September | 2016 | Poetic Justice

Let us keep in the forefront of our hearts, minds, and souls that our children have started a new school year full of testing, computer programs, shell-shocked teachers, and ravenous entrepreneurs making billions from the hostile take over of public education. They need us now more than ever. In all that we do let us not do anything that brings harm to our children. ##DoNoHarm

Many thanks to the new blog Wrench in the Gears for alerting many of us to the dangers of the online usurpation of education.

Wrench in the Gears

Schools in every state are buzzing this year with talk of “personalized” learning and 21st century assessments for kids as young as kindergarten. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and its innovative pilot programs are already changing the ways schools instruct and assess, in ways that are clearly harmful to our kids. Ed-tech companies, chambers of commerce, ALEC, neoliberal foundations, telecommunications companies, and the government are working diligently to turn our public schools into lean, efficient laboratories of data-driven, digital learning.

In the near future, learning eco-systems of cyber education mixed with a smattering of community-based learning opportunities (ELOs) will “optimize” a child’s personal learning pathway to college and career readiness.

Opt out families are being set up as pawns in this fake “assessment reform” movement. I began to realize this a year ago when our dysfunctional, Broad Superintendent-led school district was suddenly almost eager to help us inform parents…

View original post 2,026 more words

I am reblogging these important questions to ask. The BIG QUESTION is – are our children being taught by professional human teachers, or are they being taught by inhuman technology? What do you want for your children and grandchildren? I want a human in control of teaching and learning in every classroom in America.

Sarcasm Alert:

Wrench in the Gears

As we enter this new era of blended/hybrid classrooms, the clamor of ed-tech entrepreneurs pitching their digital curricula is getting to be truly overwhelming for parents. Rather than critiquing individual programs, I have laid out a set of ten questions that parents should be asking their child’s teachers and school administrators. Feel free to share and/or print it out and bring it with you to back-to-school night. I’d love to know what the response is.

1. Does the program require aggregating PII (personally identifiable information) from students to function properly? And even if it doesn’t REQUIRE it, does the program collect PII?

2. Does the program supplement face-to-face human instruction, or function as a substitute for it? How many minutes per day of face-to-face human instruction is being sacrificed or substituted?

3. Does the program encourage active student-to-student engagement and face-to-face discussion? How does it accomplish this? Or does it…

View original post 300 more words