Mixed results/no results from educational software

by David Safier

Ask any company selling educational software, and they'll show you studies pointing to strong academic gains from students who use their products. But for every study they point to, three others show little or no gains for students who use their software versus those who don't. And the company's favorite studies are often badly flawed.

So says an article in today's NY Times. But where a profit is to be made, a great sales pitch will be found. And too many administrators, wanting to look like they're on the cutting edge of educational innovation, bite on the sales pitch without administering the proper measure of healthy skepticism.

If this doesn't add heft to skepticism about the wonders of ed software, nothing will. The Apollo Group — the for-profit University of Phoenix folks — just bought one of the big ed software producers, Carnegie Learning, for $75 million. U. of Phoenix, as you know, is a money making, not a philanthropic organization. It makes its bucks selling enrollment in its colleges to students, whether they will benefit or not. And it will surely use similar tactics selling ed programs to school districts, benefits be damned. There's gold in them thar computers.

The conservative "educational reform" movement is big on computer-based learning, whether it be virtual schools, which have students sitting at home glued to computers 4-6 hours a day, or the new buzz-term "blended learning," where you cut a school's staff back and have students spend half their time using ed software in a computer lab and the other half in the classroom.

No, it's not because conservatives are interested in the best possible education for students. It's because their beloved computer based models combine privatization and profit. If their ideas happen to help students, that's fine. But even if they don't, conservatives and their corporate friends win, since they make money while they move education further into the private sector and further away from government and unionized teachers.

Computers and educational software are obviously going to play an increasing role in education, as they should. But, to make an analogy, we can acknowledge the boon society reaps from ever better pharmaceutical drugs without singing the praises of every snake oil huckster who climbs on an orange crate and tries to sell you "Apollo's Amazing Elixir."