Here is this week’s letter to the editor of the Herald Times Reporter. See our letters policy below for details about how to share your views.
Technology and student achievement
I write this as a former K-12 public school teacher, professor and corporate training instructor. My teaching career was followed by 20 years as an Ed Tech nonprofit entrepreneur, where I was responsible for placing many thousands of refurbished computers into schools. Based on these experiences, the problems we face with low student achievement lie in two areas:
1. Public school teachers’ unwillingness to become sufficiently technology literate to be able to teach reading, math, science, etc., via these Ed Tech hardware and software tools.
2. University professors’ unwillingness or inability to model teaching with this technology to future teachers within these departments of education.
Most of the declining enrollment of 3,289 public school students in Manitowoc Public School District have been issued a Chromebook ranging from $250 to $450 per device, or $822,250 to $1,480,050 one-time total, yet the Wisconsin Department of Instruction gave MPSD a 2 out of 10-star rating.
Students have proven they can improve their technology proficiency, as their use of these crippled laptops shows. What this does not show is these students being able to translate this by themselves into improved learning in core subjects. This responsibility lies directly on the shoulders of our teachers. This, after all, is at the core of their job.
The decline in student scores, in my view, is a direct result of the failures of these teachers to master remote education techniques and utilize these Ed Tech tools in the classrooms to teach core subjects.
We can do better.
Michael F. Pitsch
Francis Creek
Our letters policy
Letters to the editor are published in the order in which they are received and letter-writers are limited to having one letter published per month. Letters can be emailed to htrnews@htrnews.com and Editor Brandon Reid at breid@usatodayco.com. Letters must meet specific guidelines, including being no more than 250 words and be from local authors or on topics of local interest. All submissions must include the name of the person who wrote the letter, their city of residence and a contact phone number. Letters are edited as needed for style, grammar, length, fairness, accuracy and libel.
This article originally appeared on Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter: Letter criticizes Ed Tech use as MPSD student scores lag
Reporting by Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter / Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter
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