budget vote

So the budget vote is coming up, and we are asked to OK the purchase of many new SMART Boards.

How many new SMART Boards, you ask?

I have no idea.

However many it is will be too many for me.

The district needs fields; I need tile on my outer bathroom floor.

I don't mean that I need new tile on my outer bathroom floor.

I need tile, period.

Currently we have plywood on the bathroom floor, and have had since we moved in 8 years ago.

At that time, as I recall, the outer bathroom had the same green wall to wall carpet the bedroom did.

We pulled up the carpet and installed a hardwood floor in the bedroom, but we didn't want a wood floor in a bathroom, even an outer bathroom (sinks only), and we ran out of money before we got around to buying tile.

Never really got ahead of the curve on the money thing thereafter.

So.

I don't want SMART Boards.

I want tile.

Also fields.

Ed went to the Board meeting at which SMART Boards were discussed and was pretty much hooted down by all assembled. Teachers want SMART Boards, parents want SMART Boards, the Board wants SMART Boards -- it's a consensus!

So naturally I fired off a Yahoo op-ed on the subject of SMART Boards, the systematic hiring of novice teachers instead of experienced and/or expert teachers, opportunity costs, bringing the internet into the classroom, and etc.

I don't know what gets into me.

Our schools are going to have (more) SMART Boards, and I am going to pay for them.

The only good news around here is that God is on my side.

On the front page of today's New York Times, complete with large color photo of high school students actively engaged in not learning anything at school:

The students at Liverpool High have used their school-issued laptops to exchange answers on tests, download pornography and hack into local businesses. When the school tightened its network security, a 10th grader not only found a way around it but also posted step-by-step instructions on the Web for others to follow (which they did).

Scores of the leased laptops break down each month, and every other morning, when the entire school has study hall, the network inevitably freezes because of the sheer number of students roaming the Internet instead of getting help from teachers.

So the Liverpool Central School District, just outside Syracuse, has decided to phase out laptops starting this fall, joining a handful of other schools around the country that adopted one-to-one computing programs and are now abandoning them as educationally empty — and worse.

Many of these districts had sought to prepare their students for a technology-driven world and close the so-called digital divide between students who had computers at home and those who did not.

“After seven years, there was literally no evidence it had any impact on student achievement — none,” said Mark Lawson, the school board president here in Liverpool, one of the first districts in New York State to experiment with putting technology directly into students’ hands.

Yup, and I'm guessing back when they bought all those laptops there wasn't much discussion of precisely how much and within what timeframe student achievement was expected to increase once the entire student body could surf the internet at school.

"Preparing students for a technology-driven world" and "closing the digital divide" was probably reason enough to sink zillions of tax dollars into educational technology.

So.....

...... moving right along .....

Oh, look!

More happy taxpayers!

Here in Liverpool, parents have long criticized the cost of the laptop program: about $300,000 a year from the state, plus individual student leases of $25 a month, or $900 from 10th to 12th grades, for the take-home privilege.

“I feel like I was ripped off,” said Richard Ferrante, explaining that his son, Peter, used his laptop to become a master at the Super Mario Brothers video game. “And every time I write my check for school taxes, I get mad all over again.”

schools investing heavily!

More than a decade ago, schools began investing heavily in laptops at the urging of school boards and parent groups who saw them as the key to the 21st century classroom. Following Maine’s lead in 2002, states including Michigan, Pennsylvania and South Dakota helped buy laptops for thousands of students through statewide initiatives like “Classrooms for the Future” and “Freedom to Learn.” In New York City, about 6,000 students in 22 middle schools received laptops in 2005 as part of a $45-million, three-year program financed with city, state and federal money.

Many school administrators and teachers say laptops in the classroom have motivated even reluctant students to learn, resulting in higher attendance and lower detention and dropout rates.

But it is less clear whether one-to-one computing has improved academic performance — as measured through standardized test scores and grades — because the programs are still new, and most schools have lacked the money and resources to evaluate them rigorously.

In one of the largest ongoing studies, the Texas Center for Educational Research, a nonprofit group, has so far found no overall difference on state test scores between 21 middle schools where students received laptops in 2004, and 21 schools where they did not, though some data suggest that high-achieving students with laptops may perform better in math than their counterparts without.

ed professor says: they don't work, but buy them anyway!

Mark Warschauer, an education professor at the University of California at Irvine and author of “Laptops and Literacy: Learning in the Wireless Classroom” (Teachers College Press, 2006), also found no evidence that laptops increased state test scores in a study of 10 schools in California and Maine from 2003 to 2005. Two of the schools, including Rea Elementary, have since eliminated the laptops.

But Mr. Warschauer, who supports laptop programs, said schools like Liverpool might be giving up too soon because it takes time to train teachers to use the new technology and integrate it into their classes. For instance, he pointed to students at a middle school in Yarmouth, Me., who used their laptops to create a Spanish book for poor children in Guatemala and debate Supreme Court cases found online.

Hold it right there, cowboy.

Middle school students using their laptops to create a Spanish book for poor children in Guatemala and debate Supreme Court cases found online is exactly why I don't want laptops or anything else that can be used to surf the internet in my kid's school.

Number one, you don't need a laptop to create a Spanish book for poor children in Guatemala. (Do poor children in Guatemala lack Spanish books? What, are they stuck with hand-me-down English books from the North?)

Number two, middle school students have no competence to debate Supreme Court cases; their teachers have limited to no competence to direct a middle school debate of Supreme Court cases (nor do I); no one has the ability to direct an educationally valuable, off-the-cuff middle school debate of a Supreme Court case that has been "found" on the internet.

If a middle school class is going to study a Supreme Court case, that lesson needs to be carefully structured, sequenced, and orchestrated by the teacher before she gets to class.

Not "found on the internet."


I say Liverpool should forget about laptops and invest in SMART Boards.







update

Good news!

Cliff Stoll has been proved wrong!


how much does a light bulb for the SMART Board cost?
replacement light bulbs for the SMART Board
budget vote
more and ever more SMART Boards