Big Education Ape: CURMUDGUCATION: Report: Zuckerberg’s Favorite Digital Ed Program Is All Sizzle, No Steak

Thursday, July 16, 2020

Report: Zuckerberg’s Favorite Digital Ed Program Is All Sizzle, No Steak

Last month, the National Education Policy Center released a new report: Big Claims, Little Evidence, Lots of Money: The Reality Behind the Summit Learning Program and the Push to Adopt Digital Personalized Learning Programs. It looks at one of the most prominent digital learning platforms, and how money and power are able to push such programs despite any real evidence that they work.

Summit Schools started out in 2003 with a low-tech focus on personalized education; in 2014, Mark Zuckerberg discovered the school and decided to gift it not just with money, but with technology. Zuckerberg was fresh off a high-profile edu-failure in Newark, and he had gleaned one particular lesson from that:

The most important lesson we've learned is to focus on problems we have some unique ability to help solve.
When the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative took form, its educational focus was on digital personalized learning. And Summit seemed like the perfect vehicle for that push. Summit Schools created the Summit Learning Platform, an algorithm-driven software system that delivers lessons to students via computer. Human “mentors” are on duty nearby to help out, but the program is the teacher.

Not everyone has loved it. Parents have occasionally revolted. The program has been accused of CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Report: Zuckerberg’s Favorite Digital Ed Program Is All Sizzle, No Steak