President Obama wants to spend $90 million on ARPA-ED, an Advanced Research Projects Agency for Education. The goal is to fund porjects that will “transform teaching and learning in ways similar to how the Internet, BPS, and robotics have transformed commerce, travel, warfare, and the way we live our daily lives.” This is generally interpreted to mean “let’s put more technology into education.”
My view? Before we put more technology into education, let’s make sure that educators and the existing educational process are valued. Let’s put $90 million (and then some) into increasing teacher salaries. If teachers were paid what some lawyers are paid (if teachers were paid even half of what some lawyers are paid!), we’d have amazing schools, and we’d turn out incredible students. All the cool technology in the world won’t improve education if we don’t have high quality well paid teachers delivering education in well supported schools.
Valerie Barr
CSTA CT Task Force Chair