Apology to tech directors

I just re-read my last entry and it sounds like I am beating up on tech directors. This was NOT my intent. Brother and sister tech directors, we are truly caught between a rock and a hard place with our goals. My department's lament (taken from some advertisement) is "maximum expectations with minimal resources." Much of what we want and need to do is frustrated by school administrators, legislators and a plain old lack of funding. From Machines Are the Easy Part; People Are the Hard Part:

If you can't afford the whole cure, don't even start it.

I call this the Antibiotic Law of Educational Change.

If you get a prescription to kill a germ, you are sternly warned to keep taking the medicine until it is gone – not just until the symptoms disappear. If you don’t, the bug can come back, strengthened by new resistance to the antibiotic.

We in education kill ourselves by ignoring this rule. We formulate a budget for a program, a grant, or a project then happily accept less than the full amount of the funding request without changing the promised result. We then get half-assed results that demoralize the participants and increase the skepticism of those who funded us.

Don’t accept project funding if it is not for the full amount or make clear that the reduced amount will affect the outcome, and redefine your objectives.

As a tech director, I am more than willing to take responsibility for some of the unmet demands in the Manifesto below - but not all of them!

Comments

[Guusje Moore]

Oh can I relate to this! My district loves to spend big $$$ on technology and then spring it on their teachers. One of the better ones was EMG - Educational Mangament Group - some sort of interactive television. Sounded great in theory but teachers had to request it a month in advance and we know most teachers don't plan that far ahead. It was also frought with technical glitches. The only legacy of it is the direct telephone line I have into the library, something I bless daily!