Bob Wise is a former Governor of West Virginia and currently president of the Gates-funded Alliance for Excellent Education. He co-authored a report in 2010 with Jeb Bush called Digital Learning NOW, which attempted to promote a vast expansion of technology in the school and classroom with minimal oversight.(I wrote about the report in my book “Reign of Error.”) The purpose of the Wise-Bush report was to urge states to spend more on hardware and software, lest they fail to prepare for the future and/or fall behind other states. The report was financed by the EDTech industry. Each year, the Digital Learning Council issues a “report card” and grades the state by whether they have spent enough on technology. Here is the 2014 report. Such reports rely on the instincts of state officials to want to be #1, even if the goal is wrong. Who would want to be #1, for instance, in infant mortality. Behind the report card is a marketing strategy.

Maine, under its current Governor Paul LePage, jumped aboard Wise and Bush’s digital learning train. A seasoned reporter, Colin Woodard, followed the money and produced this scathing critique, which won the prestigious Grorge Polk Award in 2012 for Education Reporting.

In this article, Wise continues to push technology, but does so on the assumption that there is a “diminishing supply of teachers” and “static state budgets.” Teachers in states like his own West Virginia are fighting those assumptions, on the belief that teachers can and must be paid more and that corporations should pay higher taxes. The possibilities of paying teachers a professional salary and expanding the tax rolls are not on Wise’s agenda.

Funny, I wrote an article in the same publication about the risks of misuse of technology. I mentioned the risk to student privacy; the failure of cybercharters; the lack of evidence for “blended learning” or “personalized learning”; the money spent by tech companies to place obsolete or ineffective products.

Wise mentions none of these risks. He is a cheerleader for EdTech.

Here is an axiom: Learning happens most and best when children interact with human teachers who are in the same room.

Buyer beware. Caveat emptor.