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Who really benefits from putting high-tech gadgets in classrooms?

How much genuine value is there in fancy educational electronics? Don't let companies or politicians fool you.

POsted in the LA times By Michael Hiltzik

February 4, 2012

"The push for advanced technology in the schoolroom then and now was driven by commercial, not pedagogical, considerations."

"Many would-be educational innovators treat technology as an end-all and be-all, making no effort to figure out how to integrate it into the classroom. "Computers, in and of themselves, do very little to aid learning,"

"Does Duncan ever read his own agency's material? In 2009, the Education Department released a study of whether math and reading software helped student achievement in first, fourth, and sixth grades, based on testing in hundreds of classrooms. The study found that the difference in test scores between the software-using classes and the control group was "not statistically different from zero." In sixth-grade math, students who used software got lower test scores — and the effect got significantly worse in the second year of use."