Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal recently made an impassioned plea to the House Education Committee to give him $35 million for the creation of a new computer system for the Department of Education. As a K-12 educator for over 40 years, I only wish that his plea was for something that would actually help students.
Money for reading, math or other academic programs comes to mind. Or, perhaps, funds for something as basic as making sure that every K-12 school in the state has enough paper so that parent-teacher organizations don’t have to beg parents to donate reams of paper to their child’s school.
Fred Barlam
Phoenix
Mike McClellan posted at 5:02 pm on Sat, Feb 16, 2013.
If -- and a big If, since the folks behind Common Core haven't come up with anything resembling the kind of assessments teachers will us -- the assessments are valid and get to teachers quickly, then teachers could pinpoint specific weaknesses.
However, based on just my experience, a good teacher ought to be able to do that already.
sockratties posted at 8:29 am on Sat, Feb 16, 2013.
Mike… Looks like you just summarized the gist of the problem. $35 for a computer system to handle data required to get more money for a system that isn’t working and that has been allowed to become obsolete. And with a new government mandate approaching we now have to spend money to support more demanding requirements or we won’t get our share of the pie. It’s all about the money, not the kids.
And teachers, who are overworked and underpaid, are going to have to use a new system and teach kids to test online so they can immediately identify weaknesses. And do what? They can’t teach them individually. There is no remedial teaching mechanism. The system isn’t going to do any teaching. The teachers are still going to have to teach to the lowest level in the classroom or lose the least capable.
There’s no improvement to the system with a top down mechanism like this, unless there’s a lot more to it than you describe. It may give Huppenthal more boasting room but nothing of value changes for the kids or teacher. It’s just more system to blame for failure to perform.
Mike McClellan posted at 5:46 pm on Fri, Feb 15, 2013.
Here's the deal -- the system needs updating in part to keep up with attendance, since we in AZ base our funding on attendance.
And with Common Core coming next year, and testing based on it the following year, we better have sophisticated computer systems to handle all of that, since all the testing is supposed to be online.
And with that -- supposedly -- teachers will get immediate feedback on their kids' abilities and deficiencies, allegedly helping them pinpoint their kids' weaknesses and thus be better able to help them.
Of course, none of this has even been tested yet, and we're a year out from all of this supposedly happening.
Key word? "Supposedly."
Bluepoet posted at 1:07 pm on Fri, Feb 15, 2013.
Would this $35 million computer system be for students, or for administrative purposes? Judging by what I've read about this Huppenthal guy, it would go for anyone but students...were I on this obviously dysfunctional committee, I would tell him that as soon as he consolidated the school districts to less than six, we could re-visit the computer system idea, as long as it also included a return on investment, in the form of a proven metric on administrative efficiency, with his job as collateral.
sockratties posted at 4:32 pm on Thu, Feb 14, 2013.
Actually I had to buy school supplies every year I attended school. They were never provided by the school system. Books were available in the classroom and sometimes my parents even had to buy workbooks required by the school.
VofReason posted at 1:38 pm on Thu, Feb 14, 2013.
Very true, computer willbe used by most people as they transition from education to application in the workplace. However, hard to argue that 35 million should be spent on this while complaining there is no money for books, paper, pencils etc. This may surprise some people, but most of us who went to school in the 70s and 80s had little or no computer learning until our later years. Most of us now work in fields that require them and have done just fine. They never asked us to bring in school supplies in elementary school. Just sayin'
sockratties posted at 1:07 pm on Thu, Feb 14, 2013.
Oops "their" should have been "they're"... when we're talking about education one needs to choose the right homonym.
sockratties posted at 1:02 pm on Thu, Feb 14, 2013.
Computers are good things, as long as their in the hands of the students. Check out programs such as the Khan Academy (free) and similar learning tools. Reading, writing, and math can all be augmented with computers. Technology tools will be required by workers in the near future unless we're teaching students how to make beds, flip burgers and take out the trash.
Unfortunately I doubt that is the vision Mr. Huppenthal has for education.