Kansas Towns 'Rebel' Against Zuckerberg-Funded School Programs (acq5.com) 205
"I want to just take my Chromebook back and tell them I'm not doing it anymore," said Kallee Forslund, 16, a 10th grader in Wellington.
The New York Times reports on a "rebellion" that started in Kansas against an online "personalized learning" program funded by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, and developed by Facebook engineers -- including a classroom walk-out, a sit-in, and parent protests at public school board meetings.
Read the Times' pay-walled original article or this free alternate version. Some highlights: Eight months earlier, public schools near Wichita had rolled out a web-based platform and curriculum from Summit Learning... Many families in the Kansas towns, which have grappled with underfunded public schools and deteriorating test scores, initially embraced the change. Under Summit's program, students spend much of the day on their laptops and go online for lesson plans and quizzes, which they complete at their own pace. Teachers assist students with the work, hold mentoring sessions and lead special projects. The system is free to schools. The laptops are typically bought separately.
Then, students started coming home with headaches and hand cramps. Some said they felt more anxious. One child began having a recurrence of seizures. Another asked to bring her dad's hunting earmuffs to class to block out classmates because work was now done largely alone. "We're allowing the computers to teach and the kids all looked like zombies," said Tyson Koenig, a factory supervisor in McPherson, who visited his son's fourth-grade class. In October, he pulled the 10-year-old out of the school. In a school district survey of McPherson middle school parents released this month, 77 percent of respondents said they preferred their child not be in a classroom that uses Summit. More than 80 percent said their children had expressed concerns about the platform...
The resistance in Kansas is part of mounting nationwide opposition to Summit, which began trials of its system in public schools four years ago and is now in around 380 schools and used by 74,000 students. In Brooklyn, high school students walked out in November after their school started using Summit's platform. In Indiana, Pa., after a survey by Indiana University of Pennsylvania found 70 percent of students wanted Summit dropped or made optional, the school board scaled it back and then voted this month to terminate it. And in Cheshire, Conn., the program was cut after protests in 2017...
By [this] winter, many McPherson and Wellington students were fed up. While Summit's program asks schools to commit to having students meet weekly in person with teachers for at least 10 minutes, some children said the sessions lasted around two minutes or did not happen.
The Parent Coalition for Student Privacy says the program also "demands an extraordinary amount of personal information about each student and plans to track them through college and beyond." But the real concern is whether the programs are effective. The Times also spoke to a senior scientist at the RAND corporation who's studied digital customized learning programs, who acknowledges "There has not been enough research." And a Wellington city councilman told them that 12 parents actually pulled their children out of the school system after this year's first semester -- and nearly 40 more plan to do so by summer vacation.
One church secretary (with two school-age children) even coined a pithy slogan for her yard sign: "Don't Plummet With Summit."
The New York Times reports on a "rebellion" that started in Kansas against an online "personalized learning" program funded by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, and developed by Facebook engineers -- including a classroom walk-out, a sit-in, and parent protests at public school board meetings.
Read the Times' pay-walled original article or this free alternate version. Some highlights: Eight months earlier, public schools near Wichita had rolled out a web-based platform and curriculum from Summit Learning... Many families in the Kansas towns, which have grappled with underfunded public schools and deteriorating test scores, initially embraced the change. Under Summit's program, students spend much of the day on their laptops and go online for lesson plans and quizzes, which they complete at their own pace. Teachers assist students with the work, hold mentoring sessions and lead special projects. The system is free to schools. The laptops are typically bought separately.
Then, students started coming home with headaches and hand cramps. Some said they felt more anxious. One child began having a recurrence of seizures. Another asked to bring her dad's hunting earmuffs to class to block out classmates because work was now done largely alone. "We're allowing the computers to teach and the kids all looked like zombies," said Tyson Koenig, a factory supervisor in McPherson, who visited his son's fourth-grade class. In October, he pulled the 10-year-old out of the school. In a school district survey of McPherson middle school parents released this month, 77 percent of respondents said they preferred their child not be in a classroom that uses Summit. More than 80 percent said their children had expressed concerns about the platform...
The resistance in Kansas is part of mounting nationwide opposition to Summit, which began trials of its system in public schools four years ago and is now in around 380 schools and used by 74,000 students. In Brooklyn, high school students walked out in November after their school started using Summit's platform. In Indiana, Pa., after a survey by Indiana University of Pennsylvania found 70 percent of students wanted Summit dropped or made optional, the school board scaled it back and then voted this month to terminate it. And in Cheshire, Conn., the program was cut after protests in 2017...
By [this] winter, many McPherson and Wellington students were fed up. While Summit's program asks schools to commit to having students meet weekly in person with teachers for at least 10 minutes, some children said the sessions lasted around two minutes or did not happen.
The Parent Coalition for Student Privacy says the program also "demands an extraordinary amount of personal information about each student and plans to track them through college and beyond." But the real concern is whether the programs are effective. The Times also spoke to a senior scientist at the RAND corporation who's studied digital customized learning programs, who acknowledges "There has not been enough research." And a Wellington city councilman told them that 12 parents actually pulled their children out of the school system after this year's first semester -- and nearly 40 more plan to do so by summer vacation.
One church secretary (with two school-age children) even coined a pithy slogan for her yard sign: "Don't Plummet With Summit."
Zuck sucks (Score:1, Informative)
Haha
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Something (((Zuck))) produces tracks every possible aspect of someone's life? Imagine my shock. It probably also has the goal of giving a favorable view of large corporations controlling government for it's own benefit and to hating white people.
Re: (Score:2)
Something (((Zuck))) produces tracks every possible aspect of someone's life? Imagine my shock.
Facebook is very much the modern day definition of evil corporate empire. It makes Veridian Dynamics look saintly.
Re: (Score:2)
I wish they'd bring that show back
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Zuck sucks (Score:1)
If you had ever worked for Facebook you would know exactly what the poster meant
Not just this program (Score:3, Interesting)
Pedagogy is one of those sciences in which there is traditionally not enough evaluation and most of their studies are probably statistically flawed, too. But that's not just limited to e-learning or however you call it, the problem is everywhere. Schooling has always been the hobby horse of amateurs and ideologists. I know people who "evaluate" the effects of teaching argumentation to school children and their statistically insignificant "pilot studies" are not worth the paper they're printed on.
However, the problem is that for proper evaluation you need data. Think about them what you want, but about that FB and Zuckerberg are right. And, of course, they also need data to sell it or hook the children into addictive online tools later.
Re:Not just this program (Score:4, Interesting)
To add an anecdote to this increasing number of educational anecdotes, I heard that the children are learning mighty fine in radio exclusion zones near radio telescopes such as the Green Bank Observatory. They become more social, active and confident as they have no access phones, internet or even microwave ovens. The internet companies wanting to do measurement might want reconsider their approach on the ways the measurement is done. Also the ideas related to the goals of basic education seems to vary widely.
Re: Not just this program (Score:1)
Fishing out massive amounts of 'data' and clobbering it with statistical analysis is not science, it's make-work for people who like to fiddle with mechanisms.
Re: (Score:2)
You "heard that"? Sure you did. There are 140 people living in Green Bank. Probably 20 kids. And they do have Internet access, just not wifi.
Re: (Score:3)
You "heard that"? Sure you did. There are 140 people living in Green Bank. Probably 20 kids. And they do have Internet access, just not wifi.
I think it's kinda like windmill cancer. People are saying...
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't be surprised if they did better in school. I also wouldn't be surprised if they had a higher teacher to student ratio, and that the students had more opportunities to have one on one time with the teachers.
I went to both a small town school and a larger city school. I played on the football, basketball, and track teams, took part in school activities my freshman year. Then moved to a much larger school my sophomore year didn't play any sports didn't go to the over crowded school activities and ge
Green Bank [Re:Not just this program] (Score:5, Informative)
You "heard that"? Sure you did. There are 140 people living in Green Bank. Probably 20 kids. And they do have Internet access, just not wifi.
Thank you for pulling some numbers out of your ass.
Population 143.
38 children under age 18.
Date: https://suburbanstats.org/popu... [suburbanstats.org]
Re: (Score:2)
I heard that the children are learning mighty fine in radio exclusion zones near radio telescopes such as the Green Bank Observatory.
Do you have a citation for this? A Google search turned up nothing.
Re: (Score:2)
I heard that the children are learning mighty fine in radio exclusion zones near radio telescopes such as the Green Bank Observatory.
Do you have a citation for this? A Google search turned up nothing.
Try some keywords like: academic success income category
or: academic success parents education level
Re: (Score:3)
Green Bank, West Virginia does have internet access. They use cables. What they do not have have is wi-fi or any wireless devices.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people":
First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.
Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization i
Re: (Score:3)
I think the textbook industry and everything else that’s grown up around the education system really doesn’
Re: (Score:2)
One factor is that this kind of research is very difficult, and requires careful framing of the study to get reliable data. Doing so requires expertise and a lot of time/effort/money. Another factor, which my SO testifies to from her advanced degrees in the field, is that 75% of the graduate students in education research are very mediocre. Thus anecdotal information is too readily accepted as data by too many so-called "experts", whom we expect to know better but do not.
For example, the "whole language
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Also, at least in the US, we have politicians clamoring to control some part of the education system so they can yell, "Save the children!"
The result is that we get a new "program" after every Presidential and gubernatorial election.
Re: (Score:2)
How do you get double-blind data, though?
You're not going to easily get a common population of students, even within one district there will be variations, so per school is dubious, too. Running two curricula in one school sounds impractical, and probably too small of a population. And let's not forget the variation in teachers.
It also sounds like an ethical minefield in exposing students to potentially poor curricula. Although it's not like we haven't "tested" new curricula before by just blindly impos
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't sound like it actually increases efficiency (and therefore saves money for these cash strapped schools).
In my HS the lasses were 45 minutes and had 20-30 students (targeting 20 to 25).
in this program, with 10 minutes a week meeting, and I'm sure some wasted time, we have 3-4 meetings/class/day or 15-20 students per teacher.
I'd bet pretty big money that just shrinking class sizes to 15-20 would achieve excellent results for the same price.
Zuckerberg is toxic (Score:1)
we know that since he called all his users "dumb fucks".
How could this freakshow of a platform aka Facebook (what a name!) ever spread out so far and wide?
Re: (Score:2)
Zuckerberg is toxic ... we know that since he called all his users ...
Tell me about it.
He donated a hundred million dollars to the Newark New Jersey school system, to improve their failing schools.
Facebook's main building in Silicon Valley is literally at the last intersection on the road to the Dumbarton bridge, which launches from Mountain View near Palo Alto and lands in Newark CALIFORNIA.
Newark CA also has some severe issues with public school quality, AND it's right in the heart of Silicon Valley, so i
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think that even Zuckerberg is more than a symptom than the actual problem, but if there are "failing school systems" from coast to coast that need private money to keep them from collapsing, than that's a sign of a failed state, not only "failing school system",
Blue Eyeballs (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing is free (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing is free, and nobody does anything out of the kindness of their heart.
Summit was foisted upon us by the teachers union. They were the only ones who wanted it and threatened to spend millions having our board voted out if we didn't adopt it. Unsurprisingly, our local NEA chapter is a beneficiary of Summit to the tune of several million dollars.
The curriculum itself is mediocre at best and starves children of much needed socialization. But, the program is designed to train children to work in a vacuum producing product that is within the child's skill level, and that's it.
Facebook wants schools producing cheap coders, damn everything else to hell.
Re: (Score:1)
The curriculum itself is mediocre at best and starves children of much needed socialization. But, the program is designed to train children to work in a vacuum producing product that is within the child's skill level, and that's it.
Part of this sounds like whining to me. I'm more interested if it works. You could easily add parts that are interactive with the class or gym or whatever. If, however, it works, and provides a skill so they actually are a net asset to society rather than a net drain, then well you have to consider that. As much as I hate Donald Trump and the republican party, I also realize that the younger generation do not impress me. At some point you have to do the work, not expect the world to go do the work for
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
You can make an easy educated guess that it doesn't and won't work. The program lets each kid move through at their own pace. Meaning the lessons are never too challenging. So when the kids finally meet the real world, they're going to collapse in on themselves because they won't be able to handle anything which pushes them past what they're comfortable with. This will be even worse than the "if you're not making me feel good then you're attacking me" attitude which has been slowly spreading. Humans ar
Re: Nothing is free (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I also wonder if these "kids" are not arguably being smart with their effort. In the Valley, retail and restaurants are begging for people to work for $16 per hour. If you are not offering >$30 per hour, you are a gig, not a a career, and these kids know their employer is very replaceable. I do not see that $20 per hour for "basic labourer" work as attractive, unless I happen to like working for you for some reason, when I easily get $16 plus tips working in an air conditioned restaurant with little o
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
nobody does anything out of the kindness of their heart.
That's bullshit.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Nothing is free (Score:5, Interesting)
But is it false?
Yes.
I have had people do things for me out of the kindness of their own heart. That claim is not only demonstrably false but an insult to those people.
Re: (Score:3)
They did it out of the kindness of their hearts, but they expect gratitude in return.
Seriously, give someone the cold shoulder after they do you a favor and see if they go out of their way for you the next time. Gratitude is a true currency.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
You mean if I act like a fucking dickhead, then I'll piss people off? No shit Sherlock!
Random strangers who I will never see again have been kind to me just out of the goodness of their hearts. I'm not going to be a royal wanker just to prove that if I am indeed a wanker, then they won't be happy. No one likes someone being a walked to them especially after they've put themselves out there just to be kind.
What the hell is wrong with people here? You need to get the fuck off the internet and out into the wor
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously, give someone the cold shoulder after they do you a favor and see if they go out of their way for you the next time.
You are not wrong; however, you have only provided one more way that people may not be doing things out of the kindness of their heart.
Have you never seen true generosity? I know it is rare, but it does exist. Do you really see all of humanity as vampires? (I am not attacking you here. I am asking honestly because even in my darkest days, I can just recall some examples of true generosity and not end it all, even if it seems on the surface that everyone is just a vampiric bastard out to suck any resources t
Re: (Score:2)
No corporation does anything out of the kindness of its heart. -FIFY
Re: (Score:2)
Well there is always some positive PR that can be wrought out of it so we will never know for sure where the final bit of motivation came from.
On the other hand, considering that most of the educational, cultural, medical and social system depends on private money coming in from donations, fund raisers or other "philantropy", that doesn't shed the best light on the whole system, not only donors who might not do it out of kindness alone.
Re: (Score:2)
nobody does anything out of the kindness of their heart.
That's bullshit.
I think AC is just projecting.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Nothing is free (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people might think they do, but I'm rather suspicious of them. I think they're really just trying to buy themselves some kind of ticket to heaven and aren't being honest about it with everyone else or maybe even themselves
Oh piss off with your sanctimonious attitude, you're barely distingushable from one of the fundamentalists you claim to hate so much.
I have had complete strangers do kind things for me when I needed it. You're insulting those people because you're a mealy-mouthed, mean spirited dickhead.
Their tyranny knows no bounds having become assured of their own virtue.
Chris! You're so far up your own arse you can see brown tinted daylight. If you feel tyranized by random strangers offering each other a helping hand then you need some serious help from a therapist.
Re: (Score:3)
Some people might think they do, but Iâ(TM)m rather suspicious of them. I think theyâ(TM)re really just trying to buy themselves some kind of ticket to heaven and arenâ(TM)t being honest about it with everyone else or maybe even themselves.
I don't believe in heaven, but I do have an ulterior motive in doing things for people. It makes the world a better place, and I lead by example. That's why I answer questions for free, for example. It makes the world a better place, which I then get to live in, and maybe some other people will do it, too.
If you find that suspicious, that's self-defeating.
Re: (Score:2)
Some people might think they do, but Iâ(TM)m rather suspicious of them. I think theyâ(TM)re really just trying to buy themselves some kind of ticket to heaven and arenâ(TM)t being honest about it with everyone else or maybe even themselves.
I don't believe in heaven, but I do have an ulterior motive in doing things for people. It makes the world a better place, and I lead by example. That's why I answer questions for free, for example. It makes the world a better place, which I then get to live in, and maybe some other people will do it, too.
If you find that suspicious, that's self-defeating.
It's just a definitions game. Supposedly nobody can want anything good for others selflessly, because the very fact that they want it means that their actions will please themselves.
It's fun for about five minutes of a college bull session. Kind of pointless though.
Re: (Score:2)
If we did that, those companies would have done it for free PR and not out of kindness....
Re:Nothing is free (Score:5, Insightful)
Volunteering at a local food bank is "out of the kindness of the heart."
It's difficult emotionally, especially if you are the interviewer (which I was for a couple of years). Hear people's problems, maybe pray with them (I'm atheist but can pray and cry, empathy), identify most urgent needs.
It teaches humility, respect, and a greater appreciation for what one has.
This changes a person after a time. When time equals food.
That said, I wouldn't let Zuck have anything at all to do with my kid's schooling. Zero. -1.
speak for yourself (Score:1)
Nothing is free, and nobody does anything out of the kindness of their heart.
This is provably false. There is kindness in the world, even if it doesn't often exist at industrial scale. In fact without people doing stuff out of that sense of personal honour, and kindness, society rapidly falls apart. Thankfully human kindness is a renewable resource, even if it can be easily burned out.
Re:Nothing is free (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty skeptical of this. Why would a teacher's union support a program that makes teachers disposable? Citation needed.
Re: (Score:1)
There are a couple of reasons:
a) Teachers currently spend 10-20% of their salary to purchase materials for use in the classroom that their districts "don't have money for," while they pay administrators $250K/year. This program does not require them to do that.
b) It means a lot less work for teachers, and that is the utopia that unions want - people getting paid pretty good money to do little or no work at all.
Re: (Score:2)
Hypothesizing some reasons why it could be true is not the same as providing a citation.
Re: (Score:1)
I wasn't aware that I said it was.
Re: (Score:2)
So, you replied to someone asking for a citation with....nothing. While also removing any attempt to phrase it as "I got nothing to show you, but I have an opinion that I wanna type out that isn't actually based on any actual information about teaching in Kansas."
Re: (Score:2)
teacher: [walking out of the store with supplies for students they had to purchase out of pocket]
Had to buy? I don't think you know what that word means.
Re: (Score:1)
teacher: [walking out of the store with supplies for students they had to purchase out of pocket]
Had to buy? I don't think you know what that word means.
Yes, had to buy. I don't think you know what teachers need to do to teach.
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing is free, and nobody does anything out of the kindness of their heart.
I know it is pointless to respond to AC posts... but I feel bad for you bro. Really bad. Many people do things out of the kindness of their heart. Maybe not for you, or maybe you just don't know it, but many people do indeed do things altruistically. Sure, when there are 7 billion people on this planet and the majority are stressed by having their resources pooled to support authoritarian governments attacking people, you will not see as much altruistic behavior as you otherwise might... but the altruistic
Turns out... (Score:3, Interesting)
... children of humans, social animals, need social interaction too.
What's most amazing is that teh zuck manages to get this wrong time and again.
Re:Turns out... (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do think he gets that wrong? I don't think he gets that wrong at all. I think Zuck understands that at least as well as anyone.
The difference between Zuck and others is most of us seek to meet our own and those of our children need to be social by letting kids play together, joining clubs, going to church, playing sports, working in a corporation, visiting family, etc; Zuck continues in his relentless pursuit of creating a synthetic copy of actual socializing.
I also think Zuck by and larger wants that synthetic form of socializing to be the norm because then he can truly have his hooks into everything. He once wanted to run for President, but honestly why bother if you can just control what the President thinks instead?
Speaking of the President (Score:2)
As much as some people may protest the last part of his tweet applies to this situation: "Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly. Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT. I see it all the time in many products. Always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when old and simpler is far better."
I'd elaborate on it to say there is a sweet spot of technological application for most situations, too little of it is not useful enough, and too much of it is harmful, but that'
Re: (Score:2)
As much as some people may protest the last part of his tweet applies to this situation: "Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly. ...
I haven't RTFA or the tweet, is this another case of someone that has billions of spare cash now claims expertise of aeronautical engineers and test pilots?
Re: Turns out... (Score:1)
Why would anyone trust Zuckerberg? (Score:1)
Zuckerberg was a flaky college dropout who from the start created a social network that was riddled with privacy issues. Why on Earth would any school district trust this man advice for education?? He has aboslutely no credible degree's to justify any sort of abilities to address educational concerns.
Re: Why would anyone trust Zuckerberg? (Score:1)
Hmm, they don't know whether this works.... (Score:2, Funny)
But, oddly enough, they object to gethering enough information to find out whether it works.
Don't know what personal data the program requires, but DO know enough to know that without gathering lots of personal info (yes, and continuing tracking the kids through college and beyond), there's no way to really find out if it works.
Mostly because the effects of homelife has a LOT to do with success in school, so any scientific study of education needs to know about that so its effects can be compensated for.
Re: (Score:1)
The problem is science and the machine are hopeless intertwined. The American left now has the same proclivity to be moral busybodies as the most extreme elements of the American right.
A scientist would collect the data about home life they need to isolate the variables they actually seeks to test around classroom activity and stop. In reality half the people doing this work are "mandatory reporters." Who can upend your life at any instant because of something they "think" they saw. The rest will gather
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Hmm, they don't know whether this works.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
So it's just like working in the private sector will be once they graduate. Sounds like a pretty effective educational methodology to me.
This, all day ... (Score:1)
Re:Hmm, they don't know whether this works.... (Score:5, Interesting)
FTA: "Summit chose not to be part of a study after paying the Harvard Center for Education Policy Research to design one in 2016..."
Which says Facebook/Summit isn't really interested in being part of a real scientific study, either. Must be that they want a slush of data they can massage and use for other purposes; big surprise. Follow the data.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't know what personal data the program requires, but DO know enough to know that without gathering lots of personal info (yes, and continuing tracking the kids through college and beyond), there's no way to really find out if it works.
One wrinkle is that K-12 students are required by law to go to school, and for a great many parents (often depending on their financial situation) a competitive market for K-12 education simply doesn't exist. Ergo, with a jot of a pen, some school district bureaucrat can in effect use the power of law to require students/parents to consume a Zuckerberg product/service.
Also, remember that even public education isn't free. If my kid is happy and normal in the first grade and then in the second grade he needs
AI (Score:1)
No such thing as a Communazi (Score:1)
communist "equal outcome" nazis
[...]
commie pinko fascists
Communism and National Socialism were diametrically opposed. So were Communism and Fascism. Someone who uses them in the same noun phrase is probably misusing one or both terms.
SV schools (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
If you're paying attention this makes sense. If not, well, you're still looking in the wrong places.
Re: (Score:2)
It's the difference between the kind of education they want for the peons and the kind they want for their own kids.
Re: (Score:2)
It's Kansas (Score:1)
The kids probably get a well-rounded education of history, social studies and science designed by a left-coast liberal organization. Even if it is delivered through a rather clumsy and dehumanizing interface. But then they have to go back home and learn Jesus, Noah's Ark and a 6000 year-old Earth. The inevitable conflict is undoubtedly very stressful.
Why don't they just stick with textbooks that the Texas Board of Education has approved and make life easier on the kids?
Make Zombies Great Again! (Score:1)
This anti-zombie bigotry will not be tolerated.
- National Zombie Association
Online math hell (Score:2)
My middle school son has had homework involving doing this online math web site where you do problems over and over and get scored on your performance. Crossing a level threshold requires a certain score, but wrong answers impose a score penalty, requiring repeating many problems to get your score back.
I can see where a system like this winds up being really unpopular, my kid hates it because the wrong answer penalty is so high that it produces a lot of frustration, which makes for rushed answers and more
Does it work? (Score:2)
Yeah, sure, they're learning through computers now and kids complain. .....and I can't believe I'm defending the Zuck.... but does it work? Have their scores stopped falling? Even the slashdot comments are skipping over the part where this might actually be helping the kids with school.
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody knows. Including Summit, which backed out of a Harvard-run study about whether or not it works.
The fact that the kids are rejecting it would seem to indicate it doesn't work. They're not going to learn as well if they're rejecting the system.
Re: (Score:2)
...Nobody in McPherson middle school knows what the test scores of these kids are? Not even the teachers? Wow, that IS a shitty school district. Now, agreed, if 80% really ARE complaining, then it's probably terrible. Then again, that's one school out of how many? There's a lot of questions which is why dropping out of that study is pretty damning. If they can't measure it, it's not science. If they actively keep people from looking at their results, it's likely fraud.
Re: (Score:2)
Affects on test scores take years to become apparent - the students have to be learning in this system for a while to overpower the effects of other learning. It's not like one year's standardized tests only measure the learning that took place during that year. The tests are based off everything you learned up to that point in time, and changes in teaching techniques can't really be evaluated until a significant portion of "everything you learned up to that point" is in the new system.
Then again, that's one school out of how many?
If it's 80% at one
Re: (Score:2)
7 years. The "Summit Learning Platform" was started in 2012 [edsurge.com] and facebook took over in 2015. We have 4 years of data to see if Facebook's system works. Of course, it's probably been changing every year.
(Also, god DAMN is it hard to just find out when this damn thing started. It doesn't even have a Wikipedia page? What kind of fly-by-night operation is facebook anyway?)
Well, it is Kansas. They are pretty desperate to do anything cheap when it comes to education, since Brownback supply-side-economics the state into bankruptcy.
Yeah, they fucked themselves over there.
Human interaction for the rich (Score:2)
Couldn't you just eliminate teachers altogether and say the same thing? I can see how thi
humans = social animals (Score:2)
Computerized learning will not be successful until it deals with this aspect of the equation - we're social anim
Individual learning against public school (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
PLATO predates even the corruption of everyday schooling in America. But then it was visionary in so many ways now forgotten, and was intended to be an extension of teachers. This Summit just seems boring. In PLATO, boring lessons did not get much use. It was a competitive market.
Re: (Score:2)
The teacher exists for two big reasons (1) to positively provide emotional/social context to the material, and (2) to warehouse children (keep them off the streets).
It is not as if a computer is really necessary. Good enough textbooks have existed for a very long time. If not for #1, most families would have figured out how to replace teachers with textbooks a century ago.
Re: (Score:2)
Here hear.
My first Algebra teacher was incompetent, witnessed by a 60% failure rate, but also boring to near death. My second Algebra teacher was competent, and not boring. Not inspiring either, but not boring.
My High School Geometry teacher was inspiring and engaging, and I love the subject to this day. And my High School American history teacher even more so, an 11 on the scale of 1-10. My world history teacher, the next year, truly even more boring than I thought possible.
In each class, my results match
Re: You'd think Kansas would learn to say no (Score:1)