Why Is Lower Merion School District Ignoring Its Own Technology Policy?

Established in 1834, the prestigious Lower Merion School District in leafy, middle class Ardmore, PA is one of the oldest public school systems in Pennsylvania.  LMSD’s 8,700 students attend 6 elementary schools, 3 middle schools, and 2 high schools. Ardmore’s poverty rate is less than 5 percent, and the median home value is almost a half-million dollars.

LMSD has been working for over fifteen years toward fully implementing 24/7 access to free computer screens for all children in its middle and high schools.  In a community where over 90 percent of homes have broadband access and over 70 percent of its population have college degrees, this plan had overwhelming support 10 years ago, just as the first peer-reviewed evidence began to surface that heavy doses of screen time are toxic to normal child development. Even as the science on the evidence of harm continued to mount, the LMSD continued to move forward with building its curriculum around 24/7 access to computers. 

Then, in 2025 the American Psychological Association concluded that "spending too much time on screens may cause emotional and behavioral problems in children—and those problems can lead to even more screen use. . .”  

APA’s sweeping conclusion is based on in part on an international meta-analysis of research studies on the effects of screen time on children. From APA’s Press Release last year:

. . . The findings suggest parents might want to be cautious about what screens they allow and use parental controls to manage time, said Noetel. He also noted that kids who use screens heavily might need emotional support, not just restrictions. Parents could benefit from programs helping them handle both screen use and emotional problems.

“This comprehensive study highlights the need for a nuanced approach to managing children’s screen time,” said lead author Roberta Vasconcellos, PhD, a lecturer at the University of New South Wales who conducted the research while a doctoral student at Australian Catholic University. “By understanding the bidirectional relationship between screen use and socioemotional problems, parents, educators, and policymakers can better support children’s healthy development in an increasingly digital world.”

Because every study in the meta-analysis followed kids over time, the research is a big step closer to cause‑and‑effect (as opposed to correlation) than the usual snapshots done at a single point in time, according to Noetel.

“It’s about as close as we can get to causal evidence without randomly cutting screens for thousands of kids,” he said. “But still, we can’t completely rule out other factors—like parenting style—that could influence both screen use and emotional problems.” 

Given the growing body of evidence recommending caution in screen exposure for children, LMSD has doubled down on its technology plan for 24/7 screen access, even as over 400 parents have signed a petition put forward by the grassroots group, “Pencils Over Pixels” (POP).POP considers itself pro-child, rather than anti-technology, and parents of the group demand that LMSD examine the scientific evidence on the effects of screen exposure on children.  

Citing LMSD School Board policy (Administrative Regulation R137, Attachment D), POP is requesting that their children be allowed to opt-out of the District’s technology requirements. 

In the event that the parent/guardian of a student, or the student themselves if the student is over 18, decline to participate in the One-to-One Electronic Device Initiative by refusing to sign an Agreement for Electronic Device Use, the building principal shall be responsible for making necessary accommodations for the student to ensure that the student’s education is not adversely affected. Such accommodations may include access to printed resources and access to building based electronic devices in areas such as Libraries and Help Centers.

Apparently, LMSD Superintendent Dr. Frank Ranelli sees no reason to abide by the Board approved Regulations.  During a March 2026 policy meeting, he told parents requesting to opt out their children,  "We do not have that opportunity for you to do that. Our curriculum is delivered the way it’s delivered, and part of that curriculum is done with electronic devices.”

If I were an LMSD school board member, I would be questioning this position, particularly in light of the potential legal exposure that could result from ignoring published scientific evidence regarding the harm to children associated with screen time.

 

Philly Education Street Talk at the Eagles Super Bowl Celebration

from Wrench in the Gears
February 9, 2018

Given the outgoing School Reform Commission’s plans to vote to spend almost $20 million dollars next week on corporate computer-based curriculum and data management by Pearson, the celebratory Eagles Super Bowl parade seemed like a perfect time to go out and ask Philadelphians how they would use the money instead. It’s time we started listening to the voice of the people. It was a great experience that made me so appreciate the wonderful human connections that are possible in our city. If you want to build a movement, education is critical and it can happen many places, including the streets. After watching this video I encourage you to share it with others who value human teachers over data and algorithms.

Click here to view the video.

$20 million: Teachers vs. Data in Philadelphia

 

Will "smart" cities lead to surveilled education and social control?

from Wrench in the Gears
July 28, 2017

A growing number of metropolitan areas are being shaped by “Smart” City policies. Bloomberg Philanthropy’s “What Works Cities” aims to bring these programs to mid-size cities as well. Even in communities without explicit “smart” initiatives, “innovation” or “empowerment” zones are being proposed, often around school districts, enabling outside interests to sidestep existing legal and contractual protections under the guise of “autonomy” and “flexibility.” I hope the information I’ve pulled together will reveal how “smart city” and “learning ecosystem” interests often intersect and encourage others to think critically about similar programs in their communities. It is important to consider digital classrooms as nodes of smart cities. Classrooms touch the lives of many, and thus are logical places to begin normalizing the idea that as citizens it is our duty to generate and hand over massive quantities of personal data that will supposedly shape policy for the “public good” and manage our economy.

Smart Cities are defined by their reliance on digital technology across government functions and the use of sensor-transmitted data to regulate provision of public services. The high cost of installing such networks, monitoring data, and maintaining the systems, especially in our current climate of austerity, means municipalities will increasingly look to partner with private companies and outside investors to provide basic public services. I anticipate “smart city” policies will fuel social impact investing. There is a belief that investments in “efficient” technologies will yield future cost savings, and therefore such infrastructure projects could become significant profit centers for venture capital.

Click here to read the entire article.

Scholarchip IDs: Convenience but at what cost?

from Wrench in the Gears
June 9, 2017

I’m grateful to the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools for keeping tabs on the Philadelphia’s School Reform Commission’s monthly meeting agendas. They recently alerted me to a resolution about student ID cards, that in turn started me thinking about ubiquitous computing, digital classrooms as nodes within Smart Cities, and the role big data, payment systems, public-private partnerships, and Blockchain ledger-based finance could play in Ed Reform 2.0.

The SRC passed the Philadelphia School District’s 2017-18 budget last month, and the upcoming meeting on June 15 is packed with resolutions for new contracted services. Among these is a 5-year, $6.5 million contract with Scholarchip, the company that manages the district’s student ID and automated attendance system. Philadelphia is transitioning to a new student information system, Infinite Campus. A perfect name for the learning ecosystem age; no need to restrict learning to schools when the entire city can be your “campus.” One reason the district gave for deciding to extend Scholarchip’s contract was their use of smart card technology.

*****

Scholarchip handles student ID cards for private schools, and their payment gateway system is set up for tuition payment plans. The learning ecosystem of the future will have different requirements than the traditional voucher. There will be no up-front, lump-sum tuition payment, because the plan will be for students to chart their own educational pathways as they go along, cobbling together a combination of online and community project-based options. For that reason the industry needs a mechanism, like a card (or at some point even a chip in your finger? See Eggers The Circle) that can handle micropayments to multiple providers. In all likelihood those money transfers will be linked to meeting academic or non-cognitive student performance measures through a Blockchain or smart contract process. I’m sure those pushing ledger-based educational finance will say that it offers security, transparency and accountability, but at that point the process of education simply becomes transactional. Students’ lives are digitally transferred to the ledger, and the money follows the child and his or her performance in a very public way.

Even more concerning is the resolution’s off-hand reference to putting student health conditions onto a smart card, especially given the push to gather social-emotional data on children through gamified classroom behavior management apps and surveys.

Click here to read the rest of the article. 

Also see:

The Silicon Valley Billionaires Remaking America's Schools

The New York Times - June 6, 2017

 

The Silicon Valley Assault on Children's Learning

For almost 200 years, snake oil salesmen have hawked their wares to schoolmen and to educators, hoping to cash in on the public dollars that taxpayers have intended to help educate the young.

Through the selling of textbooks, reading machines, TVs, test scoring equipment, audiovisual aids, and computer technologies, corporate America has been responsible for the creation of a massive and expanding educational dustbin, now chocked with lucrative "educational solutions" that, at some point, successfully located educational problems that fitted the need of their solutions.

Only in recent years, however, have education industry merchants expanded their marketing efforts to sell educationally-unrelated goods directly to children in school.  Wall Street's favorite bow-tied super-boy, Chris Whittle, broke ground in the early 1990s, when he brought TV news to the classroom with Channel 1, along with TV ads for Skittles, Snickers, etc.

Whittle even proposed the marketing of textbooks with these same ads and others that appeal to children.  Thinks of it: Turn to page 67, just under the Coca-Cola ad, and read along with me . . .

Now a generation later and with computer technology/cell phones accepted as essential elements of  life on Earth, the high priests of Silicon Valley have come up with a new story board for the future of corporate intrusion into schools and the exploitation of the most vulnerable humans--our children.

Google, Apple, and billionaires like Reed Hastings, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates have a multi-pronged strategy at work to capitalize on today's children and tomorrow's adults by turning learning environments into marketing research hothouses and massive data collection opportunities, which can be used now and later to laser target products and services to individuals who do not even know yet that they want them.

The new personalized learning empire that tech oligarchs are pushing represents a criminally-cynical abuse of corporate power directed at children to channel, contour, and shape the preferences, values, and neurological wiring of present and future consumers of information, goods, and services.  If allowed to flourish, the new "learning systems" will deliver the kinds of social control and efficiency that have been dreamed of for generations, along with unimaginable profits for the high priests of Silicon Valley.

This story in the Times should be shared widely by teachers, teacher educators, school board members, policymakers, and parents everywhere.  Here is a clip:

. . . . Unlike Apple or Microsoft, which make money primarily by selling devices or software services, Google derives most of its revenue from online advertising — much of it targeted through sophisticated use of people’s data. Questions about how Google might use data gleaned from students’ online activities have dogged the company for years. 

“Unless we know what is collected, why it is collected, how it is used and a review of it is possible, we can never understand with certainty how this information could be used to help or hurt a kid,” said Bill Fitzgerald of Common Sense Media, a children’s advocacy group, who vets the security and privacy of classroom apps. 

Google declined to provide a breakdown of the exact details the company collects from student use of its services. Bram Bout, director of Google’s education unit, pointed to a Google privacy notice listing the categories of information that the company’s education services collect, like location data and “details of how a user used our service.” . . . .

Out of School Time Learning, A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

by Wrench in the Gears
May 10, 2017

Digital education, pitched to parents as innovative, future-ready, and personalized, reduces student access to human teachers and builds robust data profiles that can be used for workforce tracking, behavioral compliance, and fiscal oversight. While adaptive online learning is a key element of the Ed Reform 2.0 agenda, it is not the only concern. Another issue that merits close attention is the push to expand “out-of-school time” (OST) learning programs.

Increasingly states are passing credit flexibility legislation where students have the option to earn school credit for activities that take place outside school buildings and without the direct involvement of a certified teacher; though teachers are often pressed to manage the associated paperwork with no additional resources. These are known as ELOs, extended, expanded, or enhanced learning opportunities. States with credit flexibility may also allow online classes to be considered for ELO credit. Even when not offered for credit, out of school time partners have stepped in to provide programs that have been intentionally and systematically stripped from the curriculum through the imposition of punitive austerity and accountability measures. Increasingly, student access to art, music, drama, creative writing, and enrichment activities, particularly in low-income and turnaround schools, is contingent on tapping into programs offered by community-based organizations (CBOs).

I’ve written previously about ELOs but wanted to raise the issue again after obtaining correspondence via an open records request to the Pennsylvania Department of Education regarding input provided on the development of the state’s new education plan as required by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). One letter stood out from the rest. You can read it HERE.

Click here to read the entire article.

Automated Education + Chasing Skills + Debt = Social Control

from Wrench in the Gears
April 15, 2017

I posted the scenario below in November of 2015 as a Facebook note. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve come across a number of items having to do with skills, automation, and human capital management, so I thought I would pull it back out to share. Below are a couple of articles that caught my eye:

Article 1: New Tools Needed to Track Technology’s Impact on Jobs, Panel Says by Steve Lohr of the New York Times

Article 2: The EIDCC, The Experience Graph, and the Future of Human Capital by Shelly Blake-Plock of Yet Analytics

I’m a parent activist, not an educator or economist. But after reading and listening to a wide range of sources, I came up with the construct below. In the 18 months since I wrote it, many indicators seem to confirm this is where we are headed. I’d be interested in hearing your feedback and welcome comments explaining how this is all wrong.

Originally posted to Facebook November 2015:

Emily Talmage noticed a connection between ed reformers, those funding CBE, and student loan financing. I was thinking about it today, and I think I see how it will play out. Follow the money. Who stands to gain?

1. Move to the idea of online credentialing. Call it standards-based skills mastery, etc. Get everyone on board with CBE.

Click here to read the rest of the article. 

Global Finance Needs Our Schools to Fail

by Alison McDowell
@ Wrench in the Gears
April 7, 2017

Yesterday Peter Greene expanded on an idea I’d put forth a few months back that Competency Based Education (and really all digital curriculum) was a way of gradually turning neighborhood public schools into charters from the inside out. I encourage you to take a few minutes to read his piece “Charterizing From Within.” I’m glad this proposition is making it out into the world and finding a wider audience. However there are still many who doubt CBE / Personalized Learning / Blended Learning etc. will ever take hold. This despite the fact that adaptive “personalized” learning systems are popping up all over the country each passing day.

Doubters say virtual schools and e-learning don’t “work.” So there; it won’t happen. But therein lies the problem. Many assume that a system that “works” is one designed to serve the needs of children and society as a whole. The present system, however, is being increasingly twisted to serve the interests of global capital markets. When you look at it through that lens, the “failure” of CBE is actually “success.” Succeeding by creating failure moves the ball forward for those who seek to kill the old system and create a new educational paradigm, one custom-built for profit.  That is why global capital needs our schools to fail. Comprehensive dismantling of public school districts across the nation will throw open the doors to a new age of social impact investing. If you’re not familiar with the the term yet, please set aside time to read “Impact Investing and Venture Philanthropy’s Role in Sowing the Seeds of Financial Opportunity” carefully. Take the time. It’s important.

In the aftermath of the failure that has been intentionally created, venture capitalists will install learning ecosystems in the place of neighborhood schools. These diffuse networks of online and badge-based learning opportunities will be structured for maximum social control, surveillance, and behavior management (the nudge) as well as financialization. Children will no longer be children, but rather commodities to be monitored in real time (Internet of Things), bet upon and securitized.

Below is a comment I left on Peter’s piece. I’ve shared it a few places, and some found it helpful, so I thought I would blog it here today.  I fully anticipate New Profit will be a central character in the drama that is unfolding. Below is a list of grants they’ve received from the Gates Foundation since 2014, $23 million+.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

How exactly did the Department of Defense end up in my child's classroom?

 

from Wrench in the Gears

You cannot fully understand what is happening with Future Ready school redesign, 1:1 device programs, embedded assessments, gamification, classroom management apps, and the push for students in neighborhood schools to supplement instruction with online courses until you grasp the role the federal government and the Department of Defense more specifically have played in bringing us to where we are today.

In 1999, just as cloud-based computing was coming onto the scene, President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 13111 and created the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative or ADL.

Section 5 of that order set up “The Advisory Committee on Expanding Training Opportunities” to advise the president on what should be done to make technology-based education a reality for the ENTIRE country. The intent was not only to prioritize technology for “lifelong learning,” but also shift the focus to developing human capital and in doing so bind education to the needs of industry and the economy.

Representatives of Cisco Systems and Jobs for the Future co-chaired the committee. Others around the table included the e-learning industry, student loan financiers, educational testing companies, human resource managers, labor market analysts, universities, community colleges, chambers of commerce, city government, and a futurist. George Bush incorporated Clinton’s work into Executive Order 13218, the 21st Century Work Force Initiative, the following year giving the effort a bipartisan stamp of approval. The Obama administration continued this push for online learning in the National Broadband Plan, which contained an entire chapter on digital education, as well as through a variety of 21st century school redesign efforts like ConnectEd, Future Ready Schools, and Digital Promise.

ADL began as an electronic classroom for the National Guard and later expanded to serve the entire Defense Department. In 1998 the government decided to use it for ALL federal employee training. And by leveraging its influence over federal contracting the government successfully pushed for standards that enabled wide adoption of cloud-based instructional technology.

Click here to read the entire article.

 

Mass Customized Learning Comes to Central Pennsylvania

This post was originally written this past fall as a FB note, but I am posting it here now so that it can be more widely available.

“Inevitable: Mass Customized Learning” is a book and an educational program developed by education theorists Charles Schwahn and Bea McGarvey. Is is one of a number of “personalized” digital education programs popping up in schools across the country. The program, implemented in several communities in Maine, has been widely criticized and resulted in large numbers of teachers leaving those districts. Concerns included the fact that there are no traditional grade levels or letter grades, students could advance only upon “mastery” of the standards, and that instruction was highly-fragmented as teachers were meant to be “guides on the side.” Ultimately it was impossible to provide the level of differentiation required by the program.

I have known for some time that CBE or “personalized” hybrid-blended learning is being incubated in south central PA. It first popped up in the Johnstown/Bedford area and now seems to be creeping over into Lancaster, York, and Harrisburg. It is being pushed by Appalachian Intermediate Unit 8. The Intermediate Unit is working in concert with the Pennsylvania Leadership Development Council. PLDC has close ties to Dusquene University via Pat Crawford (professor of education emeritus and now Director of Professional Development for the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators) and Franny Serenka Associate Professor and Director of the School Administration & Supervision Program in the School of Education. Crawford presented at Mass Customized Learning conferences in South Dakota in 2013 and in Maine in 2014.

Besides the fact that that area is a bit out of the way and less high profile than other districts, I could not figure out why south-central PA was being targeted. Now I think I have now found the link. The push for mass digital learning came when Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 13111 that created the Advanced Distributed Learning program. ADL jump started technology-based education for the Department of Defense and the Federal Government, but the plan was always to scale it for general use in K12 education. One of the first tasks was to create a coding system to manage the “learning objects” and that would support the “learning management systems.” That first program was called SCORM. It took until the mid 2000s to be widely adopted. Later, they wanted to expand the types of data that could be aggregated, so they transitioned to a more sophisticated and flexible software called Tin Can or xAPI. It was created by Rustici Software out of Tennessee. This slideshare goes into detail about how educational data is tracked across learning environments.

The thing that made everything “click” tonight is Aaron Silvers. Silvers now works for ADL and does a lot of training for xAPI. According to his LinkedIn Profile, before coming to ADL, he was Chief Learning Officer for Problem Solutions, which is (BINGO!) based in JOHNSTOWN, PA. Problem Solutions is a MAJOR contractor to ADL and they are very much involved with the transition to “learning eco-systems.”  This is how Problem Solutions describes what they do:

Click here to read the entire article.

Personalization or Profiling? Childhood in the Ed-Tech Era

from Wrench in the Gears
October 30, 2016

As states pull together their plans for ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) it's important for parents and teachers to understand what the next phase of education reform looks like. This slide share presented at the Movement of Rank and File Educators' Social Justice Curriculum Fair in New York City recently provides a good introduction. Click on the graphic above for the slide show and be sure to explore the links that are included.

Trade you a backpack of badges for a caring teacher & well-resourced school.

from Wrench in the Gears
October 10, 2016

This is the third in a series intended to describe the process by which education reformers are transitioning us from neighborhood schools to learning eco-systems. For additional background you can read “From Neighborhood Schools to Learning Eco-Systems, A Dangerous Trade” and “Questions We Should Be Asking About Future Ready Schools.”

Since the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act, the drumbeat for “innovative,” “personalized” education has grown stronger and more insistent. Key to the successful implementation of Education Reform 2.0 is convincing the public that education in school buildings with certified human teachers is obsolete. The No Child Left Behind Act laid the groundwork. It created increasingly hostile working conditions for teachers, inhumane learning conditions for students, and emphasized standards and test scores above all else.

While the public was sold a story that national standards were about ensuring equity for all children, parents of children enrolled in predominately low-income districts know that is not true. Time and time again we have seen that the standards-based accountability frameworks established under NCLB focus on outputs, NEVER inputs. These laws did not secure additional resources for children in need. They were designed to raise expectations for college and career readiness while kneecapping, through ongoing austerity budgets, our schools’ ability to meet our children’s most basic needs. Imposition of Common Core State Standards, value-added measures, high school exit exams, third-grade reading guarantees, test-score based “turnaround” policies, data-walls, and the like, have gradually institutionalized a punitive, data-driven approach to education across our country.

So what exactly does that have to do with badges? Well, data-driven education and badges go hand-in-hand. It makes sense once you realize the end goal is to replace our current system of public education with individualized pathways geared to “anytime, anyplace, any pace” learning mediated largely through technological devices that collect and aggregate educational data. The data is all aligned to The Common Educational Data Standards and now xAPI or Tin Can has replaced SCORM to make collection of online and offline educational data easily trackable.

This is not limited to K12 or even P20, the powers that be envision this process of meeting standards and collecting badges to be something we will have to do our ENTIRE LIVES. If you haven’t yet seen the “Learning is Earning” video-stop now and watch it, because it makes this very clear. Badges are representations of standards that have been met, competencies that have been proven. Collections of badges could determine our future career opportunities. The beauty of badges from a reformer’s perspective is that they are linked to pre-determined standards and can be earned “anywhere.” You can earn them from an online program, from a community partner, even on the job. As long as you can demonstrate you have mastery of a standard, you can claim the badge and move on to the next bit of micro-educational content needed to move you along your personalized pathway to the workforce.

In this brave, new world education will no longer be defined as an organic, interdisciplinary process where children and educators collaborate in real-time, face-to-face, as a community of learners. Instead, 21st century education is about unbundling and tagging discrete skill sets that will be accumulated NOT with the goal of becoming a thoughtful, curious member of society, but rather for attaining a productive economic niche with as little time “wasted” on “extraneous” knowledge as possible. The problem, of course, is that we know our children’s futures will depend on flexibility, a broad base of knowledge, the ability to work with others, and creative, interdisciplinary thinking, none of which are rewarded in this new “personalized pathway/badging” approach to education.

Click on this link to read the entire article in Wrench in the Gears.

Philadelphia charters show the way to CBE

A report on a Philadelphia TV news show about what is in the works with Competency Based Education. Since there is greatly reduced whole class instruction, there is no collaboration, no debate, no critical thinking. It's like farm factories which engineer their plants and animals to create the desired product for the market. The Philadelphia School Partnership has a portfolio of schools that are experimenting with CBE.

Philadelphia charter hands over tracking student progress to Mission Control | CBS Philly

Also see:
Netflix Billionaire Reed Hastings' Crusade to Replace Public School Teachers With Computers | Alternet