Education Technology and Other People’s Children
Last weekend, Matt Richtel wrote a piece for the New York Timesthat has lit up the education blogosphere: “In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores.”
In it, Richtel questions the shifting of public tax dollars towards education technology when those technologies have not been proven to improve student standardized test scores. Some are outraged, claiming that money could be spent lowering class sizes or on other proven strategies for school improvement.
My immediate reaction was, “But current standardized tests are not a good measure of what we expect children to know in the 21st century.” And several bloggers have responded to this piece with similar sentiment.
My next thought was concern about how some education “advocates” and watchdog groups who track public spending will use this information to bolster their argument against funding education technology. And I found myself wondering what kind of schools their children attend.
That took my mind back to a piece I remember from School Finance 101 last July. In it, Bruce Baker explains his decision to send his children to private independent schools while being a staunch defender and supporter of the public system. While
