The Internet Flunks Teaching
You may have noticed on your phone bill a tax item for something called the Federal Universal Service Fund Surcharge. This money funds Internet access discounts to schools, libraries, and rural health care providers. If you ever wondered if the money was being usefully spent, an Internet Week article with the title given above says no. Here is an excerpt:
Backed by lots of lobbying by the high-tech industry, the federal government has spent billions of dollars over the last half-dozen years bringing Internet access to schools. Unfortunately, no one bothered to find out first whether the Web would make kids any smarter. Well, now we know. It doesn’t.
I wil resist the temptation to give a long discourse on how I think the American public school system has gone down the tubes in the last 50 years and just say that I don’t think it’s the Internet that flunks teaching.