Kansas Towns 'Rebel' Against Zuckerberg-Funded School Programs

guest · Apr 22, 2019

Kansas Towns 'Rebel' Against Zuckerberg-Funded School Programs
Silicon Valley Came to Kansas Schools. That Started a Rebellion
April 21, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/technology/silicon-valley-kansas-schools.htm

Silicon Valley had come to small-town Kansas schools — and it was not going well.

Eight months earlier, public schools near Wichita had rolled out a web-based platform and curriculum from Summit Learning.
The platform that Summit provides was developed by Facebook engineers. It is funded by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, and his wife, Priscilla Chan, a pediatrician.

“We’re allowing the computers to teach and the kids all looked like zombies,” said Tyson Koenig, a factory supervisor in McPherson, who visited his son’s fourth-grade class. In October, he pulled the 10-year-old out of the school.
In a school district survey of McPherson middle school parents released this month, 77 percent of respondents said they preferred their child not be in a classroom that uses Summit.
Click to expand...

For years, education experts have debated the merits of self-directed, online learning versus traditional teacher-led classrooms.
Skeptics worry about screen time and argue that students miss out on important interpersonal lessons.

Summit demands an extraordinary amount of personal information about each student and plans to track them through college and beyond,” said Leonie Haimson, co-chairwoman of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, a national organization.
Myriland French, 16, a student at Wellington’s high school, said she had developed eye strain and missed talking to teachers and students in class. “Everyone is more stressed now,” she said.
Click to expand...

Log in or Sign up

Kansas Towns 'Rebel' Against Zuckerberg-Funded School Programs

guest Guest

Log in or Sign up

Kansas Towns 'Rebel' Against Zuckerberg-Funded School Programs

guest Guest

Useful Searches