The Future of Secondary Education, Part III
Where should we go from here?
This is the last part of a three-part series. See part one here, and part two here.
We are in a novel position to deal with this pandemic, in that, for the most part, the internet has advanced to span the entire world. Unwittingly, we’ve put in place one of the best systems for communication during crises like the Coronavirus. It has allowed us to shift our society practically entirely online. Online learning epitomizes this. Yet, regardless of the necessity prompted by Coronavirus, the e-learning market has been rapidly growing in recent years; it is expected to reach $305.3 billion globally by 2025. As shown, the College board alone stands to profit greatly from e-learning this year (see article one). Other companies like Khan Academy, one of the more prominent online learning services (and also affiliated with the College Board online SAT study program) have been leading the surge online. Since 2007, its founder Salman Khan has been producing educational videos on YouTube, adopting the purpose of “mastery learning” (see article two). Other services like K12 and Connections Academy have been providing alternative online learning services since 2000 and 2001, respectively. This is all to say, online learning is a present and growing industry that will only become more viable for both secondary and undergraduate schooling in the future. However, for this to happen, both the merits and flaws of online learning need to be examined.
If nothing else, this pandemic has provided a test of our education system. An interesting example of this is standardized and AP testing. The College Board, distributing both the SAT and AP exams, has made an effort to allow for students affected by the current crisis. The June 6 SAT exam for the class of 2021 they pushed back to August 29, or later (by choice of the student). However, the AP exams they chose to make virtual — with unforeseen consequences. Many of the virtual tests were administered in short-form, free-response questions. In areas like history, math, and science, thematic/conceptual understanding was paramount to understanding precise facts or formulas. Moreover, the open-note nature of the tests allowed for studying to focus more on understanding the course as a whole, rather than memorization. In this sense, these tests were much more friendly to students. However, a lot went wrong with the testing process this year. Namely, the technology simply didn’t work for some students. In a Facebook post on the first day of testing, the College Board claimed that, although 98% of 50,000 students were able to submit their tests, 2% had issues. Even if 2% seems a small figure, that’s still roughly 1,000 students who could not submit their completed tests. While the College Board did offer make-up tests for those students, in June, this disregards the work those 1,000 students already completed; essentially, they’ve been forced to either take their AP exam twice or not receive any credit at all. Granted, the board allowed for e-mail submissions during exams ranging from May 18–22, however, this still doesn’t aid those who tested from May 11–17.
Other students, like those studying abroad or who, for whatever reason, don’t have access to the technology, have also faced issues with the College Board’s online learning process. Foreign students were expected to sit their tests at ludicrous hours, as early as 1 a.m. in China, 2 a.m. in Japan, and 4 a.m. in Guam. These students should not have been made to shift their entire life around schoolwork, especially when they weren’t sure whether their exams would even submit. (It’s also no myth that better sleep cycles produce better work in general.) And, it is not far-fetched for the College Board to produce multiple prompts for these regions to discourage cheating due to time-zone differentials.
Some other groups of students, even within reasonable time zones, still have a disadvantage in shifting to online learning, in that they don’t have access to the technology. Those who might not be able to afford the right hardware, or fast enough internet, are inherently at a disadvantage through no fault of their own. It shows, on behalf of the College Board, a lack of respect or concern for their clients — and clients, they are. While the stress of studying for the exam is what AP students should expect, the added stress of submitting without issues on the part of the College Board creates an unfair environment for students and illuminates one major flaw in online learning as it is now. In order for progression to be made in the field of online learning, these basic needs must be provided for by the administering institutions.
So, as these services shift online, it is the burden of the providers to invest in better technology and more accessible products. If the government is going to outsource education, then they must ensure it is done in a responsible manner. However, there is an unfortunate precedent in recent months of these sorts of services being outsourced. A similar situation was the disastrous February Democratic Iowa Caucuses. The Democratic party, in an attempt to be more transparent with their voting records, enlisted the app developer Shadow, Inc. to produce a result-reporting app. On the night of the election, due to poor coding and flawed servers, the app crashed, heavily delaying the results and giving credence to skeptic outcry. This was, unsurprisingly, the result of poor testing on the part of the app developer and the party. As with the faulty AP tests, the company contracted to produce the software within a matter of a few months failed to do so adequately. In both cases, the goal was to make use of the internet as a tool to connect; in actuality, the lack of attention and testing on the part of the third-party companies involved worsened the user experience. It only spurred on more reasons to mistrust companies like the College Board, and it presents a growing cause for concern for those to whom these companies are providing services.
There is no doubt that, as time goes on, the online systems necessary will be perfected, their flaws ironed out. However, it is unacceptable for these sorts of things to have even occurred with the backings of billion-dollar companies like the College Board. As it is a new frontier, and companies have risen to take flagrantly monopolistic control, online learning needs better regulation. While, in the case of the AP exams, coronavirus was a limitation, the College Board still had the capability and time to ensure these sorts of issues were not as present as they were. A tertiary point could also be made that, as schools like the University of California make standardized tests optional, it would be in the best interest of companies like the College Board to improve accessibility. While it is idealistic to expect the College Board not to act primarily on financial incentive, it is still their duty as a company purportedly “clearing a path for all students” to improve accessibility to their tests, and set a beneficial precedent for the future of online education.
