January 4, 2012 – With the New York Times’ series on “Grading the Digital School,” the controversial role of technology in classrooms has taken a temporary, center-stage position in the national conversation about education reform. The most recent Times’ story focuses on Idaho teachers who are resisting a state law mandating that “all high school students … take some online classes to graduate, and that the students and their teachers be given laptops or tablets.” According to the story, teachers’ concerns are three: 1) Teachers have not had input into the decision-making process; 2) Teachers have not been properly trained on how to effectively use technology in the classroom; 3) The benefits of technology-enhanced teaching and learning methods are unproven.

At the foundation, we hold out high hopes for the potential of technology to help every teacher address every child’s individual learning needs. We think the right technologies, especially those that supply teachers with real-time, contextual data about student needs, have the potential to radically empower teachers to successfully educate both the lowest performers and the highest achievers. But our experience working with educators nationwide has also taught us that no solution can succeed without teacher support and that no real changes can occur unless teachers receive adequate training on how to apply new techniques in the classroom. Moreover, like the teachers in Idaho, we believe that innovative teaching approaches should be tested and evaluated – with a laser focus on how they affect the quality of student outcomes – before being adopted wholesale in any every classroom statewide.