Fox in the Schoolhouse: Rupert Murdoch Wants to Teach Your Kids! - Mother Jones

[Bozita]

Fox in the Schoolhouse: Rupert Murdoch Wants to Teach Your Kids!
News Corp.'s major move into the education business.
—By Stephanie Mencimer
Fri Sep. 23, 2011 3:00 AM PDT


Rupert Murdoch's reputation precedes him—but one thing he's not well known for is his education reform advocacy. But that could soon change. Next month, Murdoch will make an unusual public appearance in San Francisco, delivering the keynote address at an education summit hosted by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who has lately been crisscrossing the country promoting his own version of education reform.

The high-profile speech to a collection of conservative ed reformers, state legislators, and educators is just the latest step in Murdoch's quiet march into the business of education, which has been somewhat eclipsed by the phone-hacking scandal besieging his media empire. (On Tuesday, word of Murdoch's appearance at Bush's conference came just hours after reports that News Corp. had agreed to pay more than $4 million to the family of a 13-year-old British murder victim, Milly Dowler, whose voicemail was hacked by reporters for Murdoch's News of the World. ) But Murdoch has made it very clear that he views America's public schools as a potential gold mine.

"In every other part of life, someone who woke up after a 50-year nap would not recognize the world around him…But not in education," he remarked in May during a speech at the "e-G8 forum" that preceded the G8 summit in France. "Our schools remain the last holdout from the digital revolution."

Last November, News Corp. dropped $360 million to buy Wireless Generation, a Brooklyn-based education technology company that provides software, assessment tools, and data services. "When it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the US alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs that extend the reach of great teaching," Murdoch said at the time.

more...
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/rupert-murdoch-news-corp-wireless-generation-education

[hfojvt]

1. I would dispute that point about the 50 year nap

Going back to 1961, how much has really changed? The cars look different, but certainly a person from 1961 would recognize cars. The TV is different, but certainly a 1961 person would recognize a TV. Even color television was around before 1961, although not universal. Cell phones are new, but a 1961 person would recognize a telephone. In fact, a cell phone was kinda imagined in the 1966 TV show Star Trek. The communicator is much like a cell phone.

Computers are new, and certainly were not in most homes in 1961, but the computers does not do much that a 1961 person would not recognize. You can type on it, just like a typewriter. You can play music on it, just like a phonograph or radio. You can read articles on it, just like a newspaper. You can watch video on it, just like a television. You can write messages to people, just like a telegraph or a letter. Nothing really "unrecognizable" and in fact people in the 1960s were reading and writing about amazing machines, even intelligent robots in the 1950s. I, Robot was published in 1950 and imagined that humans would be mining asteroids by the year 2000.

Given that people in 1950 could imagine positronic brains, then a personal computer, even one with a tera-byte of storage is not beyond their recognition.

I think there is much that a person from 1961 would recognize, and not just because I was born in 1962 and just about AM a person from 1961 (although really I do not remember very much from before 1970).

[AdHocSolver]

2. Computerizing a defective education model is not going to improve education.

On the contrary, computerizing any system sets that system in stone and negates any effort to improve it.

Adding computerization, with its huge investment in hardware and software, to the failed programs of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race To The Top (RTTT) will ensure failure in the education of America's children for generations.

Replacing a poor system with a worse computerized system is not progress. Having worked as a computer programmer for several years, I can report from personal observation, that much of the software out in the real world is poorly designed, poorly written, insufficiently debugged, and frustrating to use as well as maintain. I worked for some very large corporations as well as nonprofit institutions.

A computerized education system will be no better, and, considering that the clients will be children and the assessors of the efficacy of these systems will be the ones pushing and profiting from these overpriced boondoggles, the outcomes are guaranteed to be far worse than what we have now

Computerized education will amount to child abuse. You can dislike a "poor" teacher. How can one relate to a computer?

Seeing how much (misplaced) faith is put in computers by management, I foresee the development of all kinds of psychological abuse resulting from heavy dependence on computers by school systems, where the students are not even given a chance to defend themselves against poorly designed teaching software.

And, it is guaranteed that a lot of teaching software, like software in the commercial world, will be poorly designed, poorly written, and poorly debugged.

There is another reason to be alarmed at "privatizing" education. From the linked article:

(snip)
**********
News Corp.'s entrance into the education sector raises broader education policy questions, says University of Arizona education professor Kenneth Goodman. Having a multinational corporation in charge of assessing kids' reading skills, he notes, shows that "decision making in education is so far removed from people who have anything to do with kids." And like many educators, he is suspicious that Murdoch will bring his conservative ideology to his education ventures: "They'd like everything to be privatized."
**********

Privatized education will improve learning just as private insurance gets you better health care.

[AdHocSolver]

3. For cheerleaders of computerized education: How does electronic voting appeal to you? n/t

[Politicalboi]

4. Too bad the Wall Street protesters couldn't go to

San Francisco. Oh wait there are no Wall Street protesters. I haven't seen it on the TV.