Cited: New York Times

Not all teachers are jumping at the chance to use new technologies in the classroom; or at least how this technology should be used. Ann Rosenbaum is a former military police officer in the Marines, and she would be the last one to turn away from a battle that she didn’t think was worth fighting but she and her fellow teachers are bracing for a fight over online classes in Idaho high schools.

In 2011, the state legislature of Idaho passed a law that requires all high school students to take some online classes to graduate, and the students and their teachers be given laptops or tablets. The idea behind the legislation was to establish Idaho’s schools as a high-tech vanguard.

However, to help pay for this shift in the curriculum the state may very well have to shift tens of millions of dollars away from salaries for teachers and administrators, not to mention also changing the role of teachers in the classroom.

Idaho teachers like Ann Rosenbaum are not against having new technology in their classrooms, in fact they welcome it, but not technology with strings attached.  Teachers in Idaho have been up in arms, and they took to the streets with a huge march and rally to the state capital last spring.

At the end of the day, many teachers worry that the lobbying dollars from the big tech companies will outweigh the overall needs of the students and perhaps lead to the elimination of tens of thousands of teaching jobs across the state.

Gov. C.L. Otter and Idaho school superintendent Tom Luna claim that the teacher’s concerns are misguided and that they are being poorly informed by their unions. While they acknowledge that the role of the teacher will be changing over the course of time, they do not believe that the new standards for online coursework will lead to teacher layoffs.

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My Take:

It’s no surprise to see teachers being skeptical at politician’s attempts to undermine their role in the classroom. Recent legislation that eliminated protections for teachers with seniority replaced by pay-for-performance systems is just one example of why teachers might be skeptical of the motives behind anything that changes how they conduct the classroom.

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