In old Chinese script the word crisis consists of two opposing characters, one symbolizing danger, the other opportunity. The tension in this duality embodies what has been happening lately in schools as politicians and education leaders have been making their largest investment ever in state of the art technology. This past year, as school officials were dealing with budget cuts by laying off teachers and librarians and closing school libraries; spending on city schools was increasing in another area, classroom computers. Their goal is to make sure there is at least one computer for every 10 students in fourth through eighth grades. These subsidies come on top of the many billions spent in recent years in the United States.

According to national estimates, U.S. schools have spent roughly $80 billion on school computing just in the last decade, approximately the amount required to hire 170,000 qualified teachers (Oppenheimer). This, at a time when other activities aren’t available outside school the way computers are. Programs such as art and music classes, shop and physical education are being cut back or eliminated. Shifts of this sort have made for a drastic and worrisome change in today’s classrooms. Throughout the country, computer technology is ruining the academic experience, corrupting schools’ financial integrity, cheating the poor, fooling people about the job skills children need for the future and furthering the illusions of state and federal education policy. The education system must cut back on technology expenses; the money should be used for school programs and qualified teachers.

Computers Are Too Expensive for Schools

As any adult knows, system crashes are a fact of high-tech life. Computers are unstable and unpredictable at best. That’s why nearly every professional analysis tells organizations to reserve the bulk of their technology budgets for maintenance, future upgrades and training. Schools obviously don’t have that kind of money; only 10 to 15 percent of their technology budgets are typically devoted to these nettlesome demands. This is why many schools have to cut back on more and more traditional funding, to fix and upgrade new computers. All computers eventually become obsolete as computers become more advanced and efficient. In 1965, Gordon Moore predicted that the number of transistors on a single chip would double every 24 months.

Critics have predicted the imminent demise of Moore’s law ever since he stated it. But to this day electrical engineers continue to defy physical challenges, because transistors have essentially followed this rule. Because of unreliability and the need for replacement every several years, schools must limit their spending on computers and apply it to longer lasting programs.

But technical hassles are just the beginning of the schools’ troubles. Take the much-vaunted effort to close the “digital divide.” Popularized by the Clinton administration, this initiative was aimed at the poor, who were supposedly being shut out of social and economic opportunities because they had fewer computers than wealthy families. This campaign has been so appealing that, according to a recent U.S. Department of Education report, computers are now more prevalent in poor schools than in wealthy ones. Yet political and education leaders haven’t stopped crying about this terrible divide. Meanwhile, the schools’ new technology riches took the real divide between rich and poor children, the educational divide, and widened it.

In Harlem, for example, teachers have their hands full just trying to maintain order and pass on a basic level of knowledge. Now, they have to spend much of their time managing technical hassles the schools can’t afford to fix and watching for cheating, instant messaging tricks and illicit material on screens that teachers cannot control or even see. Forcing poorer schools to spend more money on technology and less on the fundamentals has created an educational divide. These schools must fix this divide by limiting their spending on technology.

Software Is Just As Big of a Problem

Hardware problems are the tip of the iceberg, because it is the software that computers run that is being utilized in education. At Congress’ request, schools have been rapidly installing filtering software to block offensive Internet sites. Unfortunately, filtering technology is inherently flawed and extremely costly, and students regularly hack through it anyway. When the filtering software does work it often blocks sites that are not offensive that might have been used by students. In both poor and wealthy schools, educators have invested millions in costly software packages now pitched as the answer to President Bush’s call for education initiatives that are proven, through “scientific research,” to increase achievement. Unfortunately, the research behind many, if not most, of these claims is questionable. Consider one popular software package for reading, called Accelerated Reader, or AR, which is used in more than half the nation’s public schools. AR is made by Renaissance Learning Inc., an aggressive Wisconsin company that stakes its educational reputation on the volumes of research suggesting that its products raise academic achievement. But the quality of that research is another matter.

“This is not an honest picture of what this program is doing,” Cathleen Kennedy, a researcher at UC Berkeley’s Evaluation and Assessment Research Center, said after reviewing several Renaissance studies. “It’s a typical dog-and-pony show used on administrators who don’t know about statistics.” Schools need to steer clear of these shams. These companies are seeking profit, they do not want to help teach America’s youth. Schools need to stick to the methods they have always used, pen and paper.

Technology Companies Are Out to Scam Schools

Computers, software, and Web commerce have long treasured their newfangled advantage over book publishing. However, their hardware is unstable and expensive, and that’s not by accident, either. “The information economy is not about the information or the economy. Everything important that happens there is about the relationship,” said Bruce Sterling. “Its not really who’s fastest, most advanced, or most high-tech; that’s just the sexy croon of the industry’s come-on. Behind the scenes, it’s all about commitment.” Technology companies make it very expensive for schools to switch to another company, allowing them to control their prices. First, they have legal contracts. Second, the companies have brand specific training.

Once the schools have everything figured out and working the process of starting all over again becomes to difficult. Finally, there is information formats. They are complicated and hard to switch between, making it easier for schools to keep buying from the same company. Because technology companies force schools to make a commitment, they force schools to take risks to keep up with the technological age. A safe approach for schools is to spend their technology budget on qualified teachers and in-depth programs and classes that will enrich the learning of students.

When schools do set out to buy computer gear, the technology industry often takes advantage of them. In San Francisco, federal authorities approved a $50 million grant in 2000 to finance the lion’s share of a massive school-networking project (the total cost of which would be $68 million). Surprisingly, the district later turned down the $50 million grant (Oppenheimer). After examining the contract, district technicians discovered they could build the system themselves for less than their tiny share of the costs, less than $18 million. How could this be? It turns out that if San Francisco had accepted the grant, that $50 million would have gone to computer industry giant NEC, whose bid marked up prices on computer hardware by 300 to 400 percent. One small Internet switch in the bid retailed on the open market for about $4,000 apiece, NEC was selling San Francisco 130 of these switches at approximately $10,000 apiece (Oppenheimer). This would have yielded a profit margin to NEC of $780,000 on just one item.

Fortunately, deals like this are finally coming to the attention of federal investigators. In the meantime, individual schools are left with a mess to clean up. Maybe, the discovery of a few corrupt school network contractors will ultimately provoke a desire for control in technology spending, similar to what the Enron scandals produced in the financial world. In the mean time, schools are throwing their money away when investing in excessive technology. The technology takes advantage of, not only schools, but businesses and personal users as well. Schools need to invest their money in something reliable, like more qualified teachers, which there is a national shortage of.

Employers Are Not Looking for Computer Skills

One of the most common selling points for computers in schools, even in first and second grades, is to prepare youngsters for tomorrow’s increasingly high-tech jobs. Strangely, this may be the computer evangels’ greatest hoax. When business leaders talk about what they need from new recruits, they hardly mention computer skills, which they find they can teach employees relatively easily on their own. Employers are most interested in a deep knowledge base and the ability to listen and communicate; to think critically and imaginatively; to read, write and figure, and other capabilities that schools are increasingly neglecting. A report from the Information Technology Association of America, which represents a range of companies that use technology, put it this way: “Want to get a job using information technology to solve problems? Know something about the problems that need to be solved.” Despite these realities, schools are rushing into computing.

In Napa, New Technology High School puts a computer on every student’s desk and orients nearly every academic project around the computer screen. The school has been widely held up as a national scholastic model, by both state and federal education authorities. Yet the academic work in New Tech High classrooms is shockingly thin. In class after class, students are encouraged to conduct almost all their research online, which means that books, magazines and other in-depth sources play a minimal role in their bibliographies. An indication of the school’s academic culture is revealed by one instructor’s oft-repeated advice to his students: “It doesn’t matter what you know. It matters what you show.” Ironically, one of New Tech’s biggest weak spots is in math skills, perhaps the primary prerequisite for advanced high-tech jobs. Yes, computers can open up valuable new learning opportunities.

They can apply to the other side of the Chinese crisis. But this mostly involves older students, who should have the maturity to navigate the uncertainties of the Internet and take advantage of sophisticated technology classes. These classes involve activities such as advanced scientific and mathematical modeling, or electronic projects, in which students make circuit boards and their own software programs. Unfortunately, classes of this sort are the great exception. Technology does not prepare students for their future jobs, it does the exact opposite. Schools need to limit their funding for technology, and use that limited funding for more sophisticated technology classes and other in-depth programs that are being neglected. Schools need to focus on teaching students real world skills and leave the technology training to companies, who can easily teach them how to use the newest technology as opposed to teaching them how to write and reason.

In Conclusion

Computers can, in select cases, be wonderfully useful in school. But over and over, high technology is steering students away from the messy, fundamental challenges of the real world, and toward the hurried neat convenience of an unreal virtual world. It is teaching them that exploring what’s on a two-dimensional screen is more important than playing with real objects or sitting down to a conversation with a friend, a parent, or a teacher. It downplays the importance of listening carefully to people and of expressing oneself with acuity and individuality. And this leads all of us to sideline activities that have long helped children develop fundamental human capacities, which sustain society over the long haul. “Nobody knows how kids’ internal wiring works,” Clifford Stoll wrote, “but anyone who’s directed away from social interactions has a head start on turning out weird . . .

No computer can teach what a walk through a pine forest feels like.” Sensation has no substitute. Computers are damaging to children. Marilyn Benoit, the president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, spoke at the 1999 State of the World Forum about what she called “dot.com kids.” Benoit was afraid that “children’s constant exposure to rapid-fire stimuli to the brain” from the onslaught of digital media had contributed to the rise in hyperactivity disorders, their inability to handle frustration, and a general condition she termed childhood narcissism. One would reason that schools should be shrewd about their money, considering how little they have and how far they have to make it stretch. However, schools pour their money into the latest technology, and as they continue to do so our youth will continue to feel the effects. Our youth is the basis of our society because they are the ones that will decide the future. To ensure their healthy development, the trend of technology-based teaching must be ended. Technology is only a tool it is not the solution to our schools problems.

Technology is not bad. Like all of us, schools have fallen for the latest thing and made mistakes. They need to analyze these mistakes, learn from them, and work toward fixing the problem they have created. Schools must take the money from their technology budget and put it back were it belongs. Most of schools technology was bought using money that was originally being used by art, physical education, and other vocational classes or teachers and counselors salaries. This money needs to be put back into classes and teachers. The schools then need to use their trimmed technology budget more effectively. To solve the problem at hand the schools need to get away from the idea that quantity is better than quality. Buying more computers will not solve anything; schools are already filled with too many of them.

They must be used effectively in other manners besides shallow learning software like AR and other programs. Computers should be removed from the elementary level; they serve no purpose there, other than corrupting children’s imaginations and abilities for abstract thought. Technology needs to be applied only in higher levels of education. Technology can be used effectively in high school classes like videography, computer assisted drafting, modeling, and networking and software programming. The education system has been too eager to invest in the newest solution that promises to do wonders. Education is one of society’s most difficult, most complicated, and most troubled undertakings. One would think that its leaders might therefore approach incessant offerings of reform with an air of sobriety, and an appreciation for the long art of mastery.

But they continue to invest into the false promises of technology. This new technological age presents the crisis of its implication in the classroom. Is it a crisis of opportunity, or one of imminent danger? If not employed carefully I fear that it will be the later. The poet William Blake wrote, “You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.” Let us all hope that it is not much longer before that time comes, when technology’s road of excess will have led our schools, and the rest of us, to a new place of wisdom.