Educational Technology Archive

For our September “What is Ready?” cover package, the editors of ASBJ interviewed educators, scholars, and researchers about the topic of student readiness for the 21st century. Over the coming weeks, we will post many of those interviews on asbj.com in our “online only” section.

Today, we kick off the series with answers to our questions from Richard Rothstein, the former New York Times education columnist and author of Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap. As you might expect from Rothstein, who has contributed a number of articles to our magazine, his answers are provocative and thought-provoking.

Here is an excerpt:

Editors: What is "ready"? What specific skills should students have when they leave high school to enter higher education or the workforce?

Rothstein: This is the wrong -- or at least too narrow -- question. Contemporary education policy places too much emphasis on preparation for higher education or the workforce. Our public education system, historically and today, exists for more than this. Also of great importance is preparation for citizenship, for community responsibility, for good health (physical and emotional), and for adult leisure which benefits from an appreciation of the arts and literature.

For example, for citizenship, what kinds of conflict resolution skills do students have? Do they accept a responsibility to support or dissent from public policies, when appropriate? Can they combine advocacy with respect for differences? For physical health, are they in the habits of regular exercise and good nutrition; do they engage in responsible and safe sexual practices?

A colleague, Rebecca Jacobsen, and I wrote about these multiple goals in the October 2006 issue of the American School Board Journal.http://www.asbj.com/MainMenuCategory/Archive/2006/October/WhatBoardsWantfromSchoolsDoc621.aspx In that article, we described a survey we conducted of a representative sample of NSBA members, confirming that school board members support a broader mission for public education than preparation for higher education or the workforce alone.

For more, go to our “Online Only” section and click on Q&A: Richard Rothstein.

Glenn Cook, Editor-in-Chief

Just what exactly are these "21st century skills" that people keep talking about?

The editors of American School Board Journal attempt to provide some answers in this September’s issue. And I think, for the most part, they provide a fair answer to the question.

But I’m not entirely satisfied.

I was asked to write about the role of technology in the effort to prepare America’s youth for the future. In the end, however, my conclusion was modest: Today’s students need to know basic skills—reading, writing, math, science, history, etc.—and then they need to be taught how to think, solve problems, and work well with others.

The world is changing—and students do need more exposure to technology.

But I can’t shake the feeling that educators and policymakers are making too big a fuss over the details—those nuanced changes—needed to prepare students for the 21st century. The bottom line is that a good education is a good education. The graduate of an excellent school in 1840—one who was taught to think by his teachers—would likely do well in 2040.

Indeed, given how many of today’s students are falling short academically, I’d like to see every American student get what passed for a good education two centuries ago.

That’ll do plenty to make us globally competitive in the 21st century.

Del Stover, Senior Editor

Some of us ASBJ editors have been debating the merits of New York City’s plan to put some struggling students into postsecondary courses to keep them from dropping out. Whether that becomes a model for other districts or a disaster swept under the rug, or something in between, I’m sure Naomi Dillon will let us know in a couple years.

But a similar concept that’s quickly gaining ground is high school majors. Yes, majors for 13- and 14-year-olds, just like colleges. Florida, South Carolina, and numerous school districts have policies that require students to choose a course specialization, and other states and districts are taking similar approaches through similar concepts, such as career academies.

My first reaction when I started research for a School Board News story was to roll my eyes, and apparently a lot of parents have the same reaction. After all, what eighth-grader (most of the plans required students to choose their topic of specialty even before entering high school) has much of an idea what career path they will pursue? And when I looked at Florida’s laundry list of approved subject majors—which included strands like sculpture and culinary journalism—my response (which cannot be printed in its entirety) included the question, “Who do they think is going to teach all this?!”

But after talking to a few folks I was persuaded that the programs have potential, albeit with a lot of caveats.

Administrators who favor majors think they will give students more focus and more ambition during their high school careers, much like a specialized magnet school or career academy, and boost their college applications. Most majors would only be taken through electives, usually one course the first two years and two courses in the junior and senior years, although the theme of the major could also influence the teachings of some of the core classes. Plus, administrators say many students already know their interests, and this could be a way to help students engaged. Gene Bottoms, a vice president at the Southern Regional Education Board, notes that while so many national groups are sounding alarms about 21st century skills and more rigor in core classes, not much is being done to figure out how to keep kids interested in school.

The concept has merit, at least for some students, in some schools, some of the time. Certain conditions need to be met: Students need flexibility to try out different majors, and shouldn’t be forced to choose if they aren’t passionate about their schools’ offerings; majors should be broad enough to allow students to explore different areas within a field; and, perhaps most importantly, the school must have the capacity to teach these courses well.

Will these programs become a model or be impossible to implement? Stay tuned; I’ll check back in a couple years.

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor

After reading that a New Jersey school system gives local police a live feed to their surveillance cameras, it’s time to pull my copy of George Orwell’s 1984 off the shelf.

No, I am not one of those fellows who worry that Big Brother is watching. But I do think we’re setting up an infrastructure—and mindset—that is dangerous ground for the future.

Proponents of surveillance cameras will scoff at my concerns. Surveillance cameras are going up all over the nation’s schools—and streets—and one emergency management official dismissed privacy concerns by saying “the value we gain in public safety far outweighs any perception by the community that this is Big Brother who’s watching.”

That mindset comforts me a whole lot—particularly after surveillance cameras did nothing to stop a 14-year-old gunman from walking into a Cleveland school, wounding four people and shooting himself.

Ask anyone in school safety, and they’ll tell you that gadgets are nowhere near as effective in stopping school violence as teachers who build good relationships with students, administrators who intervene with troubled youth, and schools that build a healthy school climate where students respect and care for one another.

That’s why I’d like to see school officials turn first to more effective methods of stopping crime and violence than the cold and unblinking stare of Big Brother.

Now excuse me. I feel a need to look over my shoulder to see who might be watching.

Del Stover, Senior Editor

A big story came out of T.C. Williams High School here in Alexandria, Va., on Sunday -- and I’m not talking about Barack Obama’s speech to more than 3,000 enthusiastic supporters in the school’s gymnasium, although that would certainly qualify.

I’m speaking, instead, about a remarkably blunt opinion piece that appeared in Sunday’s Washington Post by long-time T.C. English teacher Patrick Welsh, a frequent contributor. It’s titled “A School That’s Too High on Gizmos,” and that’s putting Welsh’s views mildly.

Welsh feels the school and the district are in the grip of what a former Alexandria superintendent calls “technolust” -- the craving for more, more complicated, and more expensive electronic gadgets, largely independent of their impact on student learning. It’s technology for technology’s sake, Welsh says, not technology in service of something greater.

Welsh offers numerous examples. The $495 per-unit hand-held “school pads” that enable teachers to underline something displayed on the classrooms’ ceiling-mounted LCDs (“another way to waste money for people who are too lazy to write on the board,” one teacher says). The classes where every student has a laptop and where -- unbeknownst to teachers -- some are busy playing the online “Helicopter Game” and surfing the Net. And, most disturbing of all, a sense that teachers and administrators are spending more time on their computers than with actual students.

“We’re becoming like a correspondence school, where all communication is faceless,” one long-time teacher says.

The story seems to confirm my long-held fears about overreliance on school technology. I remember, for example, several years ago when I visited a West Virginia upper elementary school, and a teacher gushed over the ability of her students to put together PowerPoint presentations. Called me curmudgeonly, but I’d have rather seen them put together a well-reasoned argument.

I could be all wrong. A few months ago, I spoke with the principal of T.C. Williams (who comes under some pretty withering criticism from Welsh), and he insisted that technology is radically changing the way we acquire information -- indeed, the very way we think. Read Daniel H. Pink’s book A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, and you might become a believer too.

I did. Well, almost. The fact is, I’m over 50, and I sort of like my old mind. I love the newspaper (all those sections, nicely divided), books with weathered pages, and -- best of all, to my mind -- the most wonderful technological innovation yet invented: the glorious acoustic piano.

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor

Any school board member will tell you that they view technology as an important priority for their school system. But when money gets tight, do their actions match their rhetoric?

That’s a question I’d like to see answered. And it’s one of many that I’m asking school board members and technology directors as I research a future American School Board Journal article on smart practices for purchasing technology—particularly in a slowing economy.

So far, people are saying the right things. School leaders are aware that technology is an important component in teaching students 21st century skills. They say they want to see technology expand and enrich classroom learning.

They also voice an understanding of the dangers of deferring maintenance and trimming funds designated to replace older machines. They understand that aging technology will raise maintenance costs, and that cutting staff training adds to the risk that expensive technology will sit unused in the corner of the classroom.

I also was heartened by a news article reporting that the Massachusetts’ Dover-Sherborn Regional School Committee recognizes the dangers—and recently expressed concern when it received a budget recommendation for a modest cut in the technology budget.

“Some of [the budget] is not staying up with our five-year replacement plan,” one committee member commented. “To me, we could be putting ourselves on a slippery slope.”

The rest of the committee agreed, reported the Dover-Sherborn Press, adding that committee members feared “that if the towns get off-track with technology advancements now, it could lead to a disastrous snowballing effect a few years down the road.”

Smart policymakers, I think. But, as the economy sours and school revenues are trimmed, can this school committee—or any school board—hold the line? Will it matter that, in the long run, it’s a fiscally sound, efficient policy to protect staff development, maintenance, and replacement budgets?

These are questions that too many school boards might have to answer—and answer in ways they won’t like. Sue Helms, president of the Madison City Schools and Alabama Association of School Boards, is a big proponent of classroom technology, but even she is well aware that getting kids to school and putting a teacher in front of the classroom are higher priorities than any high-tech gadget.

“If a school system is trying to decide between a new school bus or computers in the classroom,” she notes, “that’s a no-brainer.”

Del Stover, Senior Editor