Education Week Does Balanced Story on Personalized Learning – Interviews Dr. Effrem

Kudos to Benjamin Herold and Education Week for bringing some balance to whole issue of computer-based education in the article The Case(s) Against Personalized Learning. After interviewing leading opponents from across the ideological spectrum, including Dr. Effrem, Herold lists the three main arguments against personalized learning (PL), also called competency-based education (CBE):

1. “The Hype Outweighs the Research,” quoting John F. Pane, senior scientist at the Rand Corporation, who said, “The evidence base is very weak at this point.”
2. “Personalized Learning is Bad for Teachers and Students” quoting progressive education author Alfie Kohn who said of personalized learning, “It’s behaviorism on a screen.”
3. “Big Tech + Big Data = Big Problems,” quoting Audrey Waters who said, “When Facebook promises personalization, it’s really about massive data collection.”

Here is the quote by Dr. Effrem included in the article:

“We’re sacrificing our children’s privacy, and we’re allowing corporations to make potentially life-changing decisions about our kids, all for technology that doesn’t actually help them,” said Effrem, the president of Education Liberty Watch, an advocacy organization that supports parents’ right to control their children’s education.

As an adjunct to the article Herold developed a survey containing responses of the people interviewed for the article with their views of PL in response to the statements: “Personalized learning should ________” and “Personalized learning should not ___________”. Here are a few examples:

Let us hope this example of balanced journalism is not an isolated incident on this very important topic of personalized learning.  The public and especially our children and teachers really need to understand the ill effects of PL on academic achievement, the student-teacher relationship, and data and psychological privacy.

The National Pulse: Insanity: After Repeated Failures, Bill Gates to Spend $1.7 Billion More on Education

Dr. Karen Effrem unfolds the finer points, dangers and efforts of the Gates’ education failures.

When our children make egregious mistakes that harm others and cost money, we try to explain to them why they are on the wrong path and then hope and pray that they see the error of their ways. Unfortunately, Gates and his ilk are insulated from reality by their vast fortunes. So while we fight to protect our children’s education and futures from the effects of Gates’ Common Core and data mining efforts, we must pray that he finds some other cause in which to meddle and that our officials at all levels learn that these grants come with all sorts of costly strings, cause many problems, and are a very dangerous addiction. We must stand strong, speak truth to power — and believe in miracles.

Insanity: After Repeated Failures, Bill Gates to Spend $1.7 Billion More on Education