Technology Innovation and Public Schools

My kids have been home schooled. Not for religious reasons. Personally, I have been conflicted about it, but my wife and kids have enjoyed the flexibility and the bonding it brings.

My daughter has decided she wanted to go to high school at a proper school. We signed her up for a private school, but she decided she wants to go to a public school.

As a parent, you go "gulp" - there is so much negative you hear about schools these days. Florida does not have a great reputation for public schools - since we do not have a state income tax (We do better at colleges since we have long allocated funds from the lottery to that education and were early to offer parents a prepaid college program). The reputation continues in spite of fact that Newsweek ranks 5 Florida schools in its top 10 nationwide schools

So I was delighted to hear Christian Schuh (who works in technology for a large global company) tell me how happy he is with the school system his kids are in.

“We are lucky in Palm Beach, FL county to have a school district that offers a slick solution to allow parents to manage their children's educational progress pro-actively: Edline, a secure web-portal where teachers post assignments and grades, accessible by both students and parents, with their respective secure logins. My kid no longer has the option of not telling me about a bad grade on a quiz or homework or test. I already know it before I get home (heck, before he gets home), as my inbox alerts me to a new grade having been posted. Bad performance can be addressed before it becomes a trend, and since the students know this, the system helps drive behavior. Parents can make good decisions as to if and when to engage teachers or counselors. I think it's a great system worth propagating.”

This article describes more about Edline - and other areas his school district is leveraging technology to improve education - and frankly, make it more interesting for students. IBM was a major employer in that county till recently and helped the tech focus at the school district.

But it is good to see technology spread in schools across the country. The school my daughter plans to go to has 1 computer for every 4 students, all web enabled. It is good to see students getting fit through use of technology. Students and parents - ebay style - rating their teachers. Students using iBooks instead of paper text books. And many more ideas at bottom of this article.

Nice to see our younglings take advantage of the technology bounty we have around us. And, unpleasant as the conversation is, how we are using technology to improve security and safety at schools.

Christian's other advice is also great - "Parents have to be engaged - rather than treating education as a government deliverable with guaranteed results". As we get ready to "outsource" our daughter's education, we have to remember you have to work hard with the vendor to deliver to the SLA.