HERE’s THE END RESULT:
Unfortunately, within two years disaster struck, and the city’s lawyers were exploring lawsuits against Apple and Education Giant, Pearson, the FBI and the Security and Exchange Commission were probing possible fraud, and Deasy resigned. Leaving aside the criminality that may be inescapable with lavish contracts, the 2013 debacle should warn today’s high-minded miracle workers.
Technical glitches were endemic — Internet connections were spotty and mismatched to tablet/software requirements. The whole system was poorly attuned to a multilingual school system. Students were often befuddled by computer lingo, let alone standard English. The need for extensive coordination among thousands of semi-computer literate teachers and administrators was underestimated.
Not all teachers welcomed the time-consuming demands to learn the technology and many doubted the entire endeavor. Opportunity costs abounded — absorbing software detracted from traditional instruction in much needed basics, particularly for English learners. Many students quickly disabled security features and “education” deteriorated into surfing the net for who knows what.
I think the biggest problem in inner-city schools is behavioral. A percentage of the classroom will behave in a disruptive manner. The teacher may want to teach. Some students may want to learn. But neither of those things happen because a small number of students want to ruin everything.
So send everybody home. Solve the "problems" of distance learning. Kids in the inner-city who want to learn will thrive like never before. Kids who don't want to learn will get in trouble like they always did. But they won't disrupt the kids who want to learn.
School choice and homeschooling is the way to fix inner-city schools. Which is to say: shut down the government schools and find alternative means. Solving the technical problems is hardly an insurmountable problem and is no excuse to keep doing what we've been doing.
Goes to show ~ failure of Biblical proportion the Gov’t K - 12 Indoctrination Centers. Abolish the Department of Education, it is a Non-Essential !
School competition and choice and a type of voucher system is the answer, as well as merit pay for teachers in non-union private schools.
Significant percentage of the the parents forced to teach their kids at home are finding themselves liking home-schooling. So the movement grows some more......
——I’m a parent who homeschooled and have zero regrets, despite economic pressures, we did it and my now-adult kids are doing very very well.
One of my ex wives is an elementary school teacher in Las Vegas.
She says the unspoken (anywhere) fact is that “kids of color” are not as smart as white and Asian kids. And their parents are dumb too.
Not uneducated, but actually dumb. Lacking the cognitive tools to acquire and process information and turn it into knowledge and skill. A kid with a 71 IQ is never going to be able to understand a tech manual, and a kid with an 84 IQ will never learn Algebra.
Just like their parents.
And there’s not a damn thing anyone on this planet can do about it.