כשלון – אבל לא בהכרח לתקשוב

a prototype for our nation’s schools in the decades to come

I left School of One feeling a bit funny. It seemed like there were some good things about it. Certainly a computer sorting students into ability groups does make it easier for a teacher. Also computers grading work is helpful. But the major flaw that I considered a missed opportunity was that in the design it seemed that their main ‘goal’ was ‘test prep.’ If I were to use millions of dollars to ‘re-invent’ the math classroom, I would want to develop a better vision of what the goal of studying math was. As they were clearly focused on test prep, the entire enterprise, in my opinion, was limited.

More and more in this nation, we are moving towards two different school systems: one for the wealthy, who insist on proven reforms including small classes for their children. The other highly experimental model, for disadvantaged and even middle class kids, will increasingly deliver so-called “personalized” instruction via a machine, causing struggling students to fall even further behind. Is this the future we want for our kids?

Even if they got results, I wouldn’t be impressed because it looked like all they were learning how to do was do better on a standardized test.