The challenge of effectively integrating technology and education--A Utah district turns to expensive Play Stations with no teacher supervision?

I posted recently about the desire of some to use technology resources as a replacement for classroom teaching or an excuse to raise class size. I use computer assessments and online resources in my own classroom that are extremely beneficial for the students. However, I think “technology” or its euphemism, “21st century teaching,” often become context-free buzzwords used as an end to themselves rather than a means to learning content or skills. In most cases, technology is just a tool that succeeds or fails according to the preparation and skill of the teacher. A traditional public school teacher and a dedicated homeschooling parent can both successfully use technology, especially online resources, and likewise, they can both fall for enticing gimmicks with little real educational value. I plan on posting about some current situations in Utah schools that demonstrate the hit-and-miss, politicized nature of educational technology. (I also plan to follow up on what little information I have on the implementation of the Waterford Software program and would love further information or data anyone could point me to.)

This post will talk about a recent purchase in a Utah school district that appears to fall squarely into the “enticing gimmick” category.

The Bullet Point Version for easy digestion:

1. A school district received a large amount of stimulus money earmarked for Title I schools. Title I is a 45-yr-old federal funding grant for schools designated as having a high percentage of low-income students.

2. A single employee had almost complete latitude to make the decision on how to spend that money.

3. That person had the feeling, true or false I’m not sure, that he/she had to “hurry” and spend that money.

4. The person got the idea somewhere that kids would use learning programs more willingly if they were on a Portable Play Station (PSP).

5. 60 of the PSP’s were purchased for a pilot program at a cost of $180 each. However, the district did not want to be seen as having purchased Play Stations, so employees are under strict instructions to call them “Achieve Now devices” instead, referring to the name of the learning software that was purchased to play on the non-Play Stations.

6. The Achieve Now software was purchased from a vendor the district had previous experience with, Plato Learning, but Plato had no previous experience making games for the PSP. (Many districts and schools had used Plato “lab” in the past as a remediation class where students spent time using a set math or language drill program from Plato. Both my school and the district in question had cut those labs in past years. My school changed because we found the lab was not as effective as we wished; I believe budget concerns drove the elimination of Plato in this district. I’m sure Plato programs are still in use in schools around the state.) The new Achieve Now “games” for math and language skills are not engaging or adapted for the PSP in any way. They do not use the graphic capabilities of the PSP or even the joystick. You can only use the arrow keys and the games appear to just be bumped over from Plato’s already-mentioned computer division. They are just drill games that could be played on a regular computer.


7. Furthering this unwise rush to spend money on the appearance of progress, the Achieve Now games come in a different format than the regular mini-CD-like discs used for PSP games. Instead, the learning games come on little memory cards similar to what is used in a digital camera, and the PSP has to be specially formatted to use these cards. If a child places a normal game disc into the PSP, an automatic prompt will ask them if they want to update the PSP. When the child selects yes, their game disc will work perfectly, but the PSP will no longer accept the memory cards with the Achieve Now games. This change is irreversible without shipping the PSP back to Plato for expensive reformatting. Plato has advised the district that the reformatting is not cost effective, so they should just tape the game port in back shut and lie to the kids that these PSP’s will not play the regular games.

(Insert memory of some kid named Josh sneaking a Weird Al Yankovic cassette tape into the machine at an audio learning center in 5th grade. We LOVED that center for the week or so he got away with it.)

8. Speaking of cost-effectiveness, two of these memory cards, one for math and one for language arts, were purchased for each of the 60 PSP’s. Each card cost $550, bringing the total for each PSP with two cards to $1280. If a kid reformats the PSP on the first day—sorry, no refunds. Total cost so far = $76,800.

9. At the district’s bulk pricing, that $1280 for each set is enough to buy about 2 and ½ desktop computers. A multitude of websites feature free drill games of the same quality, or in many cases higher quality than the precarious memory cards. If the computers were installed in a lab in a school, they could then be used to play math or language practice games AND ALSO be available for all of the other activities computers are used for in a school. (writing, powerpoints, grades, research, etc.)

10. These 60 PSP/2-card sets were purchased to pilot in 2 schools’ summer programs. The current plan is to soon purchase 30 sets for each of the Title I schools in the district, with each set costing that same $1280 price—$38,400 per school. I don’t believe those purchases have been made yet.

11. The early feedback from those involved in the summer program has been negative. The games are boring and the employees involved had difficulty cajoling the students to play the Achieve Now games for any extended period of time. The language arts games are especially confusing and their real effect on reading comprehension, vocabulary, etc. is extremely questionable. The problem is magnified because the the PSP’s and Achieve Now games are being used exclusively in after-school settings supervised by aides. The aides are generally assigned only to supervise and are unprepared to answer questions that arise if a student is practicing a skill he/she does not understand. The classroom teachers will not be involved in order to give advice at what level of practice to place kids on the Playstations. It’s a case of throwing the kids in a room with a game and hoping they learn.

12. I believe this was a well-intentioned attempt to find creative ways to reach struggling students, but the spending decision was made hastily at a district level without input from school personnel actually working with these disadvantaged students. The district is paying an extremely high cost for a mediocre product. Just sticking a boring learning activity on a Play Station will generally not make a kid enjoy it more. If high quality learning content were developed that took advantage of the PSP’s enticing capabilities at a cost effective price, then maybe an investment into these machines would aid student achievement.

As it now stands, I believe the “Achieve Now devices” are merely an ineffective boondoggle. I hope that district personnel will seek honest feedback about the program and reconsider the upcoming purchases. There are better ways to use the hundreds of thousands of dollars from the stimulus.

Administration costs, the class size reduction audit, and denial of reality

I have seen a lot of comments floating around lately about the “black hole” of school district administrations and how they can’t account for the money the legislature so generously “gives” them. I even saw a comment claiming that district administration soaks up 25% of the education budget. I can’t remember if it was just a random comment board or someone supposedly credible. Last Tuesday, I did hear Senators Bramble and Dayton claim various times how the UEA and the school districts (the same thing in their minds…) “can’t tell us where they spent the money we allocated.” They used this for general public ed. bashing and as justification for the way they’re giving the teacher raises. (I support giving the larger percentage raises to newer teachers, although I’ll discuss on another post the reasonable arguments a 25-yr. teacher gave me for doing it by equal percentage rather than by equal amount. What makes me mad is the accusing tone about the supposed mismanaging and misappropriating of district funds coming from legislators who receive automatic pay raises each year without a public vote, receive lifetime insurance benefits, accept lobbyist gifts and money regularly and then rail against the press for maligning their integrity, defend laws allowing them to legally divert campaign funds for personal use, and vote for school vouchers and private stadium funding.)

These claims strike me as self-serving and suspicious. Most of us are not accountants or professional fiscal analysts, so reading long government budget documents (or even finding them in the first place…) can be a difficult task. Like when the voucher supporters used this study to claim over a BILLION dollars in savings. Once I read it, the study turned out to be inaccurate to the point of ridiculousness. (Just read the Executive Summary at the beginning and see what it claims.) The one legislator I asked had not read it, and I’m sure that was common among both the legislature and the public.

School District Administration Costs

I read the Alpine School District’s budget, all 82 pages of it, and now present some information using the final numbers from the 2006-2007 school year:

Pg. 11
Total Alpine General Fund Expenditures 2006-2007
$276,025,276

General Fund Expenditures on General District Administration
$1,188,391

General Fund Expenditures on School Administration
$17,422,875

This is a total of $18,611,266 spent on all levels of administration which is 6.7% of the money spent from the General Fund, less than that if you count the total district budget like the Utah Taxpayer’s Association does. The $1,188,391 spent on district administration equals .4% or less than half of 1% of general fund money spent.

I can agree with arguments that the superintendent and other administrators are overpaid. Let’s knock a chunk off of their salaries and invest back into reducing classrooms. We still have to allow for the fact that they do a difficult, thankless job that requires extensive training and entails great responsibility for public funds and so pay them a good wage, but let’s make it a $100,000 cap for administrators. Superintendent Henshaw’s salary decrease would pay for two new teachers or one more experienced teacher. Other salary decreases would return less than that. If we can cobble together money for a dozen or so teachers, how much of a dent is that going to make in our crowded public schools? I totally support this and would vote for such a proposal, but the real funding problems preventing smaller class sizes come from higher up than the school district level.

Case study—Is this waste?
As a new teacher, I brought unique talents to the classroom, learned, improved….and still to a large degree stank at teaching. Each year since then, I have improved, but I had many miserable moments my first couple years and seriously considered quitting. My mentor teacher had to teach also and my administrators have a lot of responsibilities while also putting out frequent fires during the day, so I was observed barely more than the minimum required by law and often felt alone. Experiences like mine are almost universal among new teachers. The district recently hired a new employee, a former teacher, to be a part-time coach for new teachers. A new teacher in my department at school was telling me of a day the coach came to observe while he struggled through a new lesson. She observed only one period and was off to another school because she’s responsible for the whole district, but she gave him some helpful feedback before she left. He told me how much better the same lesson went the next day with other classes because of some suggestions she had given him. He felt supported and was having success. That could be one of the make-or-break moments determining whether a new teacher sticks with education, but the coach’s salary and benefits also contribute to the “top heavy” district budget and take away money that could be used on an additional classroom teacher. I can see both sides, but every district position that I’m aware of helps teachers and lightens their workloads.

The Articles on the Class Size Reduction Budget

Here are links to four articles on the audit findings:

AP via KSL http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=2353292

SL Trib http://www.sltrib.com/ci_7762670
I copied the entire text into my previous post since the Tribune only keeps the articles up for a couple of weeks.

D-News http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695237166,00.html

AP via the Daily Herald http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/249089/


The articles unanimously show the school districts used the money for teachers. The districts that were censured could account for every dollar spent, they just didn’t all track which dollar came from which source beyond what was required by law. That will be a good change to make in their accounting, but again, will cost more of the general fund money. All four links clearly state that the districts that specifically tracked the incoming funds used the money appropriately. The lack of classroom size reduction came from the insufficient funding of growth, not mismanagement.

From the Deseret News article:

That's partly because the money isn't rising at the same rate as enrollment in Utah's public schools, states a performance audit of class-size reduction money, presented to legislative leaders on the Audit Subcommittee of the Legislative Management Committee today. That's even though the law says it should.
"Essentially, for the last six years, (class size reduction) funds functioned as maintenance funding rather than providing for new class-size reduction efforts," auditors wrote.
The audit came after lawmakers last winter questioned districts' use of class size reduction money.

The huge increase in healthcare costs hits schools hard as well since their number one expenditure and asset is teachers.

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_7991840

Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, wants to see school districts chip in more local money to reduce class sizes. He hopes to push for changes to the law that would only offer the money as an incentive to districts that can prove they're keeping sizes down. Now, all school districts and charter schools get the money automatically based on enrollment.
"It's not our job to fund every component of achieving class size reduction," Stephenson told members of the Legislature's Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee.

It's anyone's job but yours huh? Your own audit says that the "additional" money already provided was barely enough to keep pace with growth, and now you're going to take that money away if districts don't accomplish the impossible? Sounds like a sneaky way to try and make yourself look like a good guy for not raising taxes by making someone else do it.

So stop blaming the districts for having a lot of kids to teach with limited funds. I totally see the unique funding problems we have in Utah with large numbers of students per tax payer and a small industrial base to tax. I don’t begrudge legislators not increasing funding some years. I think legislators should carefully watch the incoming budget numbers before increasing school funding too much this year. But I do resent great teachers being made scapegoats for those who actually have control of tax money distribution and the circumstances of the society in the state.