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    www.educationnext.org W I N T E R 2 0 0 9 / EDUCATION NEXT 43

    forum

    EDUCATION NEXT: How likely is itthat technology will make advancesin education in the next decade thatgo far beyond any changes that havetaken place in the past?

    John Chubb and Terry Moe: The world-wide revolution in information technologyhas globalized the international economy,made communication virtually instantaneous

    and costless, put vast storehouses of informa-

    tion within reach of everyone on the planet,and in countless other ways transformed howlife is lived. Technology is destined to trans-form American education as well. The driverof change is simple enough: technology hasenormous benefits for the learning process,and they promise to change the nature ofschooling and heighten its productivity. Cur-ricula, teaching methods, and schedules can

    Will education technology

    change the nature of learning?

    Virtual

    Schools

    Education Next

    talks to

    JOHN CHUBB,

    TERRY MOE,

    and

    LARRY CUBAN

    JOHN CHUBB

    Can new education technologies short-circuit change-resistant politics andremake our schools? Or are well-intended advocates once again overhyping the abil-

    ity of electrons and processors to solve thorny problems of teaching and learning?

    In this Education Next forum, John Chubb of Edison Schools and Stanford Univer-

    sity political scientist Terry Moe make the case for the transformative power of todays

    technology. Twenty years ago, this duo coauthored the debate-changing Politics,

    Markets, and Americas Schools. Their new book, Liberating Learning: Technology,

    Politics, and the Future of American Education, lays out a bold vision of the future.

    A more skeptical view of technologys potential impact on education is offered by

    Larry Cuban, professor emeritus of education at Stanford University and author

    of Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom.TERRY MOE

    ILLUSTRATION / THIRD EYE IMAGES, LONNIE BUSCH/CONRAD ZOBEL

    LARRY CUBAN

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    all be customized to meet the learning stylesand life situations of individual students;education can be freed from the geographicconstraints of districts and brick-and-mor-

    tar buildings; coursework from the mostremedial to the most advanced can be madeavailable to everyone; students can havemore interaction with teachers and oneanother; parents can readily be includedin the education process; sophisticated datasystems can measure and guide perfor-mance; and schools can be operated atlower cost with technology (which is rela-tively cheap) substituted for labor (whichis relatively expensive).

    But the advance of technology is also

    threatening to powerful education groups,and they will resist it in the political process.Precisely because technology promises totransform the core components of school-ing, it is inevitably disruptive to the jobs, rou-tines, and resources of the people whoselivelihoods derive from the existing system.And these people are represented by orga-nizationsmost prominently, the teachers

    unionsthat are extraordinarily powerful inpolitics, and are even now taking action toprevent technology from transformingAmerican education.

    Such resistance is not new. Technology isjust the latest target of their politics of block-ing. The key question is whether this resis-tance can be overcome. And the answer, as wewill later explain, is yes. Technology is goingto have transformative effects not only oneducation, but also on politicseffects thatwill weaken the opponents of change andopen the political gates. This is the real cruxof the story. In the years ahead, it is the polit-ical transformation that will make the edu-cational transformation possible.

    Larry Cuban: Technology is linked toprogress in the American mind and has arich history in the culture. Because bothpublic and private schooling have beendeeply embedded in society for the pastthree centuries, educational technology (bywhich I mean the various communicationand information devices and processes that

    44 EDUCATION NEXT / W I N T E R 2 0 0 9 www.educationnext.org

    Technology isgoing to have

    transformativeeffects not only

    on education, butalso on politics

    effects that willweaken the

    opponents ofchange and open

    the politicalgates.

    JCandTM

    Virtual School,Real Growth(Figure 1)

    The Florida Virtual Schoolhas seen course enroll-ments grow dramatically,from 77 at its 1997 incep-tion to 113,900 courseenrollments in the200708 school year.While nonpublic schoolstudents account for most

    middle-school enrollments,the much larger enroll-ment in high schoolcourses is driven by publicschool students.

    120

    100

    80

    60

    40

    20

    0

    C

    ourseenrollments(inthousands)

    97 98 99 00 01 02 0705 060403

    Year

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    www.educationnext.org W I N T E R 2 0 0 9 / EDUCATION NEXT 45

    forum

    ED TECH CHUBB, MOE, & CUBAN

    NOTE: Values are based on pooled enrollment data from the 200405 and the 200506 school years.

    SOURCES: Florida Taxwatch

    100%

    90

    80

    70

    60

    50

    40

    30

    20

    10

    0

    Shareofcoursesandsudents

    Middle school Middle schoolHigh school High school

    Home school Private schoolCharter school Public school

    Courses Students

    U.S. schoolreformers have

    a tradition ofoverselling and

    underusingtechnologicalinnovations.

    LC

    administrators and teachers use to makeschooling efficient and effective) also has arich history (e.g., textbooks, chalkboard,film, radio, computers).

    U.S. school reformers have a traditionof overselling and underusing technologicalinnovations. Thus the chances of widespreadadoption in schools of new classroom tech-nologies in the next decade are in the 70 to90 percent probability range, but the prob-ability of routine use in most schools forinstruction is much lower, in the 10 to 20percent range. Through social networks ofpolicymakers, researchers, practitioners, andtech promoters, pace-setting urban and sub-urban districts adopt innovations and then

    adapt them to fit the local context and goals.Over time, laggards go through the sameprocess, retaining parts of the innovation,and then move on to the next one. In pub-lic schools, changes occur piecemeal andincrementally. Regardless of what technolog-ical enthusiasts predict, no revolutions intechnology use have occurred in U.S. schoolsand classrooms. But evolution does.

    EN:What can we learn from tech-nological adoption in education inthe past?

    LC: In tracking such technological innova-tions as film, radio, television, videocas-settes, and desktop computers over the pasthalf century, I found a common cycle. First,the promoters exhilaration splashes overdecisionmakers as they purchase and deployequipment in schools and classrooms. Thenacademics conduct studies to determine theeffectiveness of the innovation as comparedto standard practice; they survey teachersand occasionally visit classrooms to see stu-dent and teacher use of the innovation. Aca-

    demics often find that the technologicalinnovation is just as good asseldom supe-rior toconventional instruction in con-veying information and teaching skills. Theyalso find that classroom use is less thanexpected. Formal adoption of high-techinnovations does not mean teachers havetotal access to devices or use them on a dailybasis. Such studies often unleash stinging

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    rebukes of administrators and teachers forspending scarce dollars on expensivemachinery that fails to display superiority

    over existing techniques of instruction and,even worse, is only occasionally used.

    Few earnest champions of classroomtechnology understand the multiple andcomplicated roles teachers perform, addressthe realities of classrooms within age-gradedschools, respect teacher expertise, or con-sider the practical questions teachers askabout any technological innovation that aschool board and superintendent decide toadopt, buy, and deploy. Is the new technol-ogy simple to use? Versatile? Reliable?

    Durable? How much energy and time willI as a teacher have to expend to use the newtechnology for what net return in enhancedstudent learning? Will the innovation helpme solve problems that I face in the class-room? Providing teachers with economicor organizational incentives to use technol-ogy wont answer these practical questions.Were policymakers, researchers, designers ofthe innovation, and business-inspiredreformers to ask and then consider answers

    to these questions, perhaps the predictablecycle might be interrupted.

    JC and TM: It is a mistake to view previ-ous technological innovationstelevision,sayas telling indicators of how informa-tion technology will affect the nationsschool system. Yes, television has done lit-tle to change public education. And yes, thefailure to put it to more creative uses doeshighlight how weak the incentives areamong educators for throwing off the chainsof tradition.

    But television is a simple, one-way con-veyor of information that allows for no inter-

    action or input. Its potential for educationwas limited from the outset. The fact is, tele-vision and other technological innovationsof the past are in a different leagueby manyorders of magnitudefrom the revolution ininformation technology. This revolution isnot a reform. It is a new social reality.

    Todays public educators are part of soci-ety. They want to use computers and mod-ernize their schools, and evidence suggeststhey have been moving in this direction.

    46 EDUCATION NEXT / W I N T E R 2 0 0 9 www.educationnext.org

    Technologicalinnovations of

    the past are in adifferent leagueby many orders of

    magnitudefromthe revolution in

    informationtechnology.

    JC and TM

    College Students Learning Online (Figure 2)

    The percentage of students at U.S. postsecondary institutions taking at least one online coursedoubled between 2002 and 2006.

    SOURCE: I. Elaine Allen and Jeff Seaman, Online Nation: Five Years of Growth in Online Learning, Babson Survey Research Group, October 2007

    25%

    20

    15

    10

    5

    0

    Percentageofstudents

    2002 20062004 20052003

    Year

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    public purposes and has unreservedlyembraced computer-based technologies ishigher education (see Figure 2). Becausehigher education is not compulsory and

    adults enroll voluntarily in colleges and uni-versities, market incentives come into play.Colleges and universities look for a com-petitive edge that will give them an advan-tage in their market niche. Both public andprivate institutions seek to attract studentsand faculty and increase their prestige amongsimilarly situated schools. Moreover, highereducation is largely nonunion.

    Whereas some of these institutions go forthe working adult market (e.g., University ofPhoenix) with extensive online course offer-

    ings, most colleges and universities remainresearch and teaching organizations withonline courses that are marginal to theircore operations. Still, nearly every professorand student has at least one computer avail-able daily (many have two or more). Foruniversities and four-year colleges, comput-ers have transformed academic research andanalysis in the natural and social sciences,humanities, and professional schools.

    The puzzle is teaching, which has notbeen transformed. Classroom instructionfor large groups of students (25 or more)

    across community colleges, state universities,and elite institutions differs little from whatoccurs in secondary public schools. Thatfact suggests that even with abundant accessto new technologies, competitive marketpressures, no union interference, and enor-mous encouragement from institutionalpolicymakers, constancy in patterns of teach-ing sets the education context apart fromthose industries that have experienced top-to-bottom technological transformation.

    EN: Do you think that technologicalchange is likely to increase signifi-cantly the amount of home school-ing? Why or why not?

    LC: Cyberschools and distance educationhave increasingly connected isolated ruralstudents and home-schooled children toteachers and resources that were heretoforeunavailable to them. Slight increases in homeschooling may occursay from 1.1 million

    students in 2003 to 2 or 3 million by the endof the decade. The slight uptick would be dueto both the availability of technology and afar broader menu of choices for parents.

    Online college curricula and offerings fromfor-profit entrepreneurs give home-school-ing, anxious college-driven, and rural par-ents new options. Even though cheerleadersfor distance learning have predicted whole-sale changes in conventional site-basedschools for decades, such changes will occurat the periphery, not the center. Most parentswill continue to send their children to brick-and-mortar public schools and expect thoseschools to achieve the many goals men-tioned above. I do not predict that most

    high school students will enroll in onlineschools. Yes, many will take a course here andthere, but the comprehensive high schoolin most suburban districts and prolifera-tion of small high schools in urban systemswill continue to enroll the vast majority ofeligible teenagers.

    JC and TM: With the advance of technol-ogy, home schooling is destined toincreaseand decrease. It will increasebecause distance learning will offer a vastarray of new opportunities, and learning

    from homefrom anywhere but theschool buildingwill gain dramatically inpopularity. Many more students will takeall their classes through virtual schools. Butmore important, the great majority of Amer-ican students will ultimately choose to takesome of their classes remotely and somethrough brick-and-mortar schools.

    On the other hand, far fewer kids will behome schooled in the traditional sense. Inthe past, home schooling meant that parentstaught their kids at home. But in the com-

    ing years, almost all the kids who studyentirely at home actually will be going toschool: schools that have well-developedcurricula and bona fide teachers and admin-istrators, but operate at a distance.

    In the future, then, home schooling as weknow it will largely cease to exist, and theboundaries between learning at home andpublic schooling will essentially break down.American education will become a blend ofhome schoolingdifferently construed

    48 EDUCATION NEXT / W I N T E R 2 0 0 9 www.educationnext.org

    In the future,American education

    will become a blendof home schooling

    differentlyconstruedand

    brick-and-mortarpublic schooling.

    JC and TM

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    ED TECH CHUBB, MOE, & CUBAN

    and brick-and-mortar public schooling. Moststudents will do some of their academiccoursework outside the brick-and-mortarsettingmaking home schooling a very

    mainstream activityand traditional homeschoolers will be more fully integrated into thelarger education system (see Home School-ing Goes Mainstream,features, p. 10).

    All of this will be resisted by the unionsand their allies, because todays home school-ers are not part of current education budgets,and as they join the system they are competi-tors for scarce resources. But long term, astechnology changes the balance of politicalpower, the resistance will fail.

    EN:Are charter schools, privateschools, or afterschool programs

    likely to adopt innovations morerapidly than traditional districtschools?

    JC and TM: The early adopters will arisefrom outside the traditional public schoolsystem. Most important are charter schoolsthat deliver education entirely over the Inter-net. Nearly 200 of these virtual schools havealready sprung up in 19 states, serving almost200,000 students, and the trajectory is

    sharply upward. Some individual schoolshave grown spectacularly fast, such as PACyber, which enrolls 8,000 students onlyeight years after opening.

    As students enroll in cybercharters, theystimulate a growing market for more andbetter online technologies and content.They also put competitive pressure on tra-ditional public schools to innovate or losestudents and revenue. These high-tech new-comers add to the competitive pressurealready created by some 4,000 brick-and-

    mortar charters operating in 40 states,broadening the constituency for charterschools beyond families disaffected withinner-city public schools.

    Competition from early adopters, cou-pled with performance pressures arisingfrom accountability reforms, will force allschoolsincluding private schools andlow-tech charter schools resting on theirlaurelsto consider technological solu-tions. Change will not be even or uniform.

    It will occur faster and more consequentiallyin districts and states where unions areweak, where parent demand and involve-ment are high, where unmet needs are

    greatest, and where budgets are tightly con-strained. But as the tide begins to rise, andas the balance of power in politics begins toshift with it, the other districts and stateswill eventually follow.

    LC: Except for those public charter schools,magnets, and theme-driven schools thatadvertise themselves as using technology,including those operated by for-profit andnonprofit organizations such as High TechHigh, Edison, and Mosaica, I have not found

    charter or private schools (a highly diversesector made up of elite independents andsectarian and nonsectarian schools) moreopen (or closed) to technological innova-tions than public schools. Increased compe-tition from charter schools may have mod-est to strong effects in urban districts (butnot suburban or rural ones), where a criti-cal mass (one-third or more) of studentsattend these schools full-time. The samerationale for adoption of computers (e.g.,improve achievement, transform teachingand learning, and as preparation for an ever-

    changing labor market) prevails across pub-lic and private school sectors. The criticalissues remain teacher involvement in deci-sions about buying and using devices andavailable funding, rather than openness totechnological innovation. Afterschool pro-grams are another category, since they aretangential to regular public schools and oftenuse technology as an inducement to get stu-dents through the door once the last school-day bell rings.

    EN: How much of schooling cantechnology really displace?

    LC: It is a mistake to assume that if schools just adopt classroom technologies, acade-mic achievement will improve, teaching willchange dramatically, and students will bebetter prepared for the 21st-century work-place. Evidence for each reason to adopttechnology is at best skimpy and at worstmissing altogether.

    The bedrock ofschooling remainsan organizational

    structure introducedin the mid-19th

    century: the age-graded school, where

    each teacher has

    her classroom andstudents of roughly

    the same age have tolearn a chunk of the

    curriculum beforebeing promoted

    to the next grade.LC

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    Many administrative activities can be (andhave been) computerized (e.g., purchasing,scheduling, accounting, personnel data).Collecting student performance data and

    making it easily and readily available toteachers and principals has potential fordelivering lessons and individual help tostudents just in time. But to achieve theimportant purposes of tax-supported pub-lic schooling, especially in urban districts, thebedrock of schooling remains an organiza-tional structure introduced in the mid-19thcentury: the age-graded school, where eachteacher has her classroom and students ofroughly the same age have to learn a chunkof the curriculum before being promoted to

    the next grade.Advances in new technologies havehardly made a dent in this permanent struc-ture. Charters, for-profit schools, cyber-schools, and private schools embrace thesame organizational format. All of the pre-dictions for a technological Nirvana assumethat the age-graded school will melt away. Ithasnt so far because strong social beliefsabout schooling and deeply embedded polit-ical and economic structures keep it alive andkicking. It is within the age-graded schoolthat the individual teachers knowledge, skill

    repertoire, and experience matter in con-necting to her students. That relationshipcontinues to be the moral, social, and cog-nitive centerpiece for teaching and learningto occur and cannot be replaced bymachines, however cleverly constructed.Until the age-graded school and fundingmechanisms change, the use of new tech-nologies for classroom instruction willremain peripheral.

    JC and TM: Technology will do more than

    bring high-quality information to bear on theeducation process. It will change the educa-tion process itself, transforming and some-times replacing the role of the teacher, andaltering the core means of instruction. Mostschools of the future will be hybrids, with stu-dents still taught by teachers in classroom set-tingsfor parts of the day. But students willspend much more time learning directly andoften remotely through technology. Youngstudents will require more personal attention.

    But as students grow up and gain the skillsto work independently, the time with tech-nology will increase and the time with teach-ers will decrease.

    Technology will differentiate segments ofthe learning process. Teachers will often be thefirst source of instruction, helping kids mas-ter core concepts and skills. Then, technologywill provide customized remediation for stu-dents not able to grasp the core and acceler-ation for students ready for specialized andenriching extensions. Programs to teach liter-acy skills, from the essentials of decoding onup, already exist. So, too, do programs to teachmath skills, from basic to advanced. Moreeffective differentiation means narrower gaps

    in achievement. It also means a far greaternumber and variety of course optionsAP,IB, and even university-sponsoredavailableto all kids, regardless of the community inwhich they live: technology as equity.

    For some students, particularly thosewho are older, who have special learningneeds or academic interests, or whose sched-ules or locations make it difficult for themto attend brick-and-mortar schools, the coreinstructional process will be online. Schoolcommunities, with lots of interaction amongstudents and teachers, will be built virtually.

    Brick-and-mortar schools will be very dif-ferent places than they are today: using moretechnology, staffed by fewer but more ableteachers, working with much better informa-tion, and delivering instruction bettermatched to student needs.

    EN:What are the most promisinginnovations in education technology?

    LC: Since the 1990s, school boards and super-intendents have generally moved swiftly to

    adopt technological enhancements to admin-istrative functions by placing them onlineand automating many routine procedures.The collection of individual student achieve-ment data is now possible technologically,and its dissemination to teachers swiftly offersmany opportunities for intervention, reme-dial work, and enrichment. For classroominstruction, many school boards have alsoadopted interactive whiteboards, studentclickers, and handheld devices for teachers and

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    Brick-and-mortarschools will be very

    different places thanthey are today: using

    more technology,staffed by fewer butmore able teachers,working with much

    better information,and delivering

    instruction bettermatched to

    student needs.JC and TM

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    students to collect data for field projects or forwhat is happening in a classroom. Somehighly motivated individual teachers havecreated imaginative uses of computers for

    students to learn. Such efforts are promisinginnovations that can incrementally improveteaching and learning. For-profit schools,that is, schools run by businesses (e.g., Edi-son Schools), often give students and teach-ers abundant access to machines and integratetechnology use in their overall school design.

    The majority of public school teachers,however, view technological innovations asburdensome add-ons. Teachers need to bedirectly (not as tokens) involved in adoptingand using technological innovations and in

    establishing on-site technical assistance andfacilitating teachers-helping-teachers useexisting technologies in daily lessons (e.g.,Apple Classroom of Tomorrow experiencein the 1980s and 1990s; Berkeley [CA]Teacher Led Technology Challenge projectin the late 1990s). Such involvement canlead to teachers creatively integrating theinnovation into routine classroom instruc-tion. Unfortunately, this approach remainsdistant from the current mind-set amongpolicy elites and vendors anxious about get-ting new devices into classrooms.

    JC and TM: The most promising innova-tions can be grouped into two broad cate-gories, instruction and information. As itis, schools are universally organized for kidsto get all of their instruction in classes of 20to 30 led by a teacher. Technology is treatedas an add-on to this structure. Elementarykids typically visit a computer lab once aweek. A few computers also sit at the backsof classrooms, for kids to use, if time allows,afterthe teacher is finished teaching the core

    lesson. At the secondary level, computersare largely for word processing and Internetresearch and have little to do with corecourses. It need not be this way.

    Every educator knows that kids need indi-vidual help. Each student is not going tounderstand material through the same pre-sentation, with the same exercises, or at thesame pace. Technology can teach from mul-tiple angles and with multimediaanima-tion, simulation, online teachersand very

    interactively, with students constantly engagedand providing input. Technology can cus-tomize instruction literally for every student.Kids could have substantial amounts of cus-

    tomized remediation or acceleration, andeven entire courses. Education could be dra-matically differentiated.

    Until recently, schools were in the StoneAge of informationknowing almost noth-ing about the achievement of their studentsor the success of teachers in promoting it.Today, accountability systems require annualstudent testing in reading and math, andprovide objective and reliable (if limited)measures at least once a year. Moreover, tech-nology is fast making it feasible to monitor

    student progress with online assessmentsthat can be integrated with curriculathroughout the school year. Information sys-tems can help teachers adjust their instruc-tion on the fly, reteaching skills that haventbeen learned, easing up on skills that studentsmaster quickly, and customizing by student.

    Administrators can become more effec-tive as well. Information systems can imme-diately show principals and district officialswhich classrooms are succeeding and whichare struggling, which parts of the curriculumare being learned and which are going over

    kids heads. Sophisticated statistical pro-grams can help administrators draw vitalinferences about the learning process, espe-cially about the extent to which each teacheris providing value-added to students (afterallowing for differences in student back-grounds and other influences on learningthat teachers cant control). As informationbecomes available, it will be impossible toignore, even if it speaks the unspeakablesecret that some teachers are highly effectiveand others are not. As schools are forced to

    deal with the truthand pressured toimprovestudents will benefit.

    EN: What role will school boards andteachers unions play in using tech-nology to reform schools? In short,what are the politics of adoptingtechnology?

    LC: The politics of adopting new tech-nologies remain a top-down (school board

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    ED TECH CHUBB, MOE, & CUBAN

    The majorityof public school

    teachers viewtechnological

    innovations asburdensome

    add-ons.LC

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    and superintendent), elite-driven (civicand business leaders, vendors) operationlargely determined by the districts historyof innovation, available resources, and

    responsiveness to key stakeholders. Unionshave played a largely peripheral role ineither endorsing (some union chaptershave gotten district approval for schools inwhich new technologies are central) oropposing classroom technological inno-vations (cybercharter schools, for example).School boards and parents, however, willfight efforts to substitute machines forteachers, even when champions of reduc-ing labor costs dress up the purchase of newtechnologies as overall savings and a tech-

    nological Utopia. They will resist suchmoves because they see the purposes ofpublic schools as more than efficiency andworking to bolster a growing economythrough supplying skilled graduates.

    JC and TM: Unions will resist technology.Their mission is to protect the jobs of teach-ers in the regular public schools, and realtechnological changewhich outsourceswork to distant locations, allows studentsand money to leave, substitutes capital forlabor, and in other ways disrupts the exist-

    ing job structureis a threat to the securityand stability that the unions seek. Fordecades, the unions and their allies havebeen the major obstacles to educationreform, regularly using their formidablepolitical power to block or weaken thereforms they do not like, from accountabil-ity to school choice to pay for performance.No surprise, then, that they are alreadyworking to kill or limit virtual charters, andto ensure that technology fits neatly intothe status quo.

    But this time they wont succeed. Tech-nology has a far-reaching capacity to trans-form politics. As distance learning prolifer-ates, for example, teachers will be lessgeographically concentrated in districts,considerably more dispersed, and muchmore difficult for unions to organize. Thesubstitution of technology for labor willlower the demand for teachers. The teach-ing profession will become much more

    diversified and less conducive to samenessand solidarity. There will be many newschools and a dramatic increase in choiceand competition. All these developments,

    operating together in mutually reinforcingways, will work to sap the organizationalstrength of the teachers unions, underminetheir political power, and weaken their abil-ity to block in the policy process. As they areless and less able to block them, reforms ofall kindsnot just those that are high techwill begin to flow through.

    School boards are a bit more nuanced.They clearly do not want to lose studentsand revenue to cyberschools or othersources of competition. Many board mem-

    bers are also beholden to the unions, whichare influential in local elections, and schoolboards have regularly joined forces withthe unionsin the courts and state legis-laturesto oppose competitive threats. Yetschool boards in districts with especiallyactive parents, weak unions, limited bud-gets, and kids whose needs are going unmetmay have incentives to embrace techno-logical change and become early adopters.In rare cases, school boards may see that, byacting entrepreneurially, they can set uptheir own cybercharters and win over stu-

    dents and revenue from other districts,thus using competition to make themselvesbetter off; indeed, a small number of dis-tricts around the country (in Pennsylvaniaand Wisconsin, for example) are alreadyblazing this trail.

    Technology is a double-barreled agent ofchange. It generates the innovations thatmake change attractive, and at the sametime it undermines the political resistancethat would normally prevent change fromhappening. There will be struggles and set-

    backs, and the process will take decades.But the forces of resistance will ultimatelybe overcome, and American educationtransformed. This will mean real improve-ment for the nation, its children, and itsschools. It will also bring the dawning of anew era in which education politics is moreopen, productive changes are more readilyembraced, and learning is liberated fromthe dead hand of the past. I

    Unions will resist

    technology.Their mission is toprotect the jobs of

    teachers in theregular public

    schools.JC and TM

    School boards andparents will fight

    efforts to substitute

    machines forteachers, even when

    champions ofreducing labor costs

    dress up the purchaseof new technologies

    as overall savingsand a technological

    Utopia.LC

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