Introduction
Americans are investing heavily to bring computer networking to our schools, but are we getting our money's worth?
Local school districts are spending $4 billion a year on new technology. President Clinton, as a down payment toward meeting his goal of connecting every classroom and library to the Internet by 2000, wants the federal government to kick in $2 billion over the next five years for hardware and software. In addition, the Federal Communications Commission has created a $2.25 billion annual fund to help schools and libraries pay for Internet connections.
Telephone and computer companies, meanwhile, are contributing dollars, hardware, services, and expertise to help schools get connected. And on just three "NetDays" since March 1996, thousands of volunteers have helped wire more than 30,000 schools in 40 states for Internet connections. Clearly, as the San Jose Mercury News put it, "If there is a Holy Grail in education today, it is computer technology."
But for all the enthusiasm, some fear that technology may simply be an expensive diversion. While researchers debate the actual effects of technology on learning, only 13.4 percent of teachers polled by the research firm Market Data Retrieval in February 1997 said they believe Internet access has yet helped students achieve better results. And the potential cost of the job of connecting schools could be substantial: a 1995 analysis by McKinsey & Co. said it could run as high as $47 billion over 10 years, plus another $14 billion in annual operating expenses.
Are the new technologies worth their cost in the face of these other needs? Not if they are adopted in a vacuum. Evidence strongly suggests that technology alone is no panacea. For it to work well for students and schools, we must build "human infrastructure" at the same pace we are installing computers and wiring.
The price tag may not seem like much compared with the more than $320 billion we currently spend on primary and secondary education each year, but it comes at a time when schools face many competing demands. Enrollments are rising, and many districts are grappling with an increasingly diverse student population. At the same time, school buildings are aging: the General Accounting Office estimates that the cost of repairing leaky roofs and performing other mundane repairs could total $112 billion. And many Americans worry that large numbers of children aren't even mastering rudimentary reading and writing skills, let alone learning how to navigate the new high-tech information byways.
Are the new technologies worth their cost in the face of these other needs? Not if they are adopted in a vacuum. Though some schools that use computer technology are achieving impressive results, many factors contribute to their overall success. Evidence strongly suggests that technology alone is no panacea. For it to work well for students and schools, we must build "human infrastructure" at the same pace we are installing computers and wiring. Specifically, we must address such issues as:
- Content. The Internet will be a valuable educational tool only if it is a source of high-quality, reliable, and relevant information that can be efficiently found and adapted to educational needs.
- Curriculum reform. We must define more clearly what intellectual skills students need, and develop better techniques for teaching them.
- Professional development. People have been talking for years about the need to train teachers in the use of technology. But we now realize that teachers need more than simple training; they also need support and time to develop lesson plans and to collaborate with colleagues.
- Assessment. We need better tools to gauge whether students are truly benefiting from new technologies. Public support for the substantial continuing investment the new tools require is unlikely to endure unless we can demonstrate that there are clear benefits.
- Equity. Hanging over this debate is a troubling question: what will happen if the benefits our education system might offer are not realized by all children? If technology enthusiasts are right about the potential gains from computer networking in classrooms, then an uneven distribution of technology on the basis of income, race, or geography could widen social divisions that already have grown in recent years.
- Community involvement. The ideal of classrooms linked to the outside world will make sense only if students can find supportive communities when they venture electronically beyond their classrooms. Technology is giving parents, businesses, nonprofit organizations, governments, and others an enormous opportunity--and responsibility--to become more involved in educating our children.
Clearly, these are concerns for more than educators alone. How we address them will go a long way toward determining whether we can build a communications system that serves public needs and promotes democratic values. At the same time, how well we teach our children to cope with today's chaotic information environment will help determine whether future generations are empowered to fully participate in the social, political, and cultural life of the nation, or whether they instead are stuck in the roles of passive consumers and spectators.
This report examines how educators are grappling with the difficult interplay of technological change and educational values. It begins by reviewing the potential for technology-driven education reform. The second section spells out an agenda for building the human infrastructure of the Information Age. The third section describes some of the activities of major institutional players in the education technology arena. In the fourth section it discusses how the success or failure of the effort to reform schools ultimately will be decided not in Washington, DC, corporate board rooms, or state capitals, but in individual communities all over the country. The report concludes by listing resources for further study of this complex issue, including the material and schools cited.
| High hopes | Agenda | What's going on | Schools & communities |
Last updated: 21 July 1997 jss
http://www.benton.org/Library/Schools/intro.html