

Florida schools replacing teachers with computers - akharris
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/education/18classrooms.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

======
patio11
Class-size limits are an artificial constraint which were introduced because
they occupy that happy space in the middle of the Venn diagram between "sounds
good to voters" and "does something teachers unions actually care about." They
do little, if anything, for education. You could solve this problem in an
afternoon if you wanted to -- repeal class size limits, done.

That will only actually happen if there is a severely negative outcome to this
situation... like the computers improving educational quality when compared to
teachers.

~~~
yequalsx
Do you have evidence that class size doesn't matter? It seems intuitively
obvious that class size does matter. Consider a single teacher teaching 60,000
average students in a stadium sized classroom versus a single teacher in a
classroom with 20 average students. It seems to me that the probability of
success in the latter classroom would be significantly higher than in the
former. I don't know this to be true but it seems like it should be true. I'd
be interested in knowing if there is research supporting your position.

~~~
evgen
He can't really provide the evidence because it does not exist in any
meaningful manner. There is an overwhelming amount of data showing that
reduced class sizes lead to better overall student performance and that
smaller classes have a disproportionately large effect when used in
disadvantaged/urban schools and when used very early (e.g. K-2nd grade.)

~~~
yummyfajitas
If the data is overwhelming, how come you don't cite any of it?

The first few google results that address this point [1] seem to disagree with
your claim that the data is overwhelming.

At the college level at least, student performance is unaffected by class
size: <http://sigmaa.maa.org/rume/crume2010/Archive/Gleason.pdf>

In french grades 1-2, teacher education and class size (variation of 10
students) affects outcomes by only 3%, which they claim is statistically
significant:
[http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/international/events/upload/Prost...](http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/international/events/upload/ProstTeachers.pdf)

But I'm no expert. If you have data, can you cite it? Because a quick google
search suggests patrick is right and you are wrong.

[1] A few of the studies at the top of google results don't address student
performance, but instead focus on student satisfaction.

~~~
evgen
Since "google it" seems to be the alpha and omega of your research abilities,
here are some papers and research from the last five years that supports the
case that smaller class sizes leads to better student outcomes when applied to
K-6 education (as in long-term quantitative results and not just "student
satisfaction"):

Spyros Konstantopoulos and Vicki Chun, _What Are the Long-Term Effects of
Small Classes on the Achievement Gap? Evidence from the Lasting Benefits
Study,_ American Journal of Education 116, November 2009.

Peter Muennig and Steven H. Woolf, _Health and Economic Benefits of Reducing
the Number of Students per Classroom in US Primary Schools,_ American Journal
of Public Health, published online September 27, 2007.

Philip Babcock and Julian R. Betts, _Reduced-class Distinctions: Effort,
Ability and the Education Production Function,_ NBER Working paper 14777,
March 2009.

Sarah Theule Lubienski et.al., _Achievement Differences and School Type: The
Role of School Climate, Teacher Certification, and Instruction,_ American
Journal of Education 115, November 2008.

Elizabeth Graue, et.al. _The Wisdom of Class-Size Reduction,_ American
Educational Research Journal, September 2007, Vol. 44, No. 3.

Douglas D. Ready and Valerie E. Lee, _Optimal Context Size in Elementary
Schools: Disentangling the Effects of Class Size and School Size,_ Brookings
Papers on Education Policy, 2006/2007, pp. 99-135.

Fatih Unlu, _California Class Size Reduction Reform: New Findings from the
NAEP,_ Princeton Univ., Nov. 2005

Jeremy D. Finn et.al., _Small Classes in the Early Grades, Academic
Achievement, and Graduating From High School,_ Journal of Educational
Psychology, 2005.

The best that the opponents of initiatives to reduce class sizes can muster
are exemplified the recent efforts by anti-tax groups to fight Amendment 9 in
Florida (see <http://floridataxwatch.org/archive/amendment9.html> for an
example) where there is a a great deal of political weaseling to try to
minimize the available data. No studies are presented that show that reduced
class sizes have a detrimental effect and a lot of words are spent trying to
spin the results that are available.

We are not talking about college-level instruction and you know that. The
attempt to claim that research on college pedagogy is in any way applicable to
elementary education is poor sophistry at best. To return the favor, how about
you start listing some studies that show that reduced class sizes in K-6 have
no long-terms effects on student outcome?

~~~
yummyfajitas
Look, I don't claim to be an expert. I was just asking you to cite some of the
voluminous research you claimed existed, and pointing out that the case seems
far from clear. I just cited the first two on-point google results, one of
which was about grade 1. Also, no one is claiming reduced class sizes have a
detrimental effect. The claim is that their effect is small and probably not
cost effective.

Now, on to your citations. Your first paper (Konstantantopoulos and Chun)
agrees with me. It shows an achievement gain is 0.04-0.1 standard deviations,
decreasing with time (they don't even bother to look past grade 8). The
increase in cost is 66% (reducing class size from 25 to 15).

Graduation probabilities are also increased by 3% (for students not receiving
a free lunch) to 18% (for students receiving a free lunch), after 4 years of
small class size (according to the Finn paper). So far, the only effect that
seems significant is the graduation probability for students receiving a free
lunch (assuming this particular effect is real, rather than just data mining).

(Note: several of your other studies don't even try to address the claim that
lower class sizes improve student achievement. Your paper by Woolf and Muennig
is just an advocacy piece, assuming that education is the cause of all good
things and arguing that we need more of it. )

~~~
evgen
You cited a study of college-age students and a study from France when there
is a wealth of domestic data ready for your to cite and you expect the claims
to be taken seriously? As far as your claim that these were the first two on-
point google results, I guess it just depends on what you search for:

<http://lmgtfy.com/?q=research+class+size+student+achievement>

I beleive that you are misreading the Konstantantopoulos and Chun if you think
that it agrees with you. An achievement gain of that size in education is
actually quite significant and both the abstract and text make this clear. To
dismiss the fact that the study followed a third grade class for five years
and showed improvement down the line by saying that "they don't even bother to
look past grade 8" is more spin than reasoned analysis.

Once again, please provide the links to papers that show that smaller class
sizes do not have a long-term positive impact on student performance. So far
it seems you are much like the anti-CSR group I mentioned previously, all spin
and bullshit. Prove me wrong.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Why the hostility? You picked a different search term than I did, big whoop (I
picked "class size student outcome"). I guess that makes me a bullshit artist.

Now, you may be right that a 0.04-0.12 standard deviation improvement is large
within the field of educational interventions. All that proves is that the
entire field of educational interventions has produced little/no gains.

This is how small 0.12 standard deviations is: <http://imgur.com/BJDHc>

You and the authors can attempt to spin that as something significant, but it
doesn't contradict Patrick's original assertion. He claimed that smaller
classes "do little, if anything, for education." You cited a source showing
that they do little. You didn't contradict him.

Here is my citation, which shows that smaller classes "do little, if anything,
for education": _Spyros Konstantopoulos and Vicki Chun, What Are the Long-Term
Effects of Small Classes on the Achievement Gap? Evidence from the Lasting
Benefits Study_ , American Journal of Education 116, November 2009. _

------
snewman
It's easy to throw out opinions about this sort of thing -- "computers are no
replacement for a real teacher", "the class size constraint should be
relaxed", "if done well, computerized education could be a huge step forward".
But without hard data about the situation in question -- details of how the
program is implemented, measured outcomes from previous uses of the same
courseware, etc. -- the discussion isn't very productive. The NYTimes article
is disappointing in that respect: it provides little or none of the
information that would help us decide whether the Florida program is a
sensible adaptation to limited resources, or a sad pretense.

I've seen plenty of examples of computers in the classroom doing little good,
and even doing harm (mostly in the form of distraction). In the long run, I'm
optimistic that computers can revolutionize education; in the short run, I'm
pessimistic about most of the efforts going on. This article doesn't tell us
anything about which category the Florida program falls into; without more
data or context, there's not much point in debating it.

------
adolph
The submission title is inaccurate. Some schools are augmenting their
workforce with technology due to unfunded legal requirements, see key quotes
below.

 _Under the state’s class-reduction amendment, high school classrooms cannot
surpass a 25-student limit in core subjects, like English or math. Fourth-
through eighth-grade classrooms can have no more than 22 students, and
prekindergarten through third grade can have no more than 18._

 _School administrators said that they had to find a way to meet class-size
limits. Jodi Robins, the assistant principal of curriculum at Miami Beach
High, said that even if students struggled in certain subjects, the virtual
labs were necessary because “there’s no way to beat the class-size mandate
without it.”_

------
dangoldin
I have a feeling this will lead to even more education inequality based on
socio-economic factors.

I think this approach has promise, and will probably be the standard one in
the future, but this manifestation just seems as if it's being done for cost
reasons.

~~~
tomjen3
Why should it do that? Computers are very cheap and the schools should be able
to buy the software at such a low cost that all schools should be able to
afford it.

Compare this with the situation today where some children are being though by
great teachers and some are being though by horrible teachers.

~~~
akharris
I think that's what dangoldin was saying. Poorer communities will be jammed
with cheap software and computers rather than great teachers.

The software teaching method definitely has merit, but it's not a solution to
"we have overcrowded classes." It's not yet ready for that, and there doesn't
seem to be anyone credible claiming that it is.

This is just the outgrowth of bad policy and not enough funding.

~~~
tomjen3
That assumes they have great teachers now, which is not a given.

If they have bad teachers, even a semi stupid program will be better than
that.

------
michaelbuckbee
There was a really interesting Freakonomics Podcast about NYC's "School of
One" program that is a good counterpoint to what it looks like is happening in
Florida.

They take an algorithmic approach to try to determine what learning style
works best for a kid and continuously test for learning retention and how
quickly new skills are gained.

[http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/freakonomic...](http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/freakonomics-
radio-how-is-a-bad-radio-station-like-the-public-school-system/)

------
rbanffy
Because in Soviet Florida, computer programs you.

Sorry. I could not resist.

Now, on a more serious tone, if this is a cost-cutting measure, why not
embrace the XO as a learning aid? It certainly cost very little and can be
packed with mountains of learning material, much more than it would be cost-
effective to print and ship to schools. Plus, contrarily to the Dells pictured
in the text, students can carry them everywhere and the energy cost of
operating them must be smaller than the cost of operating those CRTs alone.

------
fakespastic
What a terrible idea.

I'm sorry, I know this sounds very low-tech of me, but high-school aged kids
need an authority figure, who is clearly in charge, teaching them material.
Lecturing in-person. Building relationships. I, for one, even at my age,
cannot long burden myself with CBT. People just don't take it seriously
enough. Let's face the reality of humanity: we are what robots will ultimately
become, and some things are just _better_ between humans than between a human
and a computer.

------
sushi
This Ted talk by Sugata Mitra also talks about replacing teachers with
machines. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk60sYrU2RU>

The fast-food delivery of education must change now that we have better tools
to impart education.

~~~
rimantas
I'd say the tools are of the least importance there. Nevertheless, somehow we
tend to think that most problems can be solved just by throwing technology at
them.

~~~
dantheman
Sometimes the only way to address problems with entrenched interests is to
change the playing field, technology can serve this purpose. So instead of
having to fight tons of battles against teachers unions, implements some
technology that drastically weakens their position -- in this new landscape
political battles can now be won.

I of course think school vouchers is the end all be all of school reform since
it allows anyone to open a school and to compete with any ideas that they
think might win...

~~~
absconditus
I have yet to hear a convincing explanation of how technology is the answer to
our education problems.

~~~
dantheman
Depends on what technology.

1\. Books are clearly better than only having lectures - so there's one
example of where technology has improved education.

Depends on educational problems:

1\. What age group are we focusing on? * Adults are clearly different from
teenagers * Teenagers are clearly different than children

A one size approach, probably won't work.

2\. College Lectures are an outmoded form of teaching. It'd better to have the
lecture recorded and perfected, and then allow the student to watch it --
making sure to jot down their questions and then discuss with the professor
and fellow students -- it's a better use of everyone's time and makes the
content available to everyone. In science and math I expect this to be a huge
win at the lower levels where mechanical notation and rules need to be
learned.

As we progress up the abstraction layer to where we need exemplars to train
our ability to recognize patterns I think that computers will still have a
long way to go -- this is where guided direction is important.

3\. When I was a child I had difficulties learning to read, I did some special
classes primarily involving software that significantly improved my reading
ability. I extremely happy I was afforded that opportunity.

------
bugsy
I don't understand how class size is being reduced with people going to
computer labs with no teacher. Isn't the idea of class size that there is at
least one teacher per N students? With these labs there are zero teachers per
N students, which is effectively infinity students per teacher (0).

------
bitwize
[http://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-1-new-
lear...](http://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-1-new-learning/the-
fun-they-had/)

A man can't know as much as a teacher.

