The problem with education in 2025

(it's technology)

The problem with schools right now is the reliance on technology and 1:1 devices. If you’re not familiar, when you see the “1:1” phrase written, it means “one to one”; one device to one student. Each student has a device. This was becoming more common pre-Covid, but covid pushed it forward kind of like a tidal wave.

Two or three decades ago, students made trips to the computer lab in classes. (This is when, you’ll remember, we played Oregon Trail.) It was treated as a special, like P.E., art, or music. You had an assigned time each week and a couple of computer labs per building. It may have even been optional. I can recall specific computer labs in a few of my schools…if you wanted to do research or have them type a paper or report, you used your computer lab time. Everything else was paper-based.

When I left teaching in 2018, that was still the model. I recall that my classroom had maybe five individual chromebooks that students could use as a center or station. I guess we used them sometimes? I don’t remember.

When I returned to the schools in 2020, I was in a wealthier district but it was 100% 1:1. Preschool-1st grade had iPads and 2nd-9th (it only went up to 9th) had Chromebooks. Everything was run through Google Classroom. It was the virtual hub. Because of germs, paper was discouraged. Everything was supposed to be digital. Because the quarantining protocols, students had to be able to have their classroom with them at home. I’m not saying I didn’t learn a lot, but I am saying the quality of how I was able to teach was diminished. Lunch counts, morning check-ins, assignment turn-ins, reading passages, math problems…all of it was done on the device. All of it. This was, though, teacher-specific. Some teachers tried to use more paper, pencils, and books. But regular library books or classroom libraries were a no-go. The library was completely shut down because of germs (you can insert “ “ around germs if you want). Books were, essentially, banned. All reading had to be online. There *were* textbooks but they weren’t required to be used if there was another way (going to the curriculum’s website, for example).

I could write about that school year forever, but the point is that from that moment onward, it was 1:1. My next school was 1:1. It was “radical” for me not to require students to take their devices home each day, and it was agreed that “only for imminent snow days” did chromebooks and chargers have to go home in 2021-2022.

In 2023, I went to a rural, high-poverty school to teach. Again, it was 1:1. In fact, because of their impoverished status, the grants for devices rolled in faster than new chromebook carts. In 13 months, I had received 5 complete sets of chromebooks. You see, in order to keep the grants, you have to continually upgrade your devices. There’s a rotation system that pushes the newest devices into the classrooms that focus on state testing. The life of a chromebook under heavy student use is probably 12 months anyway. (If you’re unfamiliar, the running joke is that a chromebook is like a laptop that never works.)

“1:1” is the key though.

The more a school touts 1:1, the more the community believes it to be on the right track because tech is seen as expensive and valuable and forward-thinking.

The more technology a school incorporates, the more a parent believes their child is being prepared for modern life.

The more a teacher utilizes apps and online platforms, the more administration sees them as amiable and willing to continue learning the new practices.

In reality: these students aren’t being taught anything via chromebook. It’s a toy for everyday use and a tool for state-testing.

I think we need to ask serious questions of schools:

Why is the state or government entity funding technology for schools but not textbooks? Why not curriculums? Why not proper training for curriculums? Why is it *just* tech devices? Why is it *just* online platforms that track student progress in, you guessed it, online tests throughout the school year?

Why have we stopped requiring students to write, and don’t even properly teach them to type, and then expect them to be proficient on a keyboard?

Why are testing companies using computers for tests? They were exclusively paper-based as recently as 10 years ago. Now you’re seen as inferior if you request paper (likely a penalty is involved).

I know much of this is anecdotal but it’s a fact that students learn better on paper than on a computer screen. That’s proven. It’s also a fact that the number of students I’ve had who don’t know where to put their name on a piece of notebook paper or know which side is “up” in a notebook has increased from 0 to at least 50%, by the time I get them in my class, in the last 15 years. My goal in the first few weeks of school was to teach them how to write on the lines in a notebook. Success level was high after repeated explicit instruction. But such a basic school-related soft skill can’t be measured on an online testing platform.