How Tech Builds Equity in America’s Disadvantaged Classrooms
It seems that almost every discussion advocating for technology in the classroom is accompanied by familiar dissent: Classroom tech is realistic only for wealthy school districts who have the money to purchase digital resources and the time to teach their students how to use them — ultimately driving a wedge between the haves and have-nots.
On one hand, much of this pessimism is rooted in fact. “Schools in poor communities spend less per pupil — and often many thousands of dollars less per pupil — than schools in nearby affluent communities,” according to a 2013 report from the Department of Education.
Districts with more money can afford to implement the latest classroom technologies in ways poorer districts cannot, creating a disparity that has very real implications for students entering the workforce after graduation. “This is arguably the most important equity related variable in American schooling today,” the report adds.
On the other hand, this perspective ignores two critical realities: First is the inevitable fact that wealthy students have greater access to technology, regardless of whether their schools implement it in the classroom or not. Second is that teachers often benefit from classroom tech just as much, if not more, than their students.
Our focus on the potential disparities generated by student-centered classroom tech often overshadows the way this technology serves the teachers.
Technology in education can have a dramatic and compound advantage: It can help make teaching a sustainable profession by arming teachers with critical classroom resources, which, in turn, creates a disproportionately positive — not negative — effect on the least advantaged students.
“To assist students, teachers need curricular materials and technology systems that support learning,” states the U.S. Dept. of Education report. “This is especially true of teachers in struggling schools.”
To address the compound advantages of classroom technology, we first need to take a look at the state of today’s teaching, which by most accounts is a profession beset by high turnover and overall dissatisfaction.
Nearly 25 percent of public school teachers leave the profession within their first three years, according to the U.S. Department of Education — but it’s the most underserved areas that see the worst turnover. In New York City, public schools lose two-thirds of their faculty every five years, and in Chicago, underserved schools studied were losing half of their teachers every three years.
The high rate of teacher turnover is especially worrisome considering the fact that quality teachers are one of the most important school-related influences on a child’s education. A student’s success in the classroom is influenced by a number of factors, but a recent study from RAND estimated that teachers have two to three times more impact on a student’s education than any other school-related variable.
A report about teacher turnover from NYU sums up the issue this way: “Students in low-income schools are more likely to be disruptive in class. Novice teachers who lack effective classroom management skills are more likely to leave for another school or leave the profession entirely. New teachers arrive on the scene and students act up because they feel they’ve been abandoned and distrust the unknown teacher. And the cycle continues.”
So what does technology have to do with all this? Technology in the classroom, particularly technology that improves curriculum and instruction in disadvantaged districts, not only mitigates teacher turnover but improves student achievement in those districts as well.
Curriculum reform is often the least expensive intervention for improving student outcomes, according to reports from Chiefs for Change and StandardsWork. Pair that curriculum reform with scalable tech-driven distribution, and we’re able to support teachers in ways textbooks never could.
Newark Public Schools took this approach recently and achieved notable results. They successfully standardized a custom curriculum across all their English Language Arts, all while freeing up their teachers’ time to focus on the instruction itself.
We call this sort of support curriculum-as-a-service, and it enables school districts to easily align curricular materials to their instructional goals and distribute these materials effectively across their district — all at a lower cost than traditional textbook adoptions.
Researchers at Northwestern University recently found that providing teachers with high-quality, teacher-centered technology, including digital curricular resources and task management software, increased student test scores by a statistically significant margin. Moreso, the researchers identified this sort of technological intervention as an inexpensive and consistently effective educational tool.
“Because of the low marginal cost of the intervention, it is extraordinarily cost effective,” said the Northwestern study. “Furthermore, because the lessons and supports are provided on the Internet, the intervention is highly scalable, and can be implemented in remote locations where other policy approaches would be infeasible.
It’s time we view technology in the classroom as a critical tool for teacher preparedness and retention — not just as a tool for direct student instruction. The country’s most vulnerable school districts necessitate long-serving and dedicated teachers, but the reality is the opposite — inexperienced teachers leave poorer districts, unable to balance the demands of lesson planning and classroom management, only to be replaced by more inexperienced teachers. Embracing technologies that make teaching a more sustainable profession can have profound and lasting impact on student achievement.
Creative Art Direction by Anagraph. Illustration by John E. Lisle.
