Education Technology Fail

The “coolest education map ever” award has to go to the Leaders and Laggards report on education innovation from AEI, Center for American Progress and the Institute for a Competitive Workforce. Besides being very slick, it presents some interesting information on education innovation. It will be really cool to see if the billions spent actually move any of the state grades on innovation.

We care about technology so it is good to some of the states with strong technology in use scoring high. They used four indicators to rate states on technology and assigned a grade. The first was students per high speed Internet connected computer with 3 being the highest grade – so still not all that great. The second was an established virtual school (oh yeah!). The third was computer based assessment for students and the final indicator was requiring teachers to demonstrate technology competence (not mastery - let's just get some basic competence to start).

Only one technology fail which was Nevada. Sad as the requirements to pass were really low. A lot of states receiving a D including Washington and California - so the tech capitals of the US can’t put tech in their schools. Really sad. Other D states include Utah, Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, Kansas, Tennessee, Indiana, Alabama, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware and DC.

Hopefully this is a wake up call to these states and with all the money floating around they can at least get to average. Wow – striving for a C – that just doesn’t feel right.

Note: ABCTE just received a grant to create a course for using technology in the classroom! So give them a call to boost your tech grade.

School District Spending Cuts

The school spending bubble is about to burst and the cuts taken last year are going to seem minute compared to what will happen in two years when the stimulus money is gone. Already schools are taking drastic action cutting sports, charging more for students services (now $200 for the right to park at school in Loudoun County, VA) and cutting staff. In Utah, districts sharply cut overhead positions and those who were affected went back into teaching positions putting a freeze on any new hiring. But there isn't much overhead left to cut and the numbers are going to be large - so where are the savings going to come from?

Schools don’t work like a business. If a business is faced with steep revenue reductions they look to create efficiencies in their operations to ensure that the output can improve with less cost. There are many efficiencies that teachers can realize through technology and maybe, as the cuts get even deeper, we will actually see some of these. We are already seeing California move to digital textbooks – can digital classes be far behind?

School district spending cuts don’t have to reduce student learning as long as we finally leverage technology in the classroom. I think school districts will finally be forced to blow up the current staffing model due to budget shortfalls and finally use computers in the classroom to provide truly differentiated instruction.