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"...ostensibly for fear of [...] alienating faculty with what is liable to be seen as an attempt to use technology as a smokescreen for draconian personnel cuts

"...ostensibly for fear of [...] alienating faculty with what is liable to be seen as an attempt to use technology as a smokescreen for draconian personnel cuts." If the product educates students just as well, and at a better price point, why would the cuts be "draconian"? I would deem it intelligent business and a better use of government resources.

patio11 14y ago
Because schools are in the business of employing well-organized constituents and educating students is a not-unwelcome industrial biproduct.
tokenadult 14y ago
Agreeing with patio11's point at this same reply level, as the school system is currently structured, it is only incidentally about providing education to children. The system is mostly about guaranteeing employment to a privileged group of providers, as an economist of education (one of the founders of the study of economics of education) recognized: "The education system is a formalised, bureaucratic organisational structure and, like any bureaucratic organisational structure, it strives for maximum autonomy from external pressures as its cardinal principle of survival. While ostensibly devoted to the education of children, teachers, school administrators and local education officers must nevertheless regard parents acting on behalf of children as a force to be kept at bay because parental pressures in effect threaten the autonomy of the educational system. . . . I would hold that the stupefying conservatism of the educational system and its utter disdain of non-professional opinion is such that nothing less than a radical shake-up of the financing mechanism will do much to promote parental power." -- Mark Blaug, "Education Vouchers--It All Depends on What You Mean," in Economics of Privatization, J. Le Grand & R. Robinson, ed. (1985)
rprospero 14y ago
To take a more favorable response, think about how programmers respond to off-shoring. If you can replace one crappy American programmer with an excellent programmer from Wakanda for less money, that's just good business and I've never seen a good argument against that. However, every programmer has heard the horror tales of companies firing their best (and highest paid) programmers. These programmers were not replaced with equally skilled Wakandans for less pay, but rather the cheapest code monkeys that Latveria has to offer. It saves a bunch of money this quarter, but causes problems in the long run because you didn't want to pay for quality. In the same way, I'm suspicious of some of the motives here. I don't doubt for a second that software instructors can improve the learning process. I'm working on my own platform to help my students with some of their math anxiety. This is a good idea and is the path forward. However, imagine a university with three stats lecturers. The first two have twenty years of teaching experience and are well liked by their students. The third one was just hired in as a temp to cover the excess course load and mumbles through her lectures. With the new software, the administration should get rid of the mumbling temp and now let all the students benefit from the good professors' lectures. On the other hand, the university can save $40k by firing one good lecturer and keeping the mumbler. As a final option, the university could fire both of the experienced lecturers, have an overloaded mumbler give a course that's even worse than the one she was doing before, and save $160k. I'd argue that the first option was progress, the second poor planning, and that the third set was draconian. I also believe that the third choice is exactly the one that the administration will make. That's why I'm nervous about this software.

patio11 14y ago

Because schools are in the business of employing well-organized constituents and educating students is a not-unwelcome industrial biproduct.

tokenadult 14y ago

Agreeing with patio11's point at this same reply level, as the school system is currently structured, it is only incidentally about providing education to children. The system is mostly about guaranteeing employment to a privileged group of providers, as an economist of education (one of the founders of the study of economics of education) recognized: "The education system is a formalised, bureaucratic organisational structure and, like any bureaucratic organisational structure, it strives for maximum autonomy from external pressures as its cardinal principle of survival. While ostensibly devoted to the education of children, teachers, school administrators and local education officers must nevertheless regard parents acting on behalf of children as a force to be kept at bay because parental pressures in effect threaten the autonomy of the educational system. . . . I would hold that the stupefying conservatism of the educational system and its utter disdain of non-professional opinion is such that nothing less than a radical shake-up of the financing mechanism will do much to promote parental power." -- Mark Blaug, "Education Vouchers--It All Depends on What You Mean," in Economics of Privatization, J. Le Grand & R. Robinson, ed. (1985)

rprospero 14y ago

To take a more favorable response, think about how programmers respond to off-shoring. If you can replace one crappy American programmer with an excellent programmer from Wakanda for less money, that's just good business and I've never seen a good argument against that. However, every programmer has heard the horror tales of companies firing their best (and highest paid) programmers. These programmers were not replaced with equally skilled Wakandans for less pay, but rather the cheapest code monkeys that Latveria has to offer. It saves a bunch of money this quarter, but causes problems in the long run because you didn't want to pay for quality. In the same way, I'm suspicious of some of the motives here. I don't doubt for a second that software instructors can improve the learning process. I'm working on my own platform to help my students with some of their math anxiety. This is a good idea and is the path forward. However, imagine a university with three stats lecturers. The first two have twenty years of teaching experience and are well liked by their students. The third one was just hired in as a temp to cover the excess course load and mumbles through her lectures. With the new software, the administration should get rid of the mumbling temp and now let all the students benefit from the good professors' lectures. On the other hand, the university can save $40k by firing one good lecturer and keeping the mumbler. As a final option, the university could fire both of the experienced lecturers, have an overloaded mumbler give a course that's even worse than the one she was doing before, and save $160k. I'd argue that the first option was progress, the second poor planning, and that the third set was draconian. I also believe that the third choice is exactly the one that the administration will make. That's why I'm nervous about this software.