Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 1, 1995 TAG: 9509290053
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: G-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In Roanoke, the schools undertake a $7.5-million technology-upgrade project, a public-private partnership whose goal in part is to provide one computer for every five students. Included in the project is $1.5 million for capital improvements, such as retrofitting buildings for cable links, that was part of a bond-issue package overwhelmingly approved by city voters.
In Montgomery County, Virginia Tech works with Bell Atlantic to install interactive environmental-education programs on computer terminals in the public schools.
At the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education, a five-year course of study prepares teachers to be leaders in using technology in the classroom. Outreach efforts to school divisions statewide help teachers gain practical experience with the equipment.
The revolution in communications technology is here, and - as the examples above illustrate - its potential role in education is not unrecognized or unaddressed. But neither is it sufficiently recognized or addressed yet in public schools. Money is one hurdle. Lack of training is another.
Both must be overcome, and initiatives like those at Lord Botetourt, in Roanoke, at Tech and UVa, must become the standard rather than the exception. Without such steps, the new information technologies can't be integrated on an everyday basis in math and science education. And that is the key to closing a widening gap between what American kids need to know about information technologies and what they're actually learning.
Such is the conclusion, anyway, of a new report by the Committee for Economic Development, a national group of business and education leaders, and it is surely right. The report cites the UVa program as a model for how to increase teacher knowledge and skill in the use of new technology in the classroom. The Lord Botetourt, Roanoke and Tech efforts also dovetail with CED recommendations.
The Roanoke computerization goal, for example, is in accord with a recommendation that the ratio of classroom computers to students rise, by the year 2000, from the current national average of one per 12 to one per four or five. The Botetourt classroom is at least a start toward broadening communications access in the classroom, another of the report's recommendations. Tech's outreach is an example of higher education sharing its technological expertise with public schools.
Such initiatives offer distance learning for remote populations with disparate academic and financial supports. They also make use of partnerships with the business community, part of another set of proposals in the report.
The report doesn't make the mistake of assuming that incorporating more technology into learning is mainly a way to cut costs. If anything, the reverse is true: Meaningful integration of technology into the classroom is necessary but not inexpensive.
America has a long way to go. Only 20 percent of U.S. high-school graduates, the report says, have taken the advanced math and science courses that prepare them for college courses in those fields and for careers in related fields. But educating a work force capable of performing well in the knowledge-based economy of the 21st century is just half the battle. The other half is educating a citizenry, regardless of occupation, capable of making informed decisions in a high-technology age.
The issue is intensified by the fact that, in the words of the report, "[i]nformation technology ... is penetrating middle-class and affluent homes much faster than those of lower-income families." The spectre of a rigid, information-based caste system is sobering. Whether American democracy could survive it is dubious. Making the new technology an integral part of the schools is not a frill; it is an urgent necessity.
by CNB