. Clearly it is not. Nor is a teacher who babysits kids sitting in front of computers. And a computer by itself does nothing. It does allow effective software, lectures, animations, etc. to be used effectively in a balanced curriculum and by effective teachers.
The cost, and effectiveness, of the software is much, much more important than the hardware which it supports. Same with those expensive whiteboards that our schools just “had to have”. Here’s a case in point. My daughter liked to use the lessons and was able to go ahead in some areas. She complained about being sent back to lessons that were too easy. So I asked the school if they could adjust the lessons. Since I am not allowed to speak to the actual teachers (who are likely on my side), the idiot principal tells me the lessons can’t be changed and are correct according to the tool’s evaluation scores. She even sends me the report. Not only can the principal not read the scores correctly, I’m going to have to bring the tool’s user guide to show her that the software specifically allows the teacher to override the auto-lesson generation. In fact, it encourages the teachers to “differentiate” the instruction.
The fact that we have so many administrators and teachers who are incapable of reading user guides to understand how to use the online tools does not mean those tools cannot be effective.
statusbcps, nice dodge of your inability to apply 3rd grade math to the cost of Baltimore’s computers. And no, I do not think the schools should be run like the Navy. I do think teachers should take responsibility for their errors like we did in the Navy. And I understand Eva Moscovitz may be more inclined to run a disciplined program (many of those kids probably need some discipline since they may not be taught it at home). But I am more inclined to allow the kids to ask questions and engage with a knowledgeable teacher. Are you seriously suggesting that kids can’t learn amazing things (such as how to play their video games or to google/wiki all kinds of topics) on computers? Do your kids really use hardcopy encyclopedias? Hardcopy dictionaries? If for no other reason than to force kids to look up every word they don’t understand on google, kids should have computers/tablets. And their class size should rise by a single student to pay for those devices/software.
Go take a walk, get out and breath some real air. You cannot live on data, no more that a real teacher can use data to improve practice. As long as you talk about data and testing and not learning you are wasting your breath talking to real teachers.
What you said.
YUP!
Technology is not magic. It can’t overcome learning disabilities and cause children who are not interested to cooperate with teachers and learn. Technology is a tool for teaches to use. It must be up to the teachers to decide when to use what technology for what in their lessons. To shift budge money to buy technology and fire teachers will have the opposite effect to student outcomes.
Why is this shifting budget? It’s simply avoiding hiring new teachers until class sizes increase by 3% ( less than 1 student per class). Teachers can easily handle one additional student when a significant chunk of the “data gathering”, grading and analysis is performed by the software.
And increasing productivity only helps teacher wages. As you move up in the value chain, your salary increase. Highly skilled workers receive more pay than lower skilled workers. Yes, you can automate lower skill tasks but the remaining tasks, especially the design of the system and its implementation, are necessarily higher value jobs. Dumping administrative tasks (grading, analysis, reports, etc.) on a computer makes a teacher’s time more valuable. This is econ 101.
I was not talking about using computers to make the administrative tasks of teachers easier. I was talking about the use of technology to teach children as if that technology can do what teachers can’t—teach students who do not cooperate to learn.
If a student has been damaged by poverty and has no interest in learning, scripted lessons via computers is not going to magically cause those children to suddenly become hungry to cooperate and learn with a comptroller if they didn’t with flesh and blood teachers.
Proof of that fact has already been made through the almost total failure of virtual schools where students stay at home and learn on their own through their computer.
From the BBC: Online schools ‘ worse than traditional teachers’
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34671952
Cyber Schools Are Failing, So Why Are They Expanding?
http://neatoday.org/2015/03/19/cyber-schools-failing-expanding/
From The Washington Post: Students in K12 Inc.’s online classes lag academically, study finds
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/students-in-k12-incs-online-classes-lag-academically-study-finds/2012/07/18/gJQAMdvPuW_story.html
virginiasgp: “Teachers can easily handle one additional student when a significant chunk of the “data gathering”, grading and analysis is performed by the software.”
Computers cannot gather data that really matters. You can automate grading only if you tailor the work to be done to computers. Any self respecting teacher would avoid doing that.
The real purpose of grading students’ work is not to assign grade, but to have an impression of what the student understands. This has no component that can be expressed in numbers.
The more we use computers in our classrooms, the more we tailored our teaching to the machines and not to the students’ educational interest.
The real, national standards research had ONR PRINCIPLE OF LEARNING dealing with the need for GENUINE ASSESSMENT AND AUTHENTIC EVALAUTION… and it was ALL FOR THE PURPOSE YU SATED SO WELL; “The real purpose of grading students’ work is not to assign grade, but to have an impression of what the student understands. This has no component that can be expressed in numbers.”
Of course the real research disappeared when the Bush horsesh#t offered standardized tests, and Pearson saw its opportunity.
This is just silly. You are literally suggesting the end of all simulators, online videos, animated instruction, etc. At least you are honest.
Hey Duane, tell him why he’s wrong. There are no objective grades or tests, right Duane, even if given by teachers.
Actually, the devices here cost $1,400 to be replaced by new leased devices Every four years–plus upgraded servers, new tech, new software license renewals, etc. etc. into the millions. There’s also the ongoing issue of “engineered obsolescence.” THAT’s how tech works.
Anonymous, are you serious? I showed in an earlier post that the annual cost for the technology purchase was 3% of per pupil cost. That is less than increasing class size by a single student.
And yes, whether in a private company or government agency, computers are generally depreciated over a 3 or 4 year cycle. That’s why leasing them is often as efficient as purchasing them (the maintenance is included in the lease). And those “expensive” software licenses? My district pays $35/student/year. That’s 0.27% of the per pupil cost.
So I suggest you check your numbers.
Virginia, every school has computers for students. It is not necessary to buy a computer for every student. There is no research or evidence that shows that students need their own computer.
Many of those schools with computers only get to use them once or twice a week. No, the kids shouldn’t be glued to the computer all day. However, having an electronic device in each class for every child allows targeted lessons to be given to every kid in any subject at any time. It costs little relative to per pupil spending and when used effectively, can dramatically leverage the skills of the teacher.
“Anonymous, are you serious? I showed in an earlier post that the annual cost for the technology purchase was 3% of per pupil cost. That is less than increasing class size by a single student.”
Are you serious, virginiasgp? Why on earth would the district buy laptops and whatnot instead of giving enough raises to the teachers to keep up their standard of living?
School do not exist to employ teachers.
Schools exist to effectively educate kids.
We can clearly see where your priorities are. Pretty sad actually. Baltimore will raise the salaries of its teachers ($34M set aside) but to you, all funds are “teacher money” to which you feel entitled. Ignore any advancements for the students. Schools, to you, are simply conduits by which the public can funnel you money in the form of a paycheck. Nice.
Virginia, would you send your child to a school where teachers were demoralized, depressed, and eager to leave? Teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions.
Diane, that is a leadership problem. At most the “reformers” are looking to upgrade 5% of the teachers. That is hardly an “assault” on teaching. It is true we have many administrators who do not understand the reform message and try to preach test prep. Those admins need to be replaced first. We have great teachers as demonstrated by VAMs. We need to use more of their innovative solutions and help spread the best ideas to their peers.
I want enthusiastic, confident teachers for my child. However, I want that attitude to be based on reality and not on an inflated view of their effectiveness. Unfortunately, my children have encountered teachers who were told they were “great”, despite being at best average and sometimes much less.
virginiasgp “Ignore any advancements for the students. ”
What advancement? In math education, there’s not a single thing computers do that is necessary for a great math class. Not one. Occasional calculations? A $5 calculator does everything needed, and even at the university, a $30 Casio can even do symbolic calculations so it does more than needed. But of course, all calculations can be done by hand.
There’s a free software called Sagemath. It does all possible math and statistics (and chemistry, etc) related calculations, visualizations. It can be used online or can be installed on any computer. At the university, I show it to the kids where it can be accessed. That’s all they need. It’s simple to use, and it has a freely available user guide. At home or library or computer lab, kids can use it as much as they want to. They can use it to check the solutions to all their home work, or they can do experiments with it.
But whatever Sagemath can do has nothing to do with great math teaching. Great teaching is done by great teachers, so there is no choice between tablets and teachers when it comes to students’ need.
If teachers’ pay doesn’t keep up with inflation, the quality of teaching will decline. If you don’t use computers in classes, quality of teaching doesn’t decline.
So that’s where my priorities are: in great teaching. I believe, that’s very much in the interest of students, isn’t it?
Before making yet more assumptions about my motives or state of mind, also consider the fact that I maintain computers, email and web servers, various free software, and each year I evaluate the newest software offerings that are supposed to help teachers in their work.
Without exception, they are designed to take over a teachers’ job by distorting what math education is supposed to be. Kids, and that includes my daughter in 10th grade and my college freshman son, learn to press buttons, do calculations, enter solutions online with cumbersome interfaces instead of learning real math—math that would be useful and interesting for them.
My daughter comes home every day and demands me to explain what she really learned in math because in class she just “learned which buttons to push to get the answers”.
This pragmatic push to perceive math as a subject to get correct answers via calculations truly destroys math education.
Mate Wierdl, we are talking about fundamentally different concepts.
1. Any lecture that can be given in class can be recorded on video. There is never a reason to have a teacher give a lecture from the in-class teacher when the best of breed lecture can be given from an online repository.
2. Animations are much more effective than static descriptions. I’ve previously described the Leapfrog phonetic lessons with animated frogs. Kids gravitate to these naturally and absorb the material more quickly than a human. But this applies in any field. On our submarine, we had engineering drawings and descriptions of the systems. However, the systems are not static. Fluids and electricity flow and procedures are a series of events that cause a desired outcome. By animating slides to show how everything fit together, sailors were able to learn the material quickly and have a better fundamental understanding of the concepts. As I was leaving, private vendors were beginning to sell more sophisticated animations of what we had been producing by ourselves. The animations were superior to our briefings because they had the resources to scale and deliver to all the submarines across the fleet. Rather than resisting change, we welcomed those resources so we could concentrate on learning and operating the sub.
3. Written tests cannot be adaptive. The iReady product my daughter’s school uses allows the kids who soak up material to advance in difficulty up a grade or two. The same can apply to struggling kids who need remediation. Not only does the computer adjust the lessons and test questions, but it shows detailed reports on granular standards as well as growth (including as compared to similar students). This is simply not possible by a teacher trying to perform all this manually. That is not merely the “administrative function” that a teacher performs but goes to the heart of “differentiated instruction”.
Where we will agree is that computers can’t always listen to where the kids are struggling. If a student doesn’t comprehend a lesson and needs a tangible example or a different analogy, the teacher is best equipped to handle that. Those functions are higher value-added, not less since the teacher has to understand every concept well enough to explain the intricacies to struggling students. Your resistance to technology in education is not only futile, it’s counterproductive to your goals.
“By animating slides to show how everything fit together, sailors were able to learn the material quickly and have a better fundamental understanding of the concepts.”
I completely understand your viewpoint, Virginiasgp. However, I don’t consider teaching math even remotely similar to a user guide. This is one of the reasons, online universities don’t work as well as bricks and mortar ones.
I am not resisting technology at all. I use it both in the classroom and in my research. It’s just not fundamental.
A great teacher is much more interesting and inspiring to a kid than any kind of animation.
vsgp: “The iReady product my daughter’s school uses allows the kids who soak up material to advance in difficulty up a grade or two. ”
Ask your daughter if she’d prefer sitting in front of a computer to “explore her full potential” or take part in classes like these
In classes like these kids learn and experience much more than just math: they experience human relationships that inspire them. Kids rarely get enthusiastic about a subject for the subject’s sake. They get inspired by a great or funny or kind teacher and fired up classmates. This is what animation cannot compete with.
Compare the videos with
which is a postcard from 1910 depicting the exciting school experience in 2000.
Wierdl, they were giving out raises of around 3% which is multiple times that of inflation. I realize you believe every penny should be given to the same teachers for doing the same work regardless of whether it’s clearly ineffective. We get it. Teacher unions couldn’t care less about the kids, they only care about their members wages. The “kids first” mantra is merely distracting propaganda to accomplish their objective of capturing the maximum amount of tax resources for their personal use.
What drivel!
vsgp “There are no objective grades or tests, right Duane, even if given by teachers.”
Those pushing for standardized tests and computer assisted grading try to assert the opposite, but I agree with you. Teaching is a human relationship, and grading makes as much sense as grading your kids or sister or spouse.
Those who realize that family members play their roles at home without anybody grading them, start to comprehend that people can be motivated without any outside evaluation system.
I happen to know quite a few home schoolers, and the kids are doing their home work without any grading.
My colleague at the university is a prominent AI researcher. His stuff was used during the Mars landing. He regularly comes into my office to complain about the online grading system: how much worse those kids are doing who use the online homework grading system than those who submit their work to him for personal grading. Kids try to fool the system for better grade. They are not as brave when it comes to trying to fool a live teacher.
From Diane Ravitch, July 2015: “Regular readers may have noticed a flurry–one might say–a deluge of comments by a reader who signs as “Virginiasgp.” SGP stands for “student growth percentiles.” He believes with a religious fervor in student growth measures for evaluating teachers. He also says that he has worked in the U.S. Navy on a submarine. Another reader who signs as “NY Teacher” offered Virginiasgp some ideas about the deficiencies of test scores for teacher evaluation:
VAsgp
Apparently you think it’s a great idea to run public schools like the Navy runs its nuclear submarine fleet. Well thanks for the inspiration man. You really are a hoot-n-a-half on this. Shear genius.”
A local journalist continues to research the 1:1 initiative in Baltimore County Public Schools: http://towsonflyer.com/2016/03/01/cost-for-laptop-program-at-bcps-keeps-rising/
I find this quote so absurd its funny, if it wasn’t also so sad. “We only ask for [evidence] when it’s something kids like. Nobody asks about bells, grades, standardized testing, using all of your spelling words in a sentence, Algebra II, etc.” Gary Stager
I think the What works clearing house, The National Education Policy Center and others might disagree.
http://www.slideshare.net/LinkedInPulse/video-why-teachers-need-to-embrace-technology-in-the-classroom-52400403
Re: that Dallas Dance video: Kids don’t need to learn anything and develop their own memorization skills or neurological pathways when they could “just ask Siri?” And this is a superintendent of Schools, saying “5 year olds” should be querying Siri? Would kids really ask what the state capitals are if they were never even taught about state capitals? Studying and making the world part of your own database–the brain–is acquiring knowledge. Knowledge.
This clearly seems like a war on teachers, with new tech as the weaponry, instead of being used as sane tools. There is no balance here.
What about his not-so-veiled threat for the teachers he supposedly leads: “Tech will not replace teachers, but teachers who use tech will replace the teachers who do not.”
I feel sorry for the educational professionals in this school system when the superintendent has such a tech-fueled ego run amok.
@anonymous… and the kids and the parents of the kids in the system. It is awful for the kids and completely unsustainable financially.
This bill would keep the great hoax going for all of Maryland. http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2016RS/bills/sb/sb1041F.pdf
Geeze… I looked at that bill to make it a law to provide each student with digital crap!
WOW. What a cesspool Maryland is, almost as bad as Ohio or Illinois, or… hmmm. all contenders!
Baltimore County Schools are being run by a left wing ideologue who was convicted for an ethics violation and there could be more issues over his contract and $5,000 fee for speaking engagements.
I am looking into that now.
Great blog by the way. If we keeping hitting them with the unbridled truth maybe we can topple this mess.
Dance defended an incident at Patapsco and I filed a PIA for prof of what he was claiming and after three week no answer. I believe they lied again.
A video made by someone in the BCPS community. It’s 10 minutes and in my opinion, worth the watch if you’re interested in how STAT became a global model in the first 9 weeks of implementation.
Weird but informational. Thanks.
Here’s an update on the corporate influence on Baltimore County Public Schools
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-county-technology-20160416-story.html
Dear Chicago,
With Love,
Baltimore County
re: CPS’ newly posted job, Executive Director of Personalized Learning, comes with a dire warning
http://www.chicagonow.com/chicago-public-fools/2016/06/cps-newly-posted-job-executive-director-of-personalized-learning-comes-with-a-dire-warning/