Steven Singer, like many other teachers, was stunned to see an article published by NEA that lauds the rise of technologies that replace teachers. This is what is known on this blog as “depersonalized learning.” When I wrote “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Rptesting and Choice Are Undermining Education,” I quoted an article in Forbes that had been published in 1985. The technology editor wrote a commentary then predicting that in the future, the children of the poor would get computers, but the children of the rich would have teachers and computers.
Singer writes:
“When all the teachers are gone, will America’s iPads pay union dues?
“It’s a question educators across the country are beginning to ask after yet another move by our national unions that seems to undercut the profession they’re supposed to be supporting.
“The National Education Association (NEA), the largest labor union in the U.S., published a shortsighted puff piece on its Website that seemingly applauds doing away with human beings working as teachers.
“In their place would be computers, iPads, Web applications and a host of “devices” that at best would need human beings to serve as merely lightly trained facilitators while children are placed in front of endless screens.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Let’s not forget this:
“Taken together, [studies show] internet addiction (screen time) is associated with structural and functional changes in brain regions involving emotional processing, executive attention, decision making, and cognitive control.” –research authors summarizing neuro-imaging findings in internet and gaming addiction (Lin & Zhou et al, 2012)
Brain scan research findings in screen addiction:
Gray matter atrophy: Multiple studies have shown atrophy (shrinkage or loss of tissue volume) in gray matter areas (where “processing” occurs) in internet/gaming addiction (Zhou 2011, Yuan 2011, Weng 2013,and Weng 2012). Areas affected included the important frontal lobe, which governs executive functions, such as planning, planning, prioritizing, organizing, and impulse control (“getting stuff done”). Volume loss was also seen in the striatum, which is involved in reward pathways and the suppression of socially unacceptable impulses. A finding of particular concern was damage to an area known is the insula, which is involved in our capacity to develop empathy and compassion for others and our ability to integrate physical signals with emotion. Aside from the obvious link to violent behavior, these skills dictate the depth and quality of personal relationships. …
The conclusion to the piece:
In Short, excessive screen-time appears to impair brain structure and function. Much of the damage occurs in the brain’s frontal lobe, which undergoes massive changes from puberty until the mid-twenties. Frontal lobe development, in turn, largely determines success in every area of life—from sense of well-being to academic or career success to relationship skills. Use this research to strengthen your own parental position on screen management, and to convince others to do the same.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mental-wealth/201402/gray-matters-too-much-screen-time-damages-the-brain
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And you thought this NEA policy-piece was actually about improving ed-achievement? Clearly, as you understand from your research, the NEA is pushing policy that is harmful to the brain-devpt of young kids, thus that policy must [by default] be funded by $$$ from private sources who will benefit from sales of their sw products to little kids, & they could care less about longterm results.
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I never said what I thought about the NEA’s policy statement. Words are one thing. Actions are another. Watch their actions. What they actually do is more important than something they write down as a policy statement.
It’s easy to make a written claim and then do the opposite. Elected officials do it all the time. Trump does it every day, maybe several times a day.
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“What they actually do is more important than something they write down as a policy statement.”
Very true. But weren’t you one of those saying that Hillary’s platform was the most liberal presidential platform ever and therefore she was obviously a liberal? Isn’t it important to look at what she’s done too?
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“Isn’t it important to look at what she’s (Hillary Clinton) done too?”
Interesting question. Before the debates between the Kremlin’s Agent Orange and Hillary Clinton (HC), I didn’t know that much about what she had actually done based on reality and not alternative facts/conspiracy theories. But I soon learned as I turned to Vote Smart and Hillary’s voting record as a Senator from New York and fact checked her history going back to her college years that revealed she was a staunch, relentless supporter of women and children’s rights, I saw a different person than the one manufactured by the hate mongering, Alt-Right media machine.
As I sifted through the huge pile of moldy straw that was all the allegations of wrongdoing heaped on HC over the decades thanks to the massive piles of cash from her Alt-Right autocratic billionaire haters and focused on the actual facts that were not baseless or unproven allegations, the Hillary Clinton revealed would probably have been one of the greatest U.S. presidents in America’s history.
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“…she was a staunch, relentless supporter of women and children’s rights….”
Right, which is why Marian Wright Edelman blasted the Clintons for signing Welfare Reform thereby making a “mockery of his [Bill’s] pledge not to hurt children”. We could also talk about incarcerated women and women who are raising children alone because their children’s father is incarcerated due to “three strikes”? Or maybe we’re talking about women who lost their jobs to foreign sweat shops as a result of NAFTA. And please don’t tell me those were Bill’s policies – Hillary was a staunch advocate for all of them in her own right.
We could also talk about the millions of children harmed by her support of education “reform” as pushed by her bestie Eli Broad. Can’t even blame that one on Bill.
Or maybe you were talking about the women and children in foreign countries that she’s bombed? The ones in Honduras who have been threatened (and killed) by the right wing coup that she supported? The ones in Haiti who didn’t get a minimum wage raise because Hillary opposed it? The women of Saudi Arabia, one of Hillary’s staunchest foreign allies?
Specifically which women and children has Hillary been a staunch supporter of? Enquiring minds want to know. Uttering a few platitudes about women’s rights and reproduction doesn’t really count.
(And, since, while I shouldn’t have to, but know I need to say it, no, none of the above is intended to imply any support for Trump and no, he’s not any better on women’s rights (in fact, worse). Bernie, however, was and is better. Too bad Hillary and her crew worked so hard to shut him down.)
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Yes, Bill Clinton signed the Welfare Reform Act, but there is more to it than that.
First, in 1996, Hillary Clinton was the 1st lady and not a Senator in New York. She could not vote on HR 3734.
Both were veto-proof votes, but Hillary haters keep blaming her and her husband as if they were the only ones responsible.
https://votesmart.org/bill/2791/7886/welfare-reform-act-of-1996#.WUFrOenauUk
Congress can override the veto via a two-thirds vote with both houses voting separately, after which the bill becomes law. The president may also veto specific provisions on money bills without affecting other provisions on the same bill.
President Bill Clinton’s signature on that Bill was a formality. He could not veto it and if he refused to sign, it would have become law anyway.
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“Or maybe you were talking about the women and children in foreign countries that she’s bombed? The ones in Honduras who have been threatened (and killed) by the right wing coup that she supported? The ones in Haiti who didn’t get a minimum wage raise because Hillary opposed it? The women of Saudi Arabia, one of Hillary’s staunchest foreign allies?”
Allegations are not facts and no matter what Hillary Clinton thinks, she does not control the final decisions of foreign governments. If Hillary Clinton, as a Senator, expressed support for a right-wing coup in Honduras was she alone in her public support?
Provide links to the allegations and if there are no actual facts — not alternative facts and conspiracy theories — to support those allegations, than that is only your opinion and it will hold water as well as a leaky paper bag.
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Lloyd Lofthouse
I do think you are missing a little something . First those veto proof majorities were not veto proof majorities . Those bills were passed by those margins because the President backed that legislation. The same is true for the progressive support for Obama’s education policy .
When the policy is backed by the head of the party the president . Most legislation gets rubber stamped by most members of his party .Had Obama or Clinton opposed these policies there never would have been an override. Same with fast Track trade authority, which failed twice and came back like a zombie with 24(26?) Dem house votes . If Obama need 25 or 26, he would have gotten it to pass the bill with the majority of Republicans . The Iran semi Treaty (deal ) 1 vote shy the filibusterer . There is a dog and pony show that gives the bulk of the party cover.
I am in rare agreement with Dienne 77 . Who forgot to mention the bankruptcy bill that Hillary voted for. If you need a primer watch the interview with Moyers and Warren.
By the way I voted for Hillary ,held my nose as I did . I knew this thing was going to be a squeaker last March . At the risk of baiting NYCPSP it wasn’t the right wing slime machine . It was Hillary and Bill and Barrack .
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Joel, you are both right. The rightwing slime machine has been after Hillary for 25 years. And yes, she and Bill and Obama hurt the party’s base by aligning with people like Gates and Broad.
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ARRGGHHHH!!!!!!
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As I stated earlier, the NEA and the AFT/UFT are complicit in the “reform” movement. Maybe if the Supreme Court rules in favor of right-to-work laws it will force teacher unions to support teachers rather than do the bidding of the billionaire-boys-club if they want to maintain their dues stream and cushy salaries.
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Excellent point
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And yet, corporate “reformers” often argue that it’s teachers and their unions who are the bad guys because they don’t really care about kids. This is an appeal that’s aimed to tug at the heart strings and which could be effective in winning over low information people who don’t understand the historic role unions have played in ensuring worker’s rights and the rise of the middle class, in America and abroad, because wealthy corporate tycoons treated workers so badly. However, it’s a manipulative lie, and an exploitation of children as low hanging fruit, since most people go into teaching despite knowing they’ll never get rich doing it, because they care SO MUCH about kids.
Funny I have never heard anyone argue that other workers and their unions don’t care about the clientele they serve, such as nurses and firefighters. I think that needs to be pointed out whenever “reformers” try to pull the wool over people’s eyes by promoting this bogus claim about teachers and their unions.
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I complained a long time ago on this blog that there should be pressure on the union leaders by this blog to become aggressive in countering the reformer’s message. That didn’t happen, but getting back to my issue with union dues I suspect the unions are okay with the reforms for monetary reasons as long as they are guaranteed their dues/agency fees. In NYC during the Bloomberg years average tenure of teachers was about 15 years at the beginning of Bloomberg’s mayoralty. By the end of his 3rd tern it was about 2 to 3 years reportedly, but I find it hard to believe it dropped that much though surely there was a significant drop in the average length of service for teachers. The UFT collects the same dollar amount of dues from teachers regardless of salary level. Hence it was in the union’s interest for the city to replace one high cost teacher with two low cost taechers thereby doubling the union dues. That is why I believe the union betrayed its teachers by eliminating seniority protections when excessing occurred in the 2005 contract that created the “ATR” pool of unwanted teachers, the vast majority being highly experienced at the top end of the pay scale.
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While I’m all for pressuring our union for faithful representation of it’s membership, I think that using this blog as a vehicle towards that end would undermine it’s effectiveness as a meeting place for discussion, exchange of ideas, and honest debate and dialogue between people with similar and opposing ideas and ideals.
I’d be concerned about this space becoming a psuedo-PAC, which would change it’s identity, imo.
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Not sure what sense that makes. Is there even a SCOTUS case coming up on right-to-work laws? As it stands– & has stood for decades– only 60% of states have teachers’ unions. Of those, many [particularly in rust-belt & SW states] have been rendered toothless by legislation removing their right to negotiate for salary or working conditions. But if as you suggest SCOTUS decides all states should be ‘RTW’– how does that suddenly force “teachers unions to support teachers rather than do the bidding of the billionaires boys club if they want to maintain their dues stream and cushy salaries”? Cushy salaries, excuse me while I laugh. And you claim’ billionaire boys’ clubs’ support teachers’ unions when in fact those folks are union-busters & support school-choice/ prkivatization.
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The union dues are guaranteed in states such as NY whether a teacher joins the union or not. My experience in the UFT left me convinced that the leadership was only interested in supporting the policies of people like Gates, etc. Teachers with 30+ years were being attacked and suddenly getting “U” ratings in order to force them out. Teachers had to hire their own lawyers (those that could afford it) to fight false accusations. I recall reports in papers years ago of teachers who won their cases in court and forced the city to reinstate them in their jobs along with back pay. The union did nothing to help these teachers.
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Yes there is a case that was placed on the calender recently.
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Michael Brocoum
You bet I am comparing that Construction worker to a Teacher I assure you the amount of ignorance is profound in both groups. 35% of NEA members voted for Trump 20% of AFT members . I would bet you a dinner at Peter Lugers those numbers were much higher for retirees of each organization . Possibly much higher in the wealthier suburbs of NY and
higher still in Rural upstate NY . 50,000 ? UFT members in NYC and large contingents of AFT members in major cities like Chicago skew that number in a positive way.
As NYSTeacher has noted many times, his colleagues are not up to the task
” I had to explain to two colleagues who James Comey was ” (NYST)
I assure you they were not alone .
I wont give the history lesson on the creation of the NYC UFT posted it several times before. Those Steam Fitters may be less politically aware . But in certain senses more up to the task.
My real point is ,you just had an election in the NYC UFT was it last year. What happened . You are not going to solve this by committing suicide with Right to Work. You do what CTA did, organize and take that local over . Than the NYSUT and then the National.
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So 65% & 80% of NEA & AFT respectively voted for Hillary? Is that how the construction workers voted? I seriously doubt it. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just the opposite.
When was the last time teachers had a choice to vote for UFT president without one of them already in office as an interim. Hint: never. Every UFT president retired well before their term was up and appointed a favored “Unity” member as interim prior to the next election to ensure Unity’s lock on the office.
The other issue is that many new teachers leave after a few years so union issues aren’t that important to them. The 2005 UFT contract in NYC that ended seniority rights for excessing was a betrayal of its members. That was further exacerbated by changing the funding formula from a centralized budget for the system to one that allocated a fixed dollar amount to schools based on enrollment that put pressure on principals to find ways to replace high cost veterans with new lower cost teachers. The UFT agreed to the new funding formula as part of the 2005 contract.
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“That was further exacerbated by changing the funding formula from a centralized budget for the system to one that allocated a fixed dollar amount to schools based on enrollment that put pressure on principals to find ways to replace high cost veterans with new lower cost teachers. The UFT agreed to the new funding formula as part of the 2005 contract.”
How well I remember that one. It was one of Bloomberg/Klein’s signature moments. Divide and conquer. They knew exactly what they were doing and how it would effect the system.
Bloomberg was never shy about publicly stating, through all areas of the media, his desire to fire half the teachers and double the salary and class sizes of the remaining half. Successful communications businessman trying to apply the numbers crunching system that had served him so well in the past, to the field of education (a field in which he had little to no knowledge, whatsoever).
While I agree that the rank and file could definitely be better informed, I have to say that this is an age old problem. Many of us have very complicated and busy lives. Kids, job(s), friends/enemies, bills, etc. Lots of pressure. Contracts are not easy to read through, even for the negotiators and lawyers who hammer them out. So people place their trust in the knowledge and good will of their representatives (local, state, and federal) and then continue to go about their daily lives. In a perfect world, those representatives would honor their commitments to their constituency. But this is not a perfect world. Corruption is all too commonplace and, without real consequences, the people who would deceive us get to walk.
We should be better informed, but there’s an element of “blame the victim” at play, here. UNITY has been semi-hosing the UFT for quite some time, now. They’ve gotten very good at playing this game.
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Teachers are not all liberal Democrats. In fact, more than a third of all real public school teachers are registered Republicans and about half are registered Democrats. The rest are registered as independents that do not belong to any party.
For instance, “Among teachers we surveyed 56% were Democrats, 36% Republicans, and 8% independents”
http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2009/05/party-affiliation-of-teachers-and-state.html
There are about 3.5 million real public school teachers in the U.S. If 36-percent are Republicans that is 1.26 million. Just because they are public school teachers doesn’t mean they are going to vote for a Democratic no matter who the GOP candidate is.
When I was still teaching, I knew real teachers who were conservatives and registered Republicans that would never vote for a Democratic no matter what. If the GOP candidate was worse than even Trump, they might stop voting but they’d never vote for a liberal and to them all Democrats were evil liberals because of the far right hate media machine.
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gitapik, what is UNITY pls? (UNITY has been hosing UFT). Tried ‘acronym-finder’ but no joy.
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Unity is the group/slate/caucus that runs the UFT since its inception. They have effectively organized to make it very difficult to win an election against them. Think of it as a party – Democrats or Republicans. Unity requires a pledge of loyalty to its leadership to join the “party”.
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Hi. The UFT is comprised of 3 caucuses:
UNITY: The first (1962) and most powerful one. Many of the UFT members don’t even know that there are other options.
NEW ACTION: This branch was formed in opposition to UNITY policy in 1980 but has been endorsing UNITY candidates since 2003.
MORE (Movement of Rank and File Educators): This was formed in 2013 in opposition to UNITY and is still operating in they capacity.
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gitapik,
New Action stopped cross-endorsing Unity Caucus in the last election, ran with MORE, and together won the high schools seats on the union’s Executive Board (where they are hugely outnumbered by Unity members).
Those Executive Board meetings are often attended for less than ten minutes, or ignored altogether, by Randi Weingarten and Chancellor Farina’s lapdog, Michael Mulgrew.
He’s obviously a very, very busy man, far too busy to attend the Executive Board meetings of the union whose members pay his very generous salary.
MORE/New Action currently have seven seats on the EB, the only members of it that have not signed the Unity loyalty oath.
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Hey Michael. Thanks for the correction. Glad to see New Action becoming “new”, again.
Hope springs eternal.
MoleGrew is just that.
What a shame that we’re at a point of being “thankful” for UNITY/Mulgrew’s diminished efforts because it’s better than being in a RTW state.
“Just be happy that we’re only breaking one of your arms”.
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Michael Brocoum
You are clueless.
The union is not the problem, the members are the problem. In the case of teachers that has always been the case . Perhaps more so than in most other unions although most union members are clueless.
As I stood yesterday at a resist Trump Tuesday demonstration here on long island. It was great to see how many Teamsters have found God. As they honked their horns and gave thumbs up to the demonstrators . Amazing what has happened since the Central States pension plan went into jeopardy. A multi employer plan like that goes into jeopardy because to many employers have dropped their union contracts or gone under replaced by non union competition. .
Yet the one lunatic that pulled up in a van to the demonstration to shout obscenities, turned out to be a 638 Steamfitter, as the bumper sticker on his company vehicle indicated. He too will soon find God when Trump goes after Prevailing wage and Project labor agreements .
You want to change your union you get your butt active. You organize school by school , district by district, state by state and take that union over from the bottom up . Of course if that type of activism was in place to begin with, we would not be having this discussion in the first place.
RTW will certainly change your your union it will kill it . And if you think the UFT is a problem in NYC, try going to a state with RTW laws. Better yet go to one with few unions.
It is a further question as to why anyone would chose to FREELOAD to begin with.
“Wisconsin teachers now earn less total compensation than they did seven years ago, thanks to cuts in benefits. They face larger classes and less job security, and in some districts they’ve been asked to teach extra section”
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/scott-walker-trump-wisconsin-teacher-union/
Want to guess how much less and how much worse that will be 10 yrs from now.
I read the original article not Singers critique yet. My impression, the author balanced it a little, with some cautionary quotes . However the idea that teachers or any other workers would be able to steer or direct these changes is naive at best . But why does union leadership even entertain these things . They do so because the membership can not be counted on to fight the good fight .
Yup that Steam Fitter on Pine-lawn road yesterday could not even be counted on to educate himself on the issues . Probably never attends a union meeting or reads the Union editorials,throws out the numerous flyers mailed to him on the issues .Can not be counted on to vote in his own economic interest .Voting requires zero effort. It does not put liberty or body on the line. Almost every Construction Trade union in the Country came out strongly against Trump “the builder “. Knowing that when push came to shove he built non union where he could . Knowing he “loved RTW”, knowing he wanted a repeal of Davis Bacon and Project labor Agreements . Yet that moron with a 638 sticker on his bumper and 70% of the trades voted for the Orange monster.
That left the leadership of many of these National Unions sitting at the Presidents table ready to polish his shoes and I will skip the vulgar remark that was going to come next , as to what else they would polish. Hopping that if they do a good enough job he would spare their members or in the least they would be retired before Armageddon came. When it comes I am sure the members will blame the leadership.
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You make very good points about apathetic union members. Many of my fellow teachers do not see their jobs as political or they expect the union to do something, not realizing they are the union!
My local Indivisible group is big on passion but short on specific facts, at least about education. They also need some help in understanding the issues.
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Indivisible needs to join the fight to save public education!
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Talk about clueless! To compare teachers to steamfitters can only be described as clueless. The vast majority of teachers I speak to supported either Hillary or Bernie. Unions membership does not by itself equate to having the same political outlook. In fact RW threw the AFT/UFT support behind HRC, before any primaries no less, without even asking its membership for their opinion on whether to support HRC or Bernie. In my experience most teachers I speak to are very well informed and not so easily fooled by the likes of Trump and his enablers. If RW threw the AFT/UFT support behind Bernie, who always polled much higher than HRC in polls compared to Trump, we might not be in the awful situation we are today. I undertook a “scientific” poll on facebook asking whether teachers supported Bernie or Hillary during the primaries. The results were about 10 to 1 in favor of Bernie. The union leadership simply ignored its members knowing that their cushy salaries (RW about $500,000) are guaranteed since member dues are deducted whether or not a teacher joins the union, at least in NYS.
Time for a change in union leadership. That may only happen if the union’s survival is at stake.
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Joel: please read my post just above your initial one, here (about the blame being placed on the union members). I agree that people need to take more individual ownership in a collective system, but I don’t think it’s as cut and dried as that, personally.
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Teachers don’t vote.. sad but true
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Alice in Pa, we meet at last! For 2 yrs now, Valerie Strauss ‘The Answer Sheet’, tells me ‘you are ignoring a comment from Alice in Pa’, apparently because a hovering finger once engaged the wrong signal 😉 [have tried in vain to reverse]
This seems on the nose: “Many of my fellow teachers do not see their jobs as political or they expect the union to do something, not realizing they are the union!”. I am an outsider (never a union-member), & get what little I know about it from a sis who was long a teachers’ union rep in upstate-NY. And she was somewhat in a bubble due to her region’s location in a liberal collegetown island in right-wing waters. Yet it remained to me her private-sch-teaching sis to turn her on to this blog. Even down here in blue metro-NYC/NJ, I find that many public-school teachers are apolitical, failing to connect dots between state politics & school policies they don’t like, between a national privatization movement that doesn’t yet affect them & the future of their or next-gen public schools.
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I work in the media technology field, I track community use of social media and messaging, and I am always concerned about screen time for my kids. But, the article is NOT a puff piece. It’s actually quite interesting and worthy of the read. It raises many questions and as long as you don’t cherry pick the observations it’s quite thoughtful and realistic. The resistance to privatization and corp reform does itself a tremendous disservice when it responds to innovation in the tech sector with suspicion, bias and hysteria. Mastery of tech is necessary, not fear of it. Will it change our society? It most certainly will. Will all of that change be good or bad? Most likely a mixture. I wish my fellow resistance fighters and public ed/teacher defenders would reconsider the ideological purity of their beliefs and try to look realistically and honestly at the changing world around them. Look at the hypocrisy of your own “screen” use! You can dig in your heels and be dragged or you can shape it. But if you resist in your dogma, you’ll always be disappointed with the outcome. You can’t put this genie back in the bottle, so where does that leave you?
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“Mastery of tech is necessary, not fear of it.”
No one is arguing that. That’s not what “personalized learning” is about. It’s about plugging students into computers to do bland, rote “learning modules” which basically consist of reading about something, answering questions about the reading and moving on. The only thing “personalized” about it is that students can move at their own pace. It’s not about learning to use technology, it’s about replacing teachers with technology.
You’ll find people around here are quite well informed on the topic of “personalized learning” (otherwise known as “competency based education”, “mastery learning” and other very disingenuous names). You’d do yourself a favor by looking through the archives to find previous articles on this subject.
P.S., there’s nothing “innovative” about this. Big education companies have been trying to make bucks by canning “education” for decades. It’s just that now the computer can do the canning. Big whoop.
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I think you’re imagining my response instead of understanding it. Kids sitting in front of miserable test based cheap prompt and respond computerized nonsense isn’t what I had in mind. And you can’t paint it all with that brush. Poor curricula is not a new concept that blossomed with tech, it’s been the staple of poorly resourced schools for decades My point is that tech can be a supplement to what teachers are already doing in the classrooms and maybe it can even enhance what they do. I look at teaching as a relationship and in the context of a relationship much is possible. You don’t have a relationship with tech. It’s a tool and mastery of it to communicate ideas, connect with others, and in discovery, has enormous potential. If you listen to student voices, tech inspires them, when it’s in the construct of discovery, not as a banal, mind numbing replacement for classroom engagement. And ultimately my point was, don’t paint the picture with dogma and attack any representation of tech in school or how it’s “named” as negative. There’s nothing personal about tech, it’s what you do with it that counts. The article makes that claim.
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” Kids sitting in front of miserable test based cheap prompt and respond computerized nonsense isn’t what I had in mind.”
Well, maybe not you, but that’s what “personalized learning” (sic) is, and it’s what the NEA just endorsed and what we’re talking about here.
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“Mastery of tech is necessary,”
Yes, Dienne, I am arguing that it is not necessary, especially pre-secondary school. And then all it would take is a course or two of technology usage for those that wish it and it would be fine.
The technocracy wished for by so many fulfills no human need that can’t be filled without it. Especially the need for human teachers and not techno-trainers that have no human capabilities whatsoever.
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Die nne 77: LIKE!!
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Duane – this may be one area that you and I part company on, at least to some degree. I’m rather ambivalent about technology myself, but I do see a potential role for it, even at pre-secondary levels. If a teacher doesn’t want to use tech in his/her classroom, I’m perfectly fine with that, but I also support teachers who use tech as a tool. Learning to use the internet for research, for instance, or learning to program/code, or learning to do computer based animation or edit films, etc. My daughters’ school does those sorts of things all the time and has done since they were in first grade (in very small doses back then, admittedly).
What I’m definitely opposed to (and where I think you’d agree) is when it ceases to be the teacher using the tech as a tool and becomes the tech using the teacher (and the students) as a tool. Computers do not “teach” and students do not “learn” from computers.
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Well said, Dienne.
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A few suggested revisions.
What I’m definitely opposed to (and where I think you’d agree) is when it ceases to be the teacher using the tech as a tool and becomes the tech REPLACING the teacher (and the students) as an AUTOMATED TEACHING TOOL GUIDED BY THE RESULTS OF ENDLESS TESTS TO CREATE FUTURE COMPLACENT HUMAN DRONES CHURNED OUT ON AN AUTOMATED ASSEMBLY LINE. Computers do not “teach” CHILDREN TO BE LIFE LONG LEARNERS and students do not “learn” TO BE EMPATHIC PROBLEM SOLVERS AND CRITICAL THINKERS from computers.
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I don’t work in the media and tech field. I work in the education field. (Hint, hint.) Mastery of tech is not necessary for performing Shakespeare or for writing a legal brief… Tech obsession nowadays commands decision making at the school, district, and policy making levels so overwhelmingly as to be deleterious to the teaching of the whole child. It’s not hysterical to appreciate books, libraries, hands-on discovery, empirical observations and inquiries, and face to face discussions. It IS hysterical to claim that the internet is a panacea, or even overall beneficial to students compared to real teaching, something about which some of us know more than others.
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I watched hundreds of hours of student round table discussions. Kids are fascinated and inspired by the potentials of technology. They embrace it. No, as an actor performing you don’t need tech. But as a scenic designer, musician, lighting designer, videographer, choerographer, director, composer, or any one of the myriad of other trades behind the scenes, tech affords methods of creating worlds and environments we’ve never imagined. So yes it is important and yes, a mastery of it is important, in all of the arts
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Indoor plumbing improved living standards. So did washing machines, motorized vehicles, the electric lightbulb… What you’re talking about, Michael, is making (mostly animated) movies. Not such a big improvement of life. It’s only entertainment. It’s make believe.
I’m going to go out on a limb, and make an assumption based on recent experience about those roundtable discussions you mentioned. I hope I am wrong. When you visit your child’s school and have students pretend to be directors and videographers, the students look interested because we teachers told them to look interested. We give them questions to ask you. You’re a parent. We treat you well. To be honest, the students are nonplussed. What truly impresses them is when their teacher takes the time to read their writing and leave meaningful comments on their papers. It shows we care. It shows we’re not selling something. It shows we believe they can be part of a future that is not make believe.
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Nope, looked you up. I was wrong about you. I was thinking of someone who makes children’s and horror movies. (Interesting combination, huh.) Just goes to show how many techies are invading our schools.
My point still stands. Computerization is neither the means nor the purpose of education. Computers are to be used as sparingly as possible. (I like to use the word ‘computerization’ because ‘technology’ implies something new, which pixels are not.
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LFT: LIKE!!
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Technology should be used to supplement instruction, not supplant.
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Everyone understands that technology will change people’s lives. However, most teachers see computers as useful tools. They can envision technology supplementing instruction, not supplanting it. There is no evidence that “personalized instruction” has value. Tech companies keep churning out products with false claims, and no valid research to support their adoption. What we do know about cyber charters is that they are in a league of their own for academic failure.
We are subjecting young people to endless, wasteful experimentation as some under funded school districts see technology as a means to reduce their budgets. Any research I have read has stated that CAI can work in some subjects that are sequential, but cannot teach literature or the social sciences well. Computers can work with older, motivated, middle class students, and even they find tech tedious and boring. Young students and the poor need the relationship of a human that is empathetic and encouraging; they do not respond well to robots. We also do no know the impact of a lot of screen time on the developing brain or eyes.
Schools should be able to buy tech products on their own terms. Instead, we are in a climate where companies are trying to force adoption of their products by bribing representatives and administrators.
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And not just in the educational field. This is a national malaise in the works for nearly 40 yrs, ever since Reagan admin began busting unions, cutting corp & high-income taxes, & untying the post-gilded age/ Great Depression regulations that bolstered the middle-class by protecting it from vertical monopoly, predatory banking, et al– boosted to the max by Dems buying into neoliberalism, abandoning US workers to the global marketplace– all crowned by the SCOTUS Cit-United decision, permitting unlimited domestic & even foreign campaign donations.
Today the voter’s reps to the US govt are beholden more to the interests of campaign donors & their lobbyists than to the interests of their constituent voters. Evidence: proposed & enacted legislation/ budgets which run counter to overwhelming poll results, e.g., on gun control, school vouchers, healthcare, soc sec/ medicare safety-net, mandated-min-sentences for drug offenses– et al.
This creates a sense of helplessness & anger among voters. The POTUS’ habit of communicating in a no-holds-barred, uncivil, un-statesman-like attack-mode tone encourages a like mode of response.
The shooter who stalked & threatened Cong’l reps/staff’s lives while they were benignly practicing for a bipartisan baseball game is a product of decades of subjugating voter-clout to special interests–
then igniting the fuse w/a full decade of uncivil political discourse (POTUS is not a citizen [birthers incl DTrump], #1 priority is to make this prez a 1-term prez [McConnell head of Sen Reps 2012] , “you lie” [Rep Joe Wilson R-SC], ‘Lock her up’ [D Trump campaign slogan against HRC], add any number of inflammatory Presidential tweets since Jan 2017—
…this shooter is the canary in the mine.
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“Today the voter’s reps to the US govt are beholden more to the interests of campaign donors & their lobbyists than to the interests of their constituent voters.”
I was talking to my friend about this last night.
In the past, we’d shout, “Vote them out of office!” and it would strike a chord. Our reps would fear that as a possible reprisal and act in kind.
My theory is that, nowadays, many of our reps are more beholden to the special interests than to their local constituency. So much so that they know they’ll still be able to land on their feet with a nice cushy job from one or more of the companies that they’ve been ‘helping out”, if and when the voters kick them out of office.
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Elliot-
The lack of imagination in your regurgitation of silly generalizations, long past their expiration date, should be astounding. Instead, it is just pathetic. Are you pals with that Canada Microsoft manager quoted in Entrepreneur magazine who said years ago, “Teachers have got to shift or get off the pot”?
As a taxpayer, I don’t want any money going to any outfit that employs you. I don’t want you anywhere near public education students nor wasting the time of their schools. You would be like a leech big Pharma salesmen at a doctor’s office. (Be my guest to go to the Gates kid’s schools but, they’ll shut the door on you because the politicians weren’t bought to push private schools into wasteful spending.)
Take your schools-in-a-box and peddle them in places that can’t protect themselves from corporate plunder, it will prove your lack of conscience.
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Maybe you should do a google search of me?
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Linda, I make opt out films for all kinds of groups. I’m making a series of films messaging about the bulldozers of privatization tearing up the landscape of public education. You can’t hope to beat back the tech industry through your personal fears and feelings of marginalization at the hands of technological changes. The kids won’t listen to you and neither will most of the parents. You’ll have to come at it from another angle, through honest engagement. I’m not a fan of garbage computerized curricula. I worry terribly about data mining of my kids, and I know the potentials of it from an inside perspective. No i don’t work for Microsoft, although I’ve had an excellent view of their strategies and how they sell their garbage to the public and to kids. Ill leave you with this thought, as I said I’ve watched hundreds of hours of student testimony about their education. The kids have a major beef with adults, parents and teachers. They say they are asked for their opinions, sometimes, and when they offer it, those opinions are ignored or worse, negated and marginalized which doesn’t foster trust or embrace their brilliance. They know they’re being talked down to. They also say that they want relevance in their education, which naturally gravitates to tech. I think the hysteria around ed tech is fed by fear of change, politics and the very real fears of the problems screen time, poor curricula and privatization can present. But my point is, be honest… don’t resort the the strategies of generalizing and factual using your fears and bias. Engage the industry and the forces and make it perform well. Embrace the possibilities and potentials while at the same time protecting against theft and the hustling of cheap products on unsuspecting districts, administrators, schools, parents and kids
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” The kids have a major beef with adults, parents and teachers. They say they are asked for their opinions, sometimes, and when they offer it, those opinions are ignored or worse, negated and marginalized which doesn’t foster trust or embrace their brilliance. They know they’re being talked down to. They also say that they want relevance in their education, which naturally gravitates to tech”
While I appreciate your expertise, I think you are generalizing here. Your comment about opinions is sometimes true in classrooms and sometimes more of a “teenage” thing. Because of their stage of development, students often want their opinions taken seriously but fail to back them up. One of the many jobs of parents, teachers etc. is to help students get better at choosing and voicing opinions. This doesn’t mean for them to have the same opinions as the adults but to be able to defend them. Being listened to also means listening and thoughtfully engaging.
I also see some students naturally gravitating towards tech and others just enjoying the social media aspect at its most basic level. Even those who naturally gravitate towards it are not necessarily eager to use it to learn difficult and meaningful stuff.
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Elliott: I work in PrK enrichment [Spanish]. Video material was OK & fun 15 yrs ago– just as a way to get otherwise-non-engaged kids interested. [I’ve since discovered that all are far more interested in big-book narrratives.]
Over the last 10 yrs, I’ve had PreK directors tell me, (a) no screen time at all [because our kids get way too much screen-time at home] or (b) video OK if it relates directly to lesson-plan.
I’ve learned thro experience that video-screen material for the pre-6-y.o. set is a sort of calm-downer– which makes it attractive for lazy teachers looking to get a break from hyperacive kids.
For some kids, screen-time induces focus, but for others, it induces glazed-eyes. So for some, attention is focused & related-class-material is reinforced– for others, it’s a shut-down.
For this reason, I keep video/screen-time to a minimum w/my young students: I measure it against the ed-achievement gained, & see it as a minor supplemental teaching tool. I suspect that the same paradigm applis tkpo older students.
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Michael,
I’m certain kids and adults alike, roll their eyes when you say, “embrace the possibilities”, “beat back personal fears”, “engage…the forces… “, “concept blossomed”, “embrace the brilliance”, and your attribution of “feelings of marginalization” to people you don’t know, etc.
“Leaving people with A thought” (followed by 2/3 of your post) is unlikely when they have been numbed with hackneyed blather, psychobabble and patronization.
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Linda, why are you attacking me personally? We’re just talking here about the issues around tech. “Silly generalizations” “Pals wth Microsoft” ” numbed with hackneyed blather, psychobabble and patronization” . Why are you feeling like you have to put me down? We’re actually on the same side, I’m just presenting an argument in favor of not returning the chalkboards, and embracing the things that excite kids. I have kids, too many actually :-). Why are you aiming all this anger at me? I’m very empathetic to the fears of technological change, and the impact it has on our lives and our kids. Im not the enemy.
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“If you listen to student voices, tech inspires them,”
Yep, just as many things inspires students. The newest shiniest gadgets are hardly ever the panacea their proponents make them out to be.
If a teacher can’t teach without the myriad technological devices other than a blackboard and chalk, they shouldn’t be teaching. Yes, it’s that plain and simple.
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This doesn’t really surprise me….
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Parents may end up as the watchdogs here- the people who limit the craze. That wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world- parents should probably be paying attention anyway.
Ugh, the photographs that come with all these ed tech promotions. It’s always kids sitting in cubicles with headsets on. Why they think this is attractive to parents I do not know.
I actually liked the piece because it is the only report I have seen that even asks the question whether this is about education on the cheap for the masses- you see what the charter school in the piece does, right? They cut costs by cutting the most expensive part of a school, which is teachers.
It’s impolite to mention online learning saves a bundle on hiring and paying human beings. Might upset Zuckerberg and Gates if that obvious truth were mentioned.
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Betsy DeVos to charter school leaders: Your schools ‘are not the one cure-all’
She then proceeded to promoting vouchers as the other component.
Are federal employees statutorily barred from mentioning public schools? Is discussing a public school grounds for termination or does it just mean you’re kicked out of the ed reform club? They don’t let you sit at their lunch table? 🙂
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Has anyone asked students if they think sitting at a terminal doing online test prep for 4 hours a day is wildly innovative? Or do they sort of intuitively “get” that some adult is cutting costs and ripping them off by giving them this garbage as a replacement for a teacher?
It’s not a good trade. They wuz robbed.
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Chiara, I don’t think parents will question the use of tech. At least not young parents. I see babies in strollers using “screens” all the time.
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I think they might. We got Chrome books for 7th grade and above last year and parents are already complaining the kids are watching you tube videos of tv shows during class.
I think it matters if you actually ask your kid how they’re using this.
I watched my son and his friends do math homework with an online test prep program and I realized they were trying to “game” the game. They were giving it nonsense responses to beat it because they had been told it was “adaptive”. They’re not doing any math.
I shudder to think their teacher is relying on that “data” to see “where they are”. When they hear “game” they play it like a game- they try to beat THE PROGRAM. The “score” is not the interesting part.
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Their trying to beat the game is probably more valuable than the math assignment! That takes some thinking.
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I disagree. Not all parents are so lackadaisical. Back in our day (when kids were young in early ’90’s), we bought into hand-held Nintendos, & quickly cottoned onto an unhealthy, addictive interest that was promoting strife among siblings. We quickly put the kabosh on it– which was not easy, it was like denying drugs to an addict. We openly, honestly took the blame for not having established rules that reflected our family values, & promptly set up a family PC network w/relaxed, ed-friendly games– & set up rules about what was OK & what was not for our family.
Of course our little ones cheated at friends & relatives’ houses [where it was OK to play violent addictive games], but they also encountered friends whose parents mandated even stricter rules than ours (one nbhd friend’s family had’electronics-free’ weekends)– & thus were exposed to the concept that values are involved, & one must make choices.
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I told you guys last year that ed reform would end up endorsing vouchers. This is political horse trading. They’ll get a huge bump for charters and the price will be support for vouchers. Public schools, of course, will be completely ignored in all this high-level wheeling and dealing.
Get ready for the big flip flop. It’s coming. They’ll insist they want “well regulated” vouchers and then we can all pretend it’s some nuanced “middle” position when really it’s further towards total privatization than anyone would have dreamed even ten years ago.
Public schools will pay a price for the neglect. That’s the real legacy of ed reform. They weakened the schools 90% of kids attend.
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Do you really think the Fed DOEd will be successful at selling no-strings-attached fed $ for voucher schools? I recognize that BDeVos is fine w/fed $ for religious schools, & has suggested by her silence that discrimination may be OK & that measuring performance may be unnecessary– but do you really think this will go over w/US voters?
I’m thinking the only way this will pass muster is as a states-rights issue– perhaps bolstered by the concept that fed $ only amounts on average to 10% of school costs… But…the 10% concept may not hold if fed billions are put behind voucher schools… & there are a great many citizens who do not hold w/spending their fed tax $’s on religious schools… & many more who want to see fed tax $’s tied to accountability…
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The media machine is only giving lip service to public education now because vouchers threaten the profit driven charter industry. And they’re now starting to talk strong about “personalized learning.” Any of theses avenue means less $$$ and support for public schools. DeVos adds the specter of placing parochial schools into a more prominent and easily accessible role.
I hope you’re right, bethree5, and you may just be. Our last line of defense is that of the parents. The Opt Out movement is proof positive of their impact. Too few believe the teachers, anymore. What a turn around. That’s what decades worth of mass media smearing and propaganda will do.
I hope you’re right…
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I am not surprised that NEA is pushing tech and personalized learning. Why? The National Education Association is a member of The National Public Education Support Fund: Partnership for the Future of Learning Group and the umbrella organization Grantmakers for Education. http://www.edfunders.org/our-community/members
Members of the NEA and AFT participated in ”discussions” that lead to a 2017 policy document promoting personalized and competency-based education.
Titled “Partnership for the Future of Learning; A Policy Framework for Tomorrow’s Learning” this report was published by the Partnership for the Future of Learning with funding from the National Public Education Support Fund and the Learning Policy Institute.
From the acknowledgements in this report, on p. iv: Begin quote.
This report was developed by a group of organizations that undertook an important discussion to advance a forward-looking national conversation about public education and education reform. Convened by the National Public Education Support Funded, this evolving partnership led to the formation of the Partnership for the Future of Learning (PFL).
We are grateful to the following funders for their support of this work:
S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, Einhorn Family Charitable Trust, Ford Foundation, Grable Foundation, Walter & Elise Haas Fund (Haas Sr.), William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, National Public Education Support Fund, NEA FOUNDATION, Nellie Mae Education Foundation, Panta Rhea Foundation, Sandler Foundation, Southern Education Foundation, and Stuart Foundation.
The participants in these discussions offered substantial input and ideas. The final product—authored by Linda Darling-Hammond, Jeannie Oakes, Charmaine Mercer, Peter Ross, and Livia Lam of the Learning Policy Institute—reflects the individual and collective insights of the participants, but it does not reflect an endorsement by any of these individuals or the organizations with which they are affiliated. End quote.
These acknowledgements are followed by a two column list of “intellectual contributors.” Among many were: Shaun Robert Adams, NEA Foundation: Daaiyah Bilal-Threats, National Education Association: Donna Harris-Aikens, National Education Association; John Stocks, National Education Association; also Mary Catherine Ricker, American Federation of Teachers; Marla Ucelli-Kashyap, American Federation of Teachers; Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers.
I have not completed a close reading of the full report it is filled with jargon. A key word search is one of my methods of scanning for major themes. The report pays homage to deeper learning, assessments, student-centered-learning, continuous improvement, personalized learning, and competency-based learning and more buzzy words of the day.
Source: https://d3ciwvs59ifrt8.cloudfront.net/f41b5a61-3f18-4177-a7b1-cfe886a430b1/2a3ea4f8-e1c8-4382-85fe-bfd6a0a6cbd2.pdf
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In other words you let the computer tell you what the article is about. You just let the algorithm do the reading for you
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It’s not surprising because a Pahara Institute Fellow was a member of NEA’s top committees. (He wasn’t the only NEA person in the Pahara Fellow list).
The current Massachusetts higher education state board provides the guy’s bio.
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Shouldn’t that really be the Piranha Institute?
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Shouldn’t it cease to exist?
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Cheap shot
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A labor leader and a CEO were touring a new factory. The factory was going to make washing machines. The factory was all automated, robots were going to make the washing machines.
The CEO asked the labor boss, “How are you going to get these robots to sign up, and pay union dues?”. The labor boss replied “How are you going to sell washing machines to robots?”
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Like, also!!!
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The dialogue was between Walter Reuther and Henry Ford II. The topic was car production.
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Computer-based instruction is typically good at providing repetitive skill drills, not encouraging higher-order or critical thinking that comes about through peer to peer and student teacher interaction. A computer program providing skills practice is only as good (or bad) as the programmer who created it and software product development is driven by profit potential not pedagogy. The idea that computers can provide “personalized” learning is silly. Only a real teacher can interact with a real child to effectively address real learning issues. Reports may provide data about a student’s performance but will likely not be able to provide insight about solutions and interventions needed. The danger in “personalized” learning is mistaking students’ enthusiasm for instructional technology in limted amounts with a preference for technology instead of human interaction. In my middle school literacy classroo, I know of few students who would choose to be instructed primarily via computer. Computers are for testing and playing games in their minds and they would much rather read and discuss text with their peers and teachers.
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Well stated, Trenton teacher!
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“Will robots pay Union dues?”
How will Randi get her pay
With all the teachers gone?
Will teaching robots pay her way?
Perhaps, but not for long
Cuz bots can do the job she does
Without a circuit’s thought
And prolly better, just because
The robots can’t be bought
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Should be “How will Lily get her pay” for NEA, but it’s really excited of one, a half dozen of the other.
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“six of one”
Self correct got excited.
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The billionaires are discussing public schools for 50 million children and you guys are missing it.
Here’s Reed Hastings announcing what your child will be doing in school:
“Hastings says technology will play an increasing role in schools, “personalization in particular.”
If they want to sell ed tech to public schools (and they do!) they probably have to occasionally include a public school at these planning sessions.
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The privateers are like deaf steam rollers acting as though they have the right to crush parents, teachers and children in their path. Nobody has any rights but them. They have the right to bribe their way into a classroom near you.
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Your federal government excludes your schools from another education meeting:
“WHITE HOUSE CANVASSES ON CHOICE: A number of education advocacy groups and individuals met Monday at the White House, where the Trump administration heard ideas about how the federal government could invest in school choice. A potential federal tax credit that could allow more working class families to access private schools took up a big part of the conversation, according to two sources familiar with the meeting who weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The discussion included whether such a tax credit could be rolled into a broader tax reform effort, whether states would be able to opt out and whether such an initiative would be housed under the Treasury Department, among other things. A number of groups in attendance are split on just how the federal government should invest in choice, so the meeting also presented an opportunity to identify areas of consensus. Other ideas for a federal investment in choice included one backed by the conservative Heritage Foundation that would allow hundreds of thousands of military children to use public dollars for private school tuition, tutoring or online education.”
Will public schools continue to be excluded from all these high-level discussions?
Pray tell, when does DC meet with public school advocates? When does that special access meeting occur?
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“Personalized education”? What about “Individualized Education Program” (IEP)? Guess that’s because I’m in Special Education.
I agree with everything Michael Elliot says here in this thread. And I didn’t even Google him.
Diane Ravitch has done so much to educate ME! On a computer screen! But all my real education comes from relationships with real human beings.
There’s got to be a balance.
Could go on with links. But I get up early (to meditate). And it’s 9:05 pm EST.
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Everyone gets that we’ve lost right?
This, PBS, DeVos’ choice, billionaires, etc etc etc. Just scroll through the headlines here.
The privatizers have won. It’s not just because we lost the presidential election and that Trump won…..in fact that probably only had something to do with the recent pace of our defeat. The privatizers have won the argument. All that is left now is the details.
The catalog of charter/voucher/privatizers awfulness and failure is meaningless. A simple truth: what has been taken from the commons and made private never returns to the commons again.
An even simpler truth: winning the narrative is winning everything.
If you insist on resisting this truth, worry not: the backstop of the privatizing agenda, even if it magically loses the narrative wins that its achieved overnight; even if all of the sudden the massive, bipartisan, thorough, local, state, and federal victories the privatizers have won evaporate, is “technology in the classroom.”
The privatizers have won. Their
Victory is insured.
I’m going to get in as many years as I can and that’s that. I quit thinking there is even a debate here. There isn’t. Public education is a wagon wheel. A dot-matrix printer. A VCR. A steam train. Chalk and erasers.
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I disagree. They can’t win as long as we refuse to all agree that they won. At any moment, the privatizers could lose it all just like the British Empire lost 13 of its North Amercian colonies in a revolution where the odds were against that happening.
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Nah.
We can refuse to agree they won all we want.
There were Japanese soldiers holed up on islands in the South Pacific until the 1960s thinking world war 2 wasnt over. Yet it was. Japan had been nuked twice and signed an unconditional surrender decades before.
Our consent to their victory is meaningless. They have achieved policy. Policies are real. Their victories are tangible. We are long past the “battle of ideas” stage of this where a dogged refusal to acknowledge their victories has some meaning. It’s real now. Their policies are advancing rapidly. Ours, long standing for sure, are crumbling.
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There are still a few states with no corporate charters and no vouchers, and every time there is a major election, a new governor or state legislature can sweep in and bring about dramatic changes that will set back or end the privatization of K-12 education in other states or even sweep across the U.S.
It happened in Chile and in Sweden.
Sweden’s School Choice Disaster
Advocates for school choice might be shocked to see how badly the country’s experiment with vouchers failed.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_dismal_science/2014/07/sweden_school_choice_the_country_s_disastrous_experiment_with_milton_friedman.html
Betsy DeVos wants ‘school choice.’ Chile tried that already.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/01/17/betsy-devos-wants-school-choice-chile-already-tried-vouchers-it-hasnt-worked/?utm_term=.4ebc464a7279
After the Civil War, minorities in the UnitedStates lived in a hell called the JimCrow era. That also ended. It only took almost 100 years. For the Chinese, there was the Chinese Exclusion Act but that also ended.
It is arguable that many people thought women would never gain the vote, but they did. That took more than a century.
As long as the U.S. Constitution is the law of the land, there is always room for change down the line if not from this generation, then another one that grows sick of all the bull shit being shoveled by DeVos, the Koch brothers, Trumpism, etc.
History shows us that there is one constant and that is change. Nothing stays the same forever except birth, sex, and death.
When Senator McCarthy was going nuts persecuting people and destroying lives during the Communist Red Scare era, that also came to an end.
All the monsters, the autocratic billionaires, causing this have to die eventually just like we do. None of them will live forever, and there is no guarantee that their children will continue the same corrupted fight.
We who are alive today might not see the end of the privatization movement in what is left of our lifetime, but it will end one way or the other.
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Thank you. Lloyd. Exactly what I was going to say.
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NYSTEACHER, Cheer up! We have just begun to fight.
Think of every crucial struggle for democracy and freedom. The road was never easy. Giving up is easy but it guarantees defeat.
We will win because we are on the right side of history. We fight for the common good. We fight for real education for every child, not harsh discipline and BS standardized testing. We fight for the right of every child to a good education with qualified teachers.
And besides, the privatizers have lost again and again. They have bought elections, they have bought politicians, but nothing they advocate has succeeded. The acid test is that none of them would subject their own children to the policies they inflict on others. And none of them advocates for the kind of schools to which they send their own children.
Do not despair. We will prevail.
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I’m with Lloyd on this and I won’t give up resisting privatization. There are too many people who just don’t realize that the super rich have been coming after their schools, as well as how and why they are doing it, because that’s been couched in lies and propaganda, so I think it’s up to us to inform them.
I also don’t see privatization making the same kind of headway in suburban and rural districts as they have in the hostile takeover of big city schools either, because city schools were wrested from the most vulnerable populations, since those schools are attended primarily by powerless low-income minorities. I think empowered middle and upper middle income suburban parents are a whole different ball game, as are rural families.
So many suburban and rural families really love their schools and also enjoy the roles they get to play on democratically elected school boards and in PTAs that welcome them. Plus, I do not think it would be very lucrative for privates to open new schools and have to bus kids great distances in most rural areas.
No, I have to disagree. I don’t think privatization is by any means a done deal.
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Well done, LL!
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I disagree. The commoners– the 85%+ families whose kids attend public schoools– have just barely begun to assemble at the table. Many of them have only just begun to realize their treasured local districts are threatened by Trump/ DeVos proposed policy. It is only some of the old folks, & the libertarians, & the.Fox-listening union- busters who automatically buy in to the voucher/ privatization talk.
We need to engage in grass-roots pro-public-ed activism– epecially in rural areas, where nmany voted for Trump, but where vouchers/school-choice policy is impractical & harms local districts.
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I hear a lot of negativity, but the reality in many places is that the privatization movement has failed to affect anything.
Let’s not get too down. 🙂
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This is a very slippery slope. Massachusetts is beginning to talk about a concept where students could use a computer to do academic work on days that are calledWhile this might be a convenience due to snow and would prevent the school department from adding days at the end of the year due to the missed snow day. I am concerned that if the faculty is not needed due to snow does that start the removal of educators because we cost more than a Chromebook. Educators need to know about these trends and not lose the focus or we will all be out of jobs replaced by a computer and a few computer experts.
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My district is also talking about this. Then the comment was made that once we had all of our curriculum online (like google classroom), then a homebound student or absent student could then take our actual course.
This is scary because my admin seems to think that doing the same activity alone has the same educational value as being in a classroom!
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Go ahead, let them. You think their online class is anything close to what you can provide IRL on the ground? Nonsense.
The only way that could happen is if their only measurement of what is learned is some computer-scored mult-choice test– & that your kids can only ace that test by studying alone, testing & re-testing on that home-computer program. If that’s actually true, you have to question whether what you provide as an IRL teacher provides more ed than is measured by the test.
You will probably find that you provide more ed than is measured on the test. Which means you must join the fight: how can a mult-choice test possibly measure what is learned in a RL class? Is your field Engl? Show me a persuasive essay graded by a human! Show me a kid on his feet presenting & defending his idea to peers! Is your field sci or math? Show me a kid defending his hypothesis w/lab evidence– or explaining how his formula explains the data.
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The concept that computer driven, “personalized learning” would be more effective than human interaction in a standard classroom setting is nothing more than spin, delivered to all of us by the very people who would stand to benefit the most from it’s implementation, financially. People who have substantial control of all our major media outlets.
There’s been a major investment in this area and the originators are going to want to see a return. So we can expect a very powerful push.
One question I have is if whether or not they’re pulling the “ask for 100% when you really want 50%” strategy. Give a “concession” of “personalized learning PERIODS” (Not the full school day! Of course not!) in there to begin with and then start the push for more control as time goes on.
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In my own situation, I believe there will be a powerful push. I heard this insane idea independently from both my admin and my tech coordinator. When I rebutted the idea with my tech coordinator, former physics teacher whose place I took when he became the coordinator, by stating the kids would be missing out on the conversations in the classroom, he suggested I could record the audio! Clearly he does not understand how people actively learn. The admin will talk about engagement forever, but they really do not get it. I just finished by PHD in Science Education and I hope that may get me a little more voice in these matters, but that hope may be in vain. I am drowned out by slick tech company representative and vacuous admin pseudo journal articles.
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The thinking (or lack thereof) involved with the proposal for the students to do academic work on snow days is an excellent example of adminimal thought at it’s best.
Hey, we can count it as a school day, we won’t have to pay the custodians, cafeteria workers, and other non-certificated staff, we’ll use less utilities and bus services, and what the hell, we can demand that the teachers come in for a “being professionally developed” day.
Adminimalism in full swing!
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And the students’ response: Screw you, I’m out in the snow having fun (as I should as a kid). Oh, and by the way the chromebook wasn’t charged and I don’t know where a charger is.
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Quotes from above
“Yep, just as many things inspire students the newest shiniest gadgets are hardly ever the panacea their proponents make them out to be.”
“Because of their stage of development, students often want their opinions taken seriously but fail to back them up. ”
“I also see some students naturally gravitating towards tech and others just enjoying the social media aspect at its most basic level. Even those who naturally gravitate towards it are not necessarily eager to use it to learn difficult and meaningful stuff.”
“If a teacher can’t teach without the myriad technological devices other than a blackboard and chalk, they shouldn’t be teaching. Yes, it’s that plain and simple.”
“all it would take is a course or two of technology usage for those that wish it and it would be fine.”
This really saddens me. Out of the mouths of kids comes an unvarnished truth. Yet in the darkness of the fight to save public education people, some of them probably teachers have stopped listening to kids and don’t have respect for what they’re interested in. If you’re conflating tech with low tech, you’re talking down about an avenue that could open doors to kids and you’re kicking those doors closed. It reminds me of Rebel Without a Cause or someone saying “that’s not music” about the Beatles, stuck in the past with chalkboards and children facing forward at their desks.
There are many valid concerns raised in the article and on this discussion but the talking down and the lack of new ideas and solid problem solving strategies will doom us to disaster. We need to step up our game here, we need to have answers that aren’t just put downs and waxing poetic about the past. We need to understand what we are looking at and engage in the interests present.
I see amazing films, I see incredible photography and hear music made by kids with the tech many of you find so banal and useless. I see social media communication strategies by kids that are so intricately sophisticated They get it.
The issue of poor curricula packaged in software and called personalized learning will be rejected by kids. They are discerning users of tech with no appetite for garbage.
But if we don’t embrace real innovation we’re doomed to rapid obsolescence Refusing is not an option, it’s a burden. Embracing what’s good and worthwhile and being educated and engaged with the changes will produce a much more effective and valid result.
Finally anyone thinking a course or two on computers covers it is so blind to the world around them.
I talk to older film editors who wax poetic about the old days of cutting on film. To me, the idea of scotch taping together long pieces of plastic is a painful reminder that change is hardest on those left behind.
Do you remember Shock of the New?
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I think you have gone way over the top here. This a K-12 blog. My kids ’92-2015 in pubschs studied classical K12 subjects– Eng, Math, SocStud, Sci, & for-lang– w/relatively little tech onboard in classrooms– while simultaneously learning much at home via internet & extracurricular music lessons & being in bands since young: these were music-tech kids, who found their way into music-tech college programs by virtue not only of music chops but solid pubsch ed which taught them how to write well/ express their ideas well, & have some serious backing for their opinions due to classically-taught background in math, sci, engl, socstuds & for-lang.
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why over the top Bethree? The original article that prompted this discussion was the NEA article about issues around computers in classrooms and in education. I am responding to people who in their desire to do right by kids, may be going to far and using a broad brush to advocate for withdrawing from tech altogether. If the article and criticisms were confined to the awful computer based curricula being foisted upon schools I would be all in. But thats not what the article was about. Yet folks are using it as if it were. I am NOT advocating for CBE quite the contrary, I think for the most part its garbage, but, we can’t hope to push back effectively if we are unable to distinguish the good from the bad and articulate it effectively.
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Well, ME, I have gone back through all your comments carefully, & see that we agree much more than we disagree. I do not agree that the NEA article was well-balanced & contained thoughtful suggestions; the comment thread to that article expresses my thoughts on it pretty well. But here on this blog we’ve had a number of in-depth discussions about personalized learning programs (which IS the subject of the NEA article), thus many of us tend to speak broad-brush, assuming others are on the same page. Very few here if any advocate a withdrawal from all tech, that would just be silly. When I described my kids’ ’90’s-’00’s public ed as having ‘relatively little tech onboard’, what I meant was, tech was used as an adjunct. For heavens’ sake, there was a handful of personal computers in use at the back of their 4th-gr classrooms– as an activity center, not as ‘personalized learning.’ I and other parent volunteers helped bring our K kids 2 by 2 to a hallway PC in ’97 to learn a little keyboarding & try out ‘Reader Rabbit’ and ‘Math Blaster’. Etc, etc, on up thro the grades– our PTC raised $ & volunteered services to get the district schools wired up & online. We are not Luddites here. None of that has anything to do w/so-called personalized learning.
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“The issue of poor curricula packaged in software and called personalized learning will be rejected by kids.”
I think it’s quaint that you think kids (or parents or teachers) have a voice in this matter. Affluent kids (and parents and teachers), sure. Poor and working class kids? Thanks for the laugh.
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If you think that kids always speak the unvarnished truth, you are mistaken and have a naive view of children. From my viewpoint in 9-12, students have motivations,machinations, and manipulations. It is one of the reasons I love to teach high school. They are complex beings and are beginning to be able to voice and explain their ideas. To equate not accepting all of their opinions with not listening to them is asinine. When my students give naive ideas about climate change I engage them in dialogue to discern how I can push them to a more scientific view.
I am not against edtech, but in many cases how people learn is not taken in account when the tech proposals are given. I have found many proposed tech projects leave a lot of wiggle room for students to not address the difficult stuff. And a lot more are devoid of any meaningful content. Note I say the exact same thing about a lot of hands on projects like the perennial egg drop project. In my physics class we do some Python coding and gather data electronically. But it is the language rich discussion and writing before and after the tech where the productive learning occurs. The tech is a tool. Too often tech evangelicals ignore that part.
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tech as a tool is exactly right
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But your comments seem to imply that tech is a silver bullet that will automatically engage all students. Perhaps both sides of the tech argument need to be careful of their wording.
These extreme comments could, of course, just be an artifact of this type of asynchronous communication without the presence of vocal tone, prosody, gestures and expressions. I love comment sections and use them to think about new ideas and to point me too resources, but there are limitations to the depth of the communication.
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Your comment at 11:13 is spot on Alice!
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Since you quoted me (without attribution-LOL), Michael, allow me to revisit one of my statements:
““If a teacher can’t teach without the myriad technological devices other than a blackboard and chalk, they shouldn’t be teaching. Yes, it’s that plain and simple.””
I stand by that statement. I never said that some technology usage may not be appropriate, hell, even this old fashioned, old fart Spanish teacher used some “modern” technology.
But if a teacher cannot devise a curriculum, implement that curriculum, properly manage classroom of 25 students, and present/impart the subject matter without anything more than a chalkboard (and even less than that) then they shouldn’t be teaching.
The fundamentals of teaching are not only limited to subject matter presentation (which is what the vast majority of computer training programs attempt to do) but some of the things I just mentioned and many more. And if a teacher cannot do all those things without the aid of a computer/technology he/she should not be teaching.
I stand by that statement!
I stand for the kids! I stand for the kids to have well prepared, professional teachers! I stand for a simplified education in these seemingly complicated times! Do you?
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Yes, Duane– as a fellow teacher of world langs, I have noted that computerized lang-teaching programs attempt to teach “subject matter presentation (which is what the vast majority of computer training programs attempt to do).” Perhaps we are taking advantage here: it’s a slam-dunk when comparing CD-Roms such as Rosetta Stone to IRL for-lang-teaching programs. Perhaps there are better ‘personalized learning programs’ for math or Engl or Sci or Soc Stud… I wouldn’t know. (Would question it, based on what I have learned as a teacher of Fr & Sp).
But when it comes to teaching kids how to communicate in another language, there is no substitute for engaging the kids in… actual communication in that second language, 1-on-1, 1-on-many, kid-to-kid, teacher-to-kids. There is a huge difference between testing 2nd-lang curriculum proficiency [do you get the grammar– can you conjugate the verbs, do you understand subj-adj-verb agreement, do you understand vocab-word meanings, can you read & comprehend texts in L2] and testing the actual ability to communicate in the language– the skill which is the expressed goal of K-12 world-lang stds, but which there is yet no test to measure?
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I’ve not found a Spanish “training” program I’d recommend yet. Not that I’ve been looking lately, but even the voice recognition ones leave so much to be desired.
Isn’t communicating in a given language something that humans do????
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And there will never be a “test to measure” because there can’t ever be a “measuring” what a student learns, not only in a second language, but in any subject matter. There are assessments, evaluations, judgments, but no measuring.
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“Finally anyone thinking a course or two on computers covers it is so blind to the world around them.”
Again, Michael, please feel free to challenge me personally. I can handle it.
Being that “anyone”, I contend that since computers are so ubiquitous, so pervasive in society that the need for schools to have to use them for instruction or even to instruct how to use technology seems like overkill. Yes, I know that thought seems perhaps bizarre but one can and should engage students through human to human interactions not mediated by or through a technological device. Reading hard copy on paper (and yes, that is a quite old technological device) is a far more effective and comprehensive experience than reading on a screen*.
Again, I stand by my statement.
*https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reading-paper-screens/
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Diane,
The following is a view which doesn’t fit the NEA or FTA whip to get in line since she notes that teachers know what needs to be done and that the foundations and government do not know how to create success in schools. Listen to teachers.
By Lynne Miller,
Posted June 06, 2017,
Many philanthropic organizations have entered the world of school reform, confident in their ability to transform schools. Chief among them is the Gates Foundation, which invested untold sums of money in a series of innovations (from small schools, to bonuses for high performing teachers, to evaluation and accountability systems based on test score, to uncritical support for the Common Core), buoyed by the belief that it could achieve the same success in schools that it had in the world of commerce. The foundation is finally learning the perils of hubris and is acknowledging what most educators have known all along: There is no magic bullet for improving schools.
Teaching is hard work — much harder than imagined by well-meaning philanthropists who offer solutions to problems they don’t understand. The same can be said of politicians who propose new diploma requirements, new regulations for teacher education programs and teacher evaluation systems, mandate new grading systems and promote ideas like charter schools and voucher systems that have no track record of success.
The Race to the Top is an example of wishful thinking run amuck at the federal level. Millions of dollars were awarded to states where data showed a lack of progress toward goals. Here in Maine, we have had several iterations of the Maine Learning Results, a series of shifting state assessment systems for student learning and several attempts at evaluating teachers.
The results of these efforts have been less than inspiring. While our students scored above the national average on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, they scored below the other New England states in reading and math at grades four, eight and 11. While 86 percent of Maine students graduated from high school, only 49 percent do so with proficiency in math.
And inequality persists in the form of disparities in achievement between schools that serve different economic groups and populations. A simple comparison makes this point when we compare a homogeneous, high-income district in which almost 88 percent of students met or exceeded standards on the state assessment with a more heterogeneous and lower income district where only 35.5 percent reached standards. If we want to see real improvement in our schools, we have to look for solutions other than those proposed by self-styled school reformers.
Good teachers make an enormous difference in the lives of students. Yet policy makers and school reformers have given short shrift to what teachers can tell them about the complexity of student learning and the craft of teaching. Perhaps if we were to listen to teachers more, we would make fewer policy blunders.
Primary and elementary grade teachers would explain that development is not a straight line, that not all students progress at the same rate, and that grade level standards do not acknowledge the diversity of student needs. They would tell stories of children who come to school hungry and who they know would benefit by having a free, nutritious breakfast to fuel their powers of concentration, and they would describe how children with a solid preschool experience enter their classroom ready to learn and make a strong case for universal, public preschool education.
Middle school teachers would describe the complexities of the social world of early adolescents and would speak to the what they see as the need to attend to emotional health issues that too often undermine academic achievement. High school teachers would describe how the pressure on students to achieve harms some while alienating others, and they would push back against the assumption that the only path to success in life lies in mastery of a narrowly focused academic curriculum.
Teachers at all grade levels would describe how policies that monitor their every move and that dictate what they should teach, how they should teach, and how they should evaluate student progress undermine their capacity to do their job well. They would advocate instead for policies that support teacher learning and development over time.
These understandings fly in the face of those school reform efforts promoted by groups and individuals with no experience or knowledge of how education works at the ground level. Rather they are based on the lived experiences of teachers that go far beyond anything that outside “experts” can tell us. Perhaps it is time we listened to what teachers have to say.
Lynne Miller is a professor emerita at the University of Southern Maine. She is a member of the Maine chapter of the national Scholars Strategy Network, which brings together scholars across the country to address public challenges and their policy implications. Members’ columns appear in the BDN every other week.
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Erudite and eloquent!
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Except for her reliance on the standards and testing regime’s discourse to assess the supposed state of Maine’s schools.
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Great post, thank you.
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Did we just have a full discussion of education “technology” without once mentioning Big Data or third party users? Don’t children (and teachers) have privacy rights?
What about Twitter founder Evan Williams’ recent statement, “The internet is broken” because it has become “a hive of trolling and abuse.” Isn’t social networking harmful overall to children?
At least we’re already talking about screen time. How much is too much? Many of my best students log no screen time at all. Their parents won’t let them.
I don’t mean to detract from the main point of this post, that computer/competency based education is the computer using the class instead of the class using the computer. Excitement about the pixelated world, however, is more dangerous and pervasive than some of us would like to admit. Give me back my chalkboard!
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Well said. While data-mining & hacking private info prevail, why should public-schools even be online? (I’m serious.) There are plentiful ed-applicable CD-Roms as teaching adjuncts.
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I’ve been arguing an indefensible point of view. The prompt and answer software for assessment is garbage and damaging. I don’t like it for my kids. Their school has been using IXL and my daughters math tutor has pointed out on a few occasions that she can answer questions in the software that totally elude her in practice. She isn’t learning the concepts she’s putting coins in the meter to get a “leveling up” . I misread the article to be about the use of real technology in the classroom and didn’t give much credence to the fact that the end of the article referenced the type of software I really don’t like. When i ventured back to read it again I found that I’d passed over that part. So I’ve self corrected, or rather, Ive represented where i draw the line.
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Thank you, Michael. Self correction is certainly better than autocorrect. About that “leveling up” you mentioned, that’s where techies go wrong. They think learning is like playing video games, wherein players earn points or badges to get to the next level. They think the badges mean something. I am ashamed to admit I grew up playing video games. I know from experience that you can earn lots of points and badges by spending lots of time pressing random buttons. “Badges, we don’t got no badges. We don’t need no stinking badges!”
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Thank you for this, Michael Elliot.
You have to look at CBE [peronalized learning] as a program that starts from a certain curricular framework– then decide if you’re onboard with that framework. The CBE programs that are out there right now are tied to the Common-Core curriculum. There are many threads here on the blog that discuss that framework. Keep in mind that a CBE program is tied algorhythmically to its curricular framework.
To summarize:
the CCSS- math curriculum is less controversial, mainly because the methods incorporate the previous decade’s methods. They are concept- [rather than rote]-based, typical of ’90’s texts such as Chicago’s ‘Everyday Math’ series. These methods are geared to help the non-math-brained– they are helpful for artsy-types, but the usual criticism is that they hold back the math-intuitive types, who aren’t necessarily verbally-articulate in primary grades, but could plow thro quicker to advanced-learning, were they not held back to the reqt to articulate the concepts… Another main critique of CCSS-Math is that it is geared to deliver Alg 2 a bit later– in 9th or 10th-grade– which makes it more difficult to schedule advanced Math courses such as Pre-Calculus.
The CCSS-ELA stds are more universally unpopular among teachers of ELA. But some from certain states– states that had low or no stds for ELA– find these stds very helpful as a platform for discussion of fiction & non-fiction reading.
You know, I started to try to outline the problems w/CCSS-ELA…but they have been much better expressed here bt Dr Robert Shepherd. Check lut his posts.
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Yeah…you stepped on a bee hive with this one, Michael.
I’ve been working tech at all our school’s sites for a very long time. I’ve seen and been an active part of the evolution and, while I’m all for tech as a tool of the teacher, what others have said is spot on: there are those who are investing heavily into making it the opposite, with the teacher role becoming that of a monitor and facilitator while the computer centered (and scripted out workbooks, associated with the programs) presentation, testing, assessment, and next steps move front and center.
This isn’t conjecture. And the extra cost of buying, upgrading, maintaining, and discarding hardware and subscription based software will mean cost cutting. Teacher salaries are a large part of any school’s budget. Does a “monitor” deserve the same salary and benefits as a fully experienced teacher with a Masters or Doctorate degree?
Big money wants full control. They don’t want to be “included in the curriculum”.
“The technology editor wrote a commentary then predicting that in the future, the children of the poor would get computers, but the children of the rich would have teachers and computers.”
A sound conclusion, imo.
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(An additional quote from Wrench In The Gears): “NEA’s top leadership prioritizes digital curriculum over the right of a student to be educated without data mining and to have unconditional, full time access to a human teacher.” Oh, the endless insanity: when teachers’ union leadership sells out to technology, our nation has little chance of fighting back.
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Please take a moment to read my piece about personalized learning in Boone County, Kentucky. Their district was given an innovation waiver to essentially erode student access to certified teachers providing face-to-face instruction and replace it with e-learning and very specific workforce training initiatives. The waiver stated that it would be fine for aides to monitor students in lieu of certified teachers while children were using virtual or digital content. Innovation districts are touted by ALEC and that legislation complements the other legislative temples being developed to advance e-learning. It is not ok that the NEA and AFT have signed on to Education Reimagined. Our classrooms should not be data factories. But with the roll out of adaptive learning platforms like Summit Basecamp, that is what we are going to be getting. It will be a great bait and switch. Listen to Boone County parents. They know what they’re talking about. https://wrenchinthegears.com/2017/06/13/what-the-nea-probably-wouldnt-want-you-to-know-about-personalized-learning-in-boone-county-ky/
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