[P1] tech vs books (was ibook article in the NYT)

[david]

On Wednesday, March 5, 2003, at 05:07  PM, andy van der raadt wrote:

> Brian, you're obviously closer to education than I am-- is this sort 
> of situation
> mirrored in Manitoba? Everybody else: Is this (as my supporting 
> literature claims)
> a Canadian problem, or are we experiencing these kinds of budget 
> cutbacks
> elsewhere as well?

The problem with public education is that it is financed by taxes which 
means:

1) it will almost never be of prime funding importance - kids don’t 
vote. Scared adults do, so police and jails will usually be a high 
priority. Senior citizens are the biggest block of active voters - they 
will generally get funding for their programs.

2) since all taxpayers are involved in the funding of schools, they 
think they all have a valid and meaningful part to play in running 
education. So local churches try to keep the teaching of evolution out 
of science classes. They try to keep books with four letter words out 
of the library. And they aren’t the only special interest group that 
tries to get their agenda into the school curriculum. They just happen 
to be the ones ticking me off big time at this moment.

3) in many states, such as mine, being dependent on the voter means 
that we never have a budget that can be relied on. In the 22 years I’ve 
been in public education I can count on one hand the number of years 
the budget we started with was within 10% of what we actually got. This 
year the state has cut funding to our district by 8% with another 4% 
likely.

The further problem with public education is that parents view the 
education of their children as our job. Somehow it doesn’t sink in that 
I cannot follow Jane home and make sure she does her homework. I’m not 
the one that lets Billy work 35 hours a week at WalMart. I’m not taking 
the week before spring break off to take Sue and Jimmy to the Bahamas. 
But when Jane and Billy and Sue and Jimmy don’t do well, somehow it is 
my fault.

Does this have anything to do with computers in education? Not really. 
Does investing in computer technology improve education? I really don’t 
know. But given that I teach information technology at the high school 
and community college I certainly know I couldn’t do it without the 
tech!

I think I’ll get out my flame retardant undies, just in case.

david

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Good qualities are easier to destroy than bad ones, and therefore
uniformity is most easily achieved by lowering all standards.
  ~~ Bertrand Russell

David