The PTO dilemma

No man ought to looke a geuen hors in the mouth. —John Heywood, 1546.

Our school district is blessed with active, involved parent/teacher organizations. These groups of dedicated parents raise funds and then use those funds to supplement district-purchased resources. And trust me, we as educators are grateful.

The problem comes when there is also a district goal to create equity among buildings, especially in regard to technology access. Disparities arise when different PTOs have differing abilities and desires to raise funds and when they have different priorities for how those funds are spent. Some buildings become quite technology-rich with the help of their parent organizations, while other buildings get by on what the district and building budget can provide. 

Too often people view resources acquired through means other than district funds (grants, foundation gifts, PTO donation, fund raisers) as "nice extras" not as essential. If educational technology is viewed only as a "nice extra," I suspect many teachers and administrators will not regard it as a serious educational tool. If we genuinely believe technology can help students learn, why would we provide technology to some students, but not to all?

So when PTOs offer to purchase technology for a building, how should we respond? Are there some tech purchases that can be made but allow us to still maintain equity of access for all kids across the district? What if...

• All PTOs contribute to a single district-wide project or resource. Were all PTOs across a district to put their funds into a single pot which then could be used for district-wide purchases, equity would be increased. Let the PTO support e-book collections that are accessible to all kids. Let them contribute to an initiative that puts more student devices in all classrooms. Let them fund equipment for maker-spaces in all libraries. (In my experience, PTOs are not likely to accept this kind of plan.)
• PTOs fund technologies that the district is planning to purchase in the near future. If the district is planning to put voice amplification systems in all classrooms over a period of years, PTOs could contribute to doing this in individual buildings so kids get the benefit of the technology early. Possible, but not likely.
• PTOs fund staff grants for innovative uses of technology. I have a teacher who wants $600 to use Mindcraft stuff to investigate collaboration. Cool project, but there is no pot of district money to support such a project. What if PTOs were to fund well-articulated grants that had stated goals, metrics for measuring success, and means of diseminating the lessons learned from the funded projects. I think I like this one best.

Often times parents have a greater faith in the power of technology to help educate than do educators themselves so they encourage the use of PTO donations to acquire it. It's happened for the past 25 years in my experience and I doubt it will go away soon.

How do you handle PTO offers of technology purchases in ways that maintain equity of access?

Who speaks for Intellectual Freedom in schools?

Intellectual freedom is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. It provides for free access to all expressions of ideas through which any and all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored. ALA

Who in your school understands and values the concept of Intellectual Freedom (IF)? What percent of teachers and students could define it and argue either for or against its main principle?

With the loss of school librarians, I fear what I suspect are the already low numbers of educators who understand and value intellectual freedom will fall. I have no faith that programs that train network and computer support people will address this issue. Are college degree programs in educational technology addressing IF? (I really don't know.) A quick search of the ISTE website provided no hits on the topic.

AASL has long been trying to promote IF. Helen Adams, an active advocate and retired school librarian from Wisconsin, writes "... while I was chairperson, the AASL Intellectual Freedom Committee created an IF brochure in 2008 and revised it in 2010. ... parts are out of date, but it could be repurposed."

 

 

Description from the AASL website:

Brochure created by the AASL Intellectual Freedom Committee available for download, duplication, and distribution. It describes why intellectual freedom is important in a school library program, the difference between selection and censorship, what to do before a challenge occurs, where to obtain assistance during a challenge, why schools filter and how it affects students intellectual freedom, and how the ALA Code of Ethics affects school librarians.

As I see school librarian positions being replaced or rebranded as "digital learning specialists" or "technology integration coaches," I worry about three real very real losses. The first is that teachers and students will lose a source of information and leadership on powerful reading improvement strategies focused on individualization of reading materials and personal interests. The second is that staff and students will no longer have access to experts who can teach information literacy skills.

But most of all I worry that the sole proponents of intellectual freedom for both students and staff will be eliminated. 

There has never been a more critical time to understand and support intellectual freedom. The news media is highly politicized on both the left and the right. Technology allows us to select and read only the articles and columns that support our own opinions. Critical thinking takes a back seat to "basic skills" in many students' classrooms.

I hope ALA re-writes its brochure to address:

• Internet filtering issues as much as it does materials in print format
• freedom of expression of opinion, not just freedom of access
• enlarging the target audience to include all educators, not just librarians, and
• ALA working with other professional organizations in its efforts to promote IF. 

Thanks to Helen and all hard-working proponents of IF. I am worried you have your work cut out for you.

BFTP: These horses are out of the barn

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. - Arthur Schopenhauer

There are some educational "truths" that we can't change, even if we wanted to. These educational technology resources, annoyances, and conditions are here to stay despite some educators denial, resistance and fast grip on the status quo. The sooner educators, especially tech directors and administrators, accept that these things are a permanent part of the educational landscape, the sooner attention will be paid to using them positively and productively.

Here is my short list of things that just are not going to go away...

• Cellphones/Smartphones in schools
• Student-owned netbooks, laptops, tablets in schools and their distracting qualities
• Deficiencies in Internet filters
• Web 2.0 tools - wikis, blog, Nings, Flickr, Delicious, etc...
• Wikipedia
• GoogleSearch
• Term paper mills
• Filter work-arounds for the social media app du jour
• YouTube
• Tasteless websites loved by middle school students
• Gaming in education
• Demand/expectation for public wi-fi access by students, staff and visitors
• E-books, especially e-textbooks
• Music downloading
• Open source software
• Texting short hand
• Off site applications and hosting - ASPs and cloud computing
• Computerized testing
• Budget inadequacies, budget scrutiny, budget justifications
• Online classes and online schools

These horses are gone, boys and girls, and there's no putting them back in the barn.

Get over it.

Figure out ways to saddle the horse and ride it.

Original post November 23, 2009