The paper of record alerts us that the geniuses we have put in charge of our children’s education seem to be in the throes of a brilliant epiphany about the electronic generation: if you give them laptops, they will learn. Well, duh.
“Educators” are flocking in droves to a little school district in North Carolina where elementary, middle, and high schoolers armed with computers are busy exploding some of the most cherished myths of the teachers’ unions. Class sizes in Mooresville, N.C., have gotten larger; teachers have been laid off; the district is 100th out of 115 in the state in per-student spending. And yet . . . miracle of miracles, in the past three years, since the district provided laptops to 4th through 12th graders, the graduation rate has gone from 80 percent to 91 percent; science, math and reading proficiency rates have risen from 73 percent to 88 percent; attendance is up and dropout rates have declined.
Now, digital learning is not unique to Mooresville; in fact, it’s the pedagogic flavor of the day. What’s different is that the district seems to have figured out how to get the teachers to recognize computers as the efficient and interesting information delivery systems students know them to be – rather than as expensive, high-tech-slide-show accompaniments to education-as-usual.
Students work individually with math software programs, with help and guidance as needed from the teacher. (Though, one imagines, when it comes to using computers, the guidance may well be going in the other direction as well.) They work collectively through teacher-monitored chat-rooms. They even — get this — use Google Docs to share information with each other on, say, Transcendentalism!
In other words, instead of fidgeting and nodding off through eight hours a day of droning from teachers as restless and bored as they are, these kids are putting their clever little brains and uncanny (to us old fogeys) Internet skills to work. Is it any wonder fewer of them are ditching?
Yes, this all might make life a little easier for cheaters; but then, there have always been and always will be cheaters. And, yes, as the Times hastens to note, “those concerned about corporate encroachment on public schools would blanch at the number of Apple logos in the hallways, and at the district’s unofficial slogan: “iBelieve, iCan, iWill.” No doubt there will also be parents who will tear themselves away from their smartphones and iPads long enough to make pronouncements about the hazards of too much “screen time.” But look on the bright side: computers + fewer teachers necessary + weeding out dinosaur burnout teachers = take that, NEA and AFT!
Sadly, my own longstanding prescription for the burlesque disaster that is the U.S. education “system” – nuke it and start from scratch – has never gotten much traction. It looks like Steve Jobs (RIP) may be getting the job done for me.
A real model of measured discourse from Ms.Decter…The "duh" and the "nuke"and the Schadenfreude at the anticipated demise of the teachers who have struggled all their working lives against impossible odds speaks volumes………………………………… Not to mention the uncritical embrace of statistical claims………….And if Ms. Decter thinks that the information the kids will be sharing will be about transcendentalism,I would suggest ,to put it politely that she may be a bit out of touch………………………..But of course it's all for the sake of the children. …We should be in awe of her fearlessness in taking on the Unions ,and deeply moved by her exemplary passionate concern for the innocent victims……
Actually, DavidBerkeley, the positive effects of integrating personal computers in classrooms have been noticed for quite a while by parents. So wildly and obviously succesful is this integration, that teachers' unions in Canada have started to panic and to call for shutting off WiFi in classrooms by mendatiously manufacturing a Luddite health scare scam to frighten gullible members and parents.
Come to think of it, Dave, go ahead and spend the next decade wrangling over statistical claims…no doubt years of studies by unionized academics will be required. Those of us who have already pulled out kids from the public systems and their top-heavy, union-ruled, politicised, bored and increasingly incompetent teaching staffs don't have time to run experiments on our own kids. We can spot good results in a matter of weeks, and in the small private schools with competent teachers and a sharp administration sensitive and answerable to fee-paying parents…yes, customers, if you will…we can respond to problems immediately and speedily reinforce success. Horrifying, isn't it? But, hey, my kids will be competing against yours in a few years, so please go ahead, leave yours with the social engineers, the equity pushers, modern Luddites and corrupt unions where they can spend the bulk of their mental energy on majoring in "social justice," recycling, climate mitigation and "celebrating" general kookiness, psychosexual dysfunctions and cultural stupidities.
This sounds a little like a digitalized public version of the high school I graduated from. We planned out our year (each lesson by day before the year started) with our parents and the staff and then like this case worked on our own (but through books) and would get assistance from a teacher if we needed it. It worked very well and cost less than half per student as public education.
I'm amused to be baited as a Luddite as I respond on my I-Mac. Nothing I said in my original response to Ms.Decter indicated or implied that I am against the use of computers in the classroom as teaching aids-which should immunize me against the charge of being a Luddite.(they can use sewing machines also)…………… My point was that in some circles abolishing Unions has been unfairly,and automatically equated with doing what's best for kids-and that this viewpoint can be a form of naive utopianism. Once the Unions are gone,and replaced by true professionals,or by computers,as the case may be, all will be paradise. But Unions are no more imperfect than the State Departments of Education,Local School Boards,Superintendencies,In-House Administrators or the Federal Department of Education all of which are far more implicated than the Unions, in creating the bureaucratically stifling environments in the public schools that kill the love of learning………………… Union bashers can't account for the fact that roughly half the teachers,many of whom would no doubt be among the best,leave the schools within five years of signing on. That sorry circumstance is to be laid squarely at the feet of the lethal combination of the aforementioned educrats and the dysfunctional families that demand miracles………………As far as Mr.Andrewson's linking me to a celebration of pernicious forms of Union radicalism,I would remind him that it's not as uncommon as he may believe to be politically and culturally conservative and be against the abolition of Teachers Unions on the grounds that the Union protects teachers from arbitrary supervisors who are often motivated by a distinctly left wing and/or anti-Semitic bias when they try to deprive teachers of their livelihood. Remember Ocean-Hill Brownsville?………..And if advocating. the wholesale replacement of teachers in the classroom by computers isn't merely the au courant form of bullying social engineering,I don't know what is.
Gosh, Mr Berkeley, this actually isn't about you and your iMac. And where do you come up with this wild notion of unions protecting teachers from antisemitic administrators? In my experience, it is our our district school's union which is the aggressive purveyor of antisemitism by chasing off proud and authentic Jewish staff, plugging "palestinianism," organizing BDS campaigns and making "solidarity" resolutions and Gaza flottila support to-dos. Sure, unions were a good idea until they grew, accummulated power, took on mobsters and socialist ideologues as bosses, and eventually failed the teachers, parents and taxpayers. Naomi's suggestion to "nuke" the whole sclerotic public education Behemoth and to start anew, could only improve things.
I came up with the notion of Unions protecting teachers from abusive higher-ups of many varieties,including the anti-Semitic,through personal experience as opposed to the recycled talking points that Mr. Andrewson is rehearsing…… And I am categorically opposed to Union forays into OWS,Israel-Middle East issues,or anything else that is outside the nuts and bolts of what goes on in the classroom or at the collective bargaining table. That would have been clear to any fair minded reader when I characterized myself as a political and cultural conservative…………………………… The phrase "don't throw out the baby with the bathwater" applies here,and should be kept in mind by intemperate Union critics like Mr.Andrewson.But I see he needs his straw men and that his argument requires attributing views to me which I have made clear that I do not hold………….I note that Mr. Andrewson failed to respond to what I wrote in terms of teacher attrition,utopian hopes vis-a-vis technology,or the existence of the myriad layers of bureaucracy that often promulgate conflicting,or even mutually exclusive mandates, that make life in the public schools so unnecessarily difficult for all concerned…………………. To retreat to the rhetorical excess of nuking the system solves nothing and in addition trickles down to the kids in profoundly counterproductive ways……….. Remember-Guiliani advocated blowing up the old Board Of Ed. They did. And look what happened……..