The US Spent $30 Billion on Classroom Laptops and Got the First Generation Less Capable Than Its Parents (fortune.com) 109
More than two decades after Maine became the first state to hand laptops to middle schoolers -- distributing 17,000 Apple machines across 243 schools in 2002 -- neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath told a U.S. Senate committee earlier this year that Gen Z is the first generation in modern history to score lower on standardized tests than the one before it.
The U.S. spent more than $30 billion in 2024 alone putting laptops and tablets in classrooms, and Horvath cited PISA data from 15-year-olds worldwide showing a stark correlation between time on school computers and worse scores. A 2014 study of 3,000 university students found they were off-task on their machines nearly two-thirds of the time. Fortune reported back in 2017 that Maine's own test scores hadn't budged in the 15 years since the program launched, and then-governor Paul LePage called it a "massive failure." Horvath framed the generation's eroding capabilities not as a personal failure but a policy one, calling them victims of a failed pedagogical experiment.
The U.S. spent more than $30 billion in 2024 alone putting laptops and tablets in classrooms, and Horvath cited PISA data from 15-year-olds worldwide showing a stark correlation between time on school computers and worse scores. A 2014 study of 3,000 university students found they were off-task on their machines nearly two-thirds of the time. Fortune reported back in 2017 that Maine's own test scores hadn't budged in the 15 years since the program launched, and then-governor Paul LePage called it a "massive failure." Horvath framed the generation's eroding capabilities not as a personal failure but a policy one, calling them victims of a failed pedagogical experiment.
Next time... (Score:2, Funny)
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Better idea yet - don't introduce computers into education until Secondary school
We had this discussion some days ago in a thread about computer literacy in this country. I suggested that we have a phased in approach where we introduce kids to concepts in school, and grow them as they go along:
Re: Next time... (Score:3)
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1. In primary school, say 5th grade, introduce them to the idea of binary arithmetic - 1s and 0s, and how a binary number system works. Also introduce them to an octal and hexadecimal system
Why? I can count the number of times I've needed this as a software engineer on two hands when counting in unary. It's not that important a concept, and it's also not difficult.
2. In secondary school, teach them boolean logic and algebra - AND, OR, NOT, NAND, NOR, XOR, XAND
3. Once they've learned about electrical circuits, particularly switches, introduce them to how voltage levels equate to those binary states, and start teaching them how the above logical operations can be simulated by electrical circuitry
Boolean logic is useful, but it is by far the simplest part of programming for people to understand. The part that students have a hard time doing, in my experience, is creating rigorously defined instructions with proper syntax, communicating code flow concepts like "do this while/until that", understanding data structures at a c
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Seems like a bit of overkill.
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I don't think the inner workings of the computer at the atomic level are as valuable to a functioning society as, for example, having an intuitive sense about the concepts of infinity, exponential growth, and calculus. I think they should teach numerical computing in high school, after algebra, so nobody has to learn and forget all of the symbolic manipulation tricks for solving equations. Just my 2 cents.
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Does calculus even work using Common Core math? Or, is that an oxymoron... the kids have to unlearn Common Core, and learn old school math?
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It does. Common core also works better with trades math than "old school math" does.
Re: Next time... (Score:2)
I have always made sure that students see how to do something the *original* way, calculate stocks, chart results, see how and why stats were created and how to use them, *then* do the same tasks with a computer. They may curse me for a moment, but they are better equipped to see if the results make sense and to suss out bizarre results. The stubborn part which was made worse by the rush to LMS platforms is the google everything mentality. The world has become a massive old school game where you had unquest
Low tech, FTW. (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, I once replaced a bunch of greenscreen terminals at a furniture company. About six months after I got a call from the CTO who wanted the terminals back. Apparently, the workers were wasted WAY less time playing games and browsing the web when they had terminals and they were now getting infections on the PCs as well as people running or staying in apps they were never meant to even use at work. These folks were pissed when I took their PCs away and put the terminals back. Well, all but one of them. There was this lady who knew all the keyboard shortcuts to their text-user-interface forms and she was glad to have them back because she could fly through that app so fast with her muscle memory.
I thought for sure they'd revert back to PCs after a user-pitchfork-rebellion. Nope. They called me about six years later and I replaced the green screen CRT based terminals (Wyse 99GT's [terminals-wiki.org]) with DEC VT525's [terminals-wiki.org] that just used regular VGA style output and PS/2 keyboards. Then another few years later, flatscreens on the VT525's they already had. They are still using them more than 20 years later. The have the same C-level guy who simply will not relent. They have modern operations with wireless serial hand scanners for inventory and all kinds of ways to keep the old application online and working while gaining a bit of efficiency with new tech like wifi. Somewhere there's a Microsoft account rep crying himself to sleep over all the licensing fees this company never paid them.
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Similarly with the textbook thing, in the 90s my Algebra II teacher had a class set of books for proofs and formal logic from the 60s or 70s which she
failed pedagogical experiment. (Score:1)
Now that that's been firmly established that kids spend the majority of time goofing off on their computers, will anything change?
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Now that that's been firmly established that kids spend the majority of time goofing off on their computers, will anything change?
It hasn't ever changed.
We used to use our school's only computer, a PDP-8, to play the original Star Trek game on the line printer. One move per sheet.
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Programmable graphing calculators were the same - needed to hook them into at computer to root them and get programs on it but once you did you had a fairly capable processor + display for the time.
Re:failed pedagogical experiment. (Score:5, Interesting)
I semi-single-handedly caused half my high school AP Calc class to fail. We had TI-82s issued and I figured out getting Tetris, Solitaire, and a surprisingly capable Mario-esque game on mine and gave them to a couple friends. I didn't anticipate them figuring out how to transfer them to others because on a TI-82 it was a little trickier than later ones, but pretty soon most of the class had them. The teacher was a wonderful older woman who just didn't really understand technology at all and I have a distinct memory of one of the vice principals stopping by class just as part of wandering around and the teacher saying something like "They're always so diligently working on their calculators!"
It didn't take long for grades to tank and issues to crop up, and within a couple years of that the teachers learned to force students to wipe the calcs every couple days and keep an eye out for obvious off-label uses.
Re:failed pedagogical experiment. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that's the wrong take-away.
They introduced laptops but they didn't introduce anything that required the laptops. Like what likely happened is the kids became more productive, but it wasn't something seen in the way work was scored.
Like if doing homework before by hand with a pencil took an hour, and with a computer it took 20 minutes, what do you think the kids spent the rest of the time doing?
My point is that the school work has to actually be oriented around using the computer, but the only work ever benefitting from the computer is English/Writing assignments. When kids have access to chatGPT, and so do teachers, nobody is actually checking the work. Hence this "less generation capable" is a consequence of giving kids tools that they haven't learned how to use responsibly.
So I weep for the next generation who were given tablets when they were a baby to be entertained by. They have no situational awareness.
Re:failed pedagogical experiment. (Score:5, Insightful)
They introduced laptops but they didn't introduce anything that required the laptops.
My kids have school laptops and they are used only as a worksheet delivery platform. Everything they do on them could be done on paper. There is nothing interactive.
And no coding, of course.
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My biggest complaint as a parent is never seeing the actual results of my son's tests. I know what grade he got but do not have the ability to see what he got wrong. It's hard for me to help improve when all that is invisible.
He's doing more complex math now, the computer interface simply does not beat a good ole pencil and sheet of paper for algebra. I continue to re-iterate that point to
Help in other ways? (Score:1)
School laptops are generally devoid of "regular" games and toys, although kids usually invent ways to fiddle with what is there. (Perhaps that's a fringe educational benefit?)
But I agree technology can't (currently) replace old-fashioned human supervision.
The laptops could be considered a way for teachers and administrators to simplify communication and tracking of assignments and grades, which is probably a plus, but "maki
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It took awhile for things to catch up after the death of Flash, but there are still whole websites out there with bunches of little games that specifically advertise themselves as bypassing school blocking and being able to be used on school devices. I used to have a friend who was IT admin of a small school system and it was always a cat and mouse game trying to block all that. If they give kids access to the web at all in a way that isn't specifically allowlisted then they're going to find a way around st
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readin and ritin get recked (Score:3)
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Exactly.
Most tech in the classrooms missing the key part of what makes people learn: another person motivates and helps them to do it.
Technology is mostly peripheral to that, and as you aptly note, it's modest pros are outweighed by huge cons.
I think AI is one of the biggest environmental contaminants ever see to humans. It has poisoned learning across the globe, and the US has foolishly drunk it up. My daughter reports that so many of her classmates now use AI for assignments that they don't even know enou
..and I thought my kids were smart. (Score:3)
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Tablets and apple computers (Score:5, Insightful)
These devices are designed from the ground up to hide as much as possible the inner workings of the OS, programming and all that, specially the tablets.
They're pretty much the complete opposite of what you need to have kids learn the "working around" skills you need to be actually good at computers.
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I know, and they could never scribble down the name of the software that locked stuff down and look up workarounds at home... I know I'd never do that 0:-)
Re: Tablets and apple computers (Score:2)
I figured my kid would be doing that. Nope. Kids don't have the appetite for mischief anymore like we did, at least with my family.
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Right, but the kids still want to get to Chrome so they can check Facebook at school or watch YouTube videos about how to get straight A's, not get into the C: drive or whatever.
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That would make sense if people are just failing computer science. This isn't about the inner workings of an OS. No kids know how a calculator works inside, and zero of them leave school knowing what reverse polish notation is or why it was relevant. Yet it is objectively a device that has improved people's ability to understand mathematics. No one needs to understand the workings of an OS to do English, Geography, Mathematics, Physics, etc.
The problem here is the PC isn't like a calculator, it doesn't cut
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So many of us here grew up with computers from a young age and didn't have these
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They aren't "learning" computers. They are learning "on" computers. I've heard from some high schools that students are learning on arduinos on the like.
But for most students the computers and tablets are just replacing worksheets and books.
So we have a generation that's the most exposed to tech at an early age, yet are the least literate when it comes to understanding "how" it all works.
Re: Tablets and apple computers (Score:2)
This rings true. Assembling a RPi into a working computer, printing a case, sussing out power, cables, setup os, add software, shows them the whole shebang and takes away the monolithic masque nature of current devices. Some problems are solved in code, some in hardware, some in pressing the right button. And they can take any path or part of this that they glom onto. Cuts through platform worship and slowly builds confidence that they have agency as they work through getting everything done.
Re: Tablets and apple computers (Score:2)
They need computers that aren't locked down "golden cages" that can do the basics but can ALSO do non-basic things for people to learn, adapt, and understand how to go beyond a few rigid rules.
Re: Tablets and apple computers (Score:2)
Swift was able to turn a corner on this with Playgrounds on both macOS and iPadOS with an easy move to Xcode and the draw of being able to code an app on it. It is easy enough for newbies and challenging enough for middle school students who want to *really* code. I have heard many times that it is more important to get kids coding well than to focus on a specific language for specific reasons. And having seen AP CS live through three languages each of which have their rooters and detractors, this path see
In Denmark, too (Score:3)
duuuuuuuuuuh (Score:2, Insightful)
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Just for laughs, will you read any part of the summary? This goes way back before 2020.
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That was six years ago and in many places the actual lockdown/remote learning was a year or less. It also goes way back before 2020. COVID may have impacted a small number of kids a specific age for a time but that was a long time ago now and kids have had plenty of time to adjust back to regular school.
Testing Methodology (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe, just maybe, it isn't the device, but the testing methodology?
Standardize testing in the USA has always been total bullshit "everyone must fit this exact mold or else you're an absolute failure" mentality. Now we have a generation of people who learned different skills other than the default assumed ones, and they're viewed as failures for it.
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Not being American I've never done US-style standardized testing, but isn't reading and writing and math the same regardless of whether you're a black man in New York or a white woman in Arkansas?
2+2 and how to spell kitty cat isn't regional and it's not specific to any particular time period.
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American standardized testing isn't particularly different from elsewhere. People just don't like being tested nor do they like that progression within the system is based on testing.
Re:Testing Methodology (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think it's as flawed as "has always been total bullshit".
Standardized testing, first and foremost, exists to evaluate the effectiveness of educational treatments on TENS of MILLIONS of students in the US. Tens of millions. I welcome you to provide any other measurement methodology that costs the same or less in time or money while maintaining similar levels accuracy in measuring the scholastic progression of students.
And doing poorly in standardized testing has never intended to, nor has their results ever been interpreted en masse as implying "everyone must fit this exact mold or else you're an absolute failure". In reality, it only measures what its intended to measure:
1. Is the student's reading comprehension sufficiently strong to understand the question?
2. Is the student's subject-matter mastery sufficiently strong to respond to the question correctly?
If the student scores are below par, then you know the answer to at least one of those questions is "No" and you need to go back and find out what went wrong? Here are some common reasons:
1. The student has sub-par reading comprehension and hasn't made sufficient progress this year to take tests independently.
2. The student has sub-par subject-matter mastery because of attendance, lack of home support, need for different explanations, or need for more subject reinforcement.
3. The student has a cognitive disability which makes either learning the subject-matter atypically difficulty.
4. The student has a cognitive disability which makes taking the test atypically difficult as a task.
5. The educator has made insufficient effort to teach the subject-matter.
If the reason is #1, then you can designate remedial education. If the reason is #2, that's for bringing up in parent-teacher conference. If the reason is #3 or #4, then there are legal mandates to accommodate these disabilities and make an individual education plan to meet the student's needs. If the reason is #5, then corrective action is taken with the educator.
Now we have a generation of people who learned different skills other than the default assumed ones, and they're viewed as failures for it.
No one is considered a failure for learning other skills. However, they will not progress within the academic sphere if they do not learn academic skills. That's reasonable and rational. The education system both educates and filters out people who choose not to progress further in certain areas so that those who progress to expertise are most likely to want to be experts in their fields. A neurologist that failed all his biology classes from high school through med school would be a danger to his patients.
Lastly, and most importantly since too many people never learn this-- The goals of the educational process do not include "passing tests and getting good grades". The primary goal is that the student learn the subject-matter, but the only way such a poorly-funded/supported educational system can evaluate a whether a student is learning subject-matter is to ask that student to prove that they know it (ie. testing). And the only way to do so in a way that is equitably applied to everyone is to test everyone using the same instrument (ie. Standardized Testing).
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Correlation != Causation, but the lack of correlation virtually does disprove causation. The USA has introduce standardised testing far earlier and it isn't correlating with GenZ's score. As you said, it's always been total bullshit, and with that justification it should mean that your generation and your parent's one sucked as well given that standardised testing was introduced around the time Hitler offed himself.
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No, it's the device. We have known this for at least a decade.
The OECD does the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) every three years in 50+ countries around the world with several hundred thousand students.
One of the metrics they track is technology integration, and they have consistenly shown that regardless of where (1st/3rd world, rich, poor, etc.) the more that technology is integrated into the curriculum the worse their results.
Re: Testing Methodology (Score:2)
My old man worked as a school psychologist till retirement, which is to say analyzing all the test results for whole districts over decades and he saw the same.
States need to use the Mississippi model (Score:5, Interesting)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/0... [nytimes.com]
Mississippi has gone from 49th in the country on national tests in 2013, to a top 10 state for fourth graders learning to read — even as test scores have fallen almost everywhere else.
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So Mississippi put a paywall around their schools? /s
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Always post an archived copy. https://archive.is/etdj0 [archive.is]
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That's because they only teach the kids how to pass the test, not the rest of the stuff that would be useful in the real world (like regular math, not this stupid common core crap).
And... fourth graders learning to read that late? Do kids even read anymore? In fourth grade, I was reading Stephen King and Clive Barker.
complicated (Score:2)
A computer is useless if you're never taught (Score:5, Insightful)
They also got rid of all the classes that would help them, that older students had.
Typing? Gone.
How to use excel / office? Gone.
How to navigate a computer? Also gone.
It all comes down to the "Myth of the digital native" because kids grew up with tech, they were assumed to know all about it.
I'm pretty good at computers now, but I started with typing classes, with classes on programming, classes on networking, classes on navigation. My parents couldn't teach me that stuff, they didn't know anything. And I know many of my peers, despite growing up with computers, didn't know more than how to navigate to a website.
Tablets are even worse, since they lock everything down. A few hours of courses, not even a full semester worth and they'd do way better.
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While I agree with the principle of not knowing what you don't learn, I do however question if you need to learn it. It comes back to the problem of kids these days don't know how to use the folder structure on a harddrive. But knowing is not the end goal. Using, is. Do those same kids have problem finding their tickets when going to concerts? Do they have problem finding documents? PDFs?
I certainly know shit my parents never did, and any future generation probably won't. But is that shit important to succe
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They also got rid of all the classes that would help them, that older students had.
Typing? Gone. How to use excel / office? Gone. How to navigate a computer? Also gone.
It all comes down to the "Myth of the digital native" because kids grew up with tech, they were assumed to know all about it.
What? Those classes are not gone. I teach those classes.
I am teaching at a low-performing Title 1 school. This is not some elite academy.
In 6th grade, keyboarding (typing) is mandatory. Yes, it is listed as an elective, but it is a mandatory elective (there is an oxymoron).
In 7th grade, we teach Google apps themed around how computers work and digital citizenship. The choice of Google Apps is simple, that is what they have on thier chromebooks. That class also starts Photoshop, 3D drawing with Tink
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Your school is doing what many of my local schools have ditched.
I've been getting many new employees who don't know how to type, how to navigate simple system menus, or how to find files.
Your work is needed, thank you for what you do, we need more people like you.
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Bad Science: It was No Child Left Behind (Score:5, Interesting)
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I've said for decades now, it was DESIGNED to ruin public education by the GOP I know an insider who told me so! Education was too popular so it had to be ruined so then it can be "reformed" in the way they want. We are so great and super we can wreck a few generations and somehow become #1 anyway; their beliefs will make us even greater, blah blah blah. It's a cult and their baseless plans are a faith. It all began with Nixon. The current plan however began with Bush Jr. It had enough to appease democra
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Correlation vs causation (Score:3)
Mission Accomplished. (Score:1)
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We're practically seeing the results of 40+ years of Leftist bias in public education and higher education, and Rightist bias in private / catholic / christian education.
I would not assume Catholic education is right-biased.
What we're seeing are actually second-order effects of conservative policies towards education — specifically, chronically underpaying teachers. Teachers often don't know how to teach the material because they didn't really learn the material in the first place, so the blind are leading the blind.
This is what happens when you pay teachers poorly for decade after decade. Instead of getting the people most qualified on the material to teach it, you
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We're practically seeing the results of 40+ years of Leftist bias in public education and higher education, and Rightist bias in private / catholic / christian education.
I would not assume Catholic education is right-biased.
What we're seeing are actually second-order effects of conservative policies towards education — specifically, chronically underpaying teachers. Teachers often don't know how to teach the material because they didn't really learn the material in the first place, so the blind are leading the blind.
This is what happens when you pay teachers poorly for decade after decade. Instead of getting the people most qualified on the material to teach it, you get whoever is willing to do the job at the sad salaries that they pay. So you have two choices: Teach the teachers or pay massively more so that you can steal people away from industry to become teachers. Those are your options.
What you're responding to is 30+ years of someone watching Fox News, it's gotten to the point that they can't tell reality from fantasy any more. Anything bad is "left" and all things good are "right" (two legs bad, four legs good).
This is more likely the knowledge that companies contracted to provide something to the government in the US know full well there are no consequences for delivering under target. Especially with the current US govt. So they deliver the cheapest possible product regardless of i
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Drooling leftard Palestinian-loving commie Sharia-wishing bootlickers on one side, and senile Christian zealots on the other.
If that's your view of the electorate it says more about you than it does them. In so many ways as well, such as the idea that the Left vs Right aligns with Christian vs non Christian, public vs private, even before getting to your ridiculous notion that most people are extremist rather than in reality actually existing in the middle.
This lumping together of seemingly irrelevant things without basis should make people question *your* education. Is that why you blame Carter?
Do we have the right tool for the job? (Score:2)
I'm wondering if it is less the computers as opposed to using the computers the right way. I remember a lot of pedagogic accessories and gadgets used over the years, be if flash cards, teaching machines, or the SRA boxes used to teach reading aptitude.
I wonder how this will be done. Most private companies are not interested in teaching; they want to sell stuff, and don't really care if it makes a better, more educated student than what was beforehand. I'd almost say this has to be an org or NGO for it to
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It's the computer.
More accurately, it's the power of the computer. It's too capable and it encourages students to doomscroll AI slop more then learn.
If I designed a school for education, it would literally be a better built Brother Geobook: [youtube.com] Dirt cheap. Vastly under powered. black and white screen with optional backlight (preferably e-ink if the price was right to purposely keep screen refresh low to discourage videos) with a huge battery to get battery life measured in days instead of hours, and can only br
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I do think that is an idea, but if a device is so clunky and awkward to use, will it get in the way of learning? I remember one school district bragging that Chromebooks were like that, so kids would go elsewhere to browse the web. However, a slow machine also hampers authorized uses, making the device almost worthless. Forcing kids into being tech support for their devices may be worse than having them doom scroll.
We could have two web protocols, one for the education stuff, and have that work "right",
its demographics not comptuters (Score:2, Insightful)
u can't replace 100 IQ americans with 70-85 IQ foreigners and expect them to score as well. kind of insane that we're ignoring that IQ is heritable.
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Well then you should leave the USA and help raise the IQ.
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Schools Were Set Up to Fail (Score:2)
I saw much of this roll out first hand and predicted it wouldn't end well for most students, schools and communities. Some schools even cannibalized their own student population, teachers and finances to present a single, successful, high achieving school/program to game state reporting and lure back parents who sent their kids elsewhere.
1. The personal computer revolution of the 80s and 90s was real and a bunch of motivated individuals interested in it made a lot of cool things and a lot of money.
2. The f
Tools (Score:1)
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Word processor in English class? Again, not much value except to educate the student about the software.
Unless you mean teaching the software in your English class (days of instruction), you are very mistaken.
Not having to hand write papers is a god send! I handed in a typed rough draft to my high school English teacher (which she didn't much care for; I was confused about that). After her review, I may have spent 10-20 minutes fixing the paper and printed it out.
No surprise here. (Score:2)
Children and teens don't get digitally competent by handing them electronic gadgets. They get competent by learning the difference between a value and a variable, what conditions are and what a loop is.
We also slashed education budgets (Score:2)
One other thing we benefited from hugely was that teaching especially below grade 9 was something women would do for a little extra money. That doesn't cut it anymore because we pay people so terribly that their husband cannot be a primary breadwinner. So you can't get away with paying a teacher $16 an hour in 2025. They can't
And I know first hand about this because (Score:1)
I have a transgender too kid I had in vitro too before I birthed them so I had to worry about whether or not my kid might get halfway through a grad school degree and tens of thousands in debt only to have the rug pulled up under them by a MAGA dipshit kid who scored a gentlemen c.
It's genuinely hilarious that I'm that important to anyone. I mean besides my kid because they are still using my Netflix account...
But the practical result is my kid is going to go at least a quarter million dollars in debt to ge
For real? You can't goof off on your own device (Score:1)
It's the school issued device that's the problem?
It's totally not the lax standards and the meh attitude to work that's permeated down to the kids from their millenial teachers. It's definitely the gizmo, the doodad, or the distraction that done it.
I've got a first grader in a rich boston suburb school. Yesterday was a snow day because it was blizzard conditions. Today was a snow day on account of it was too fucking hard to clear the foot of snow that stopped last night by this morning apparently. Tomorrow
Was one of the problems that they were shit at (Score:2)
understanding the difference between causation and correlation, perchance? Or is that just the tossers who did this work?
scum (Score:1)
if spending on laptops was the only thing they did, gen z would be... if not fine, more fine than they are. But they didn't just splurge on laptops. They fucked up the whole curriculum at once, replacing math with bullshit, english with bullshit, breaking the core of education. everyone who advocated for new ways to teach shit has turned out to be wrong, BADLY wrong. Criminal levels of arrogance and wilful blindness.
The rest of us who told them they were wrong - predictably wrong - think jail is an appr
It's a good thing it was just a limited experiment (Score:2)
I'm sure our teachers are all well versed in the scientific method and experimental controls, so I'm confident that only a small number of students were impacted.
The Problem With Inherent Human Laziness (Score:3)
If we have the option of some kind of labour saving device, our instinct is to take it.
It takes an uncommon degree of discipline, especially amongst children, in order not to yield to this desire for ease.
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Then there's learning that's not quite playing, like learning to crawl, walk, speak. Regarding speaking, people who claim that kids learn languages effortlessly at a young age have no kids or haven't paid attention to them, they actually take years... Anyway, my kids
they don't even know how to type (Score:3)
Such a surprise (Score:3)
I was involved in an European distance-education project 25 years ago. All they did was focus on tech and nothing on how to actually teach with a screen. The few people with distance education experience got tired of pointing out that this is much harder to do than regular education. And the same applies to non-remote teaching using computers.
Hence I am entirely unsurprised. Getting kids computers is 10% of what you need to do for this to work.
The entire structure is setup to fail. (Score:4, Informative)
The kids didn't need computers, pens and paper didn't stop working, what stopped was the education system. Both of my daughters never learned cursive in school, they didn't learn note-taking, penmanship, or drill and practice. Homework was eliminated, and the curriculum moved to some weird common core thing, that no one understands, and the teachers make jokes about how confusing it is.
If the goal was to introduce computers, then introduce them like math, science, history, or any other course. What they should never have done, is dictated the computer is now the focus, and all work revolves around it. They teach around the computer, around the software, around the bugs, and lack of features, but never teach the concepts.
How did anyone think this lack of common sense was going to translate? Kids graduating grade 8, can't multiply or divide in their head. Ask one of them to do a 1x1 to 12x12 multiplication sheet, give them 5-minutes, and most can't finish, and will need a calculator. Should a parent re-teach their kid how to do basic things correctly, the kid fails, but still gets an A because we can't leave them behind, but can't explain anything to any degree, for any purpose.
I was told to stop teaching math to my daughters, and the reason was due to using (paraphrased): "Old and outdated methods.", what is outdated about following simple, easy, direct steps to get an answer? The teacher for my younger daughter got furious, and demanded I learn some box method, which I demonstrated using modelling in Octave, could not deliver the right answer most of the time.
"Off Task" - duh (Score:5, Insightful)
yup (Score:2)
I think you won the Internet with that post.
30 billion USD (Score:2)
off task 2/3? (Score:2)
How would they be off task on a device that only presents the current task? Short of research papers, why would they have to exit the current application at all?
basically money was thrown at this without any sense at all. kids playing roblox in class instead of learning the subject matter.
It's basically the equivalent of a video-game-babysitter in a school setting. Schools offload education to the device and teachers turn into observers.
According to Alan Kay (Score:1)
Alan Kay's Views on Computers in Schools
Key points summarizing Alan Kay's views on computers in schools, drawn from his interviews, writings (e.g., "Powerful Ideas Need Love Too!" in 1995), and talks over the decades:
Computers are tools, not magic solutions
The computer is simply an instrument whose music is ideas. Knowledge and real intellectual growth aren't stored in the machine itself; it's a medium for powerful thinking, but only when used with d
Correlation does not imply causation (Score:2)
This looks like a classic example of this fallacy.
Cause (Score:3)
I imagine social media has more of an impact on test scores than the students getting laptops. If you haven't noticed social media has made everyone stupider not just kids.
Tools should not be blamed (Score:1)
Unfortunately, the education issue is not specific to USA, although in other countries it is not (yet) as bad as in USA.
We can of course underline that democracy does not exist in USA, despite all wh