‘Straw Man’ Fallacy Obscures the Real Issues

The Alliance for Childhood calls on the Consortium for School Networking to retract inaccurate statements in its response to Tech Tonic

The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), in its response to the Alliance for Childhood’s new report, Tech Tonic, seriously distorts the Alliance’s findings and conclusions. (CoSN’s response, which was published in eSchool News Online, is posted at http://www.cosn.org/about/press/100404.cfm)

CoSN sets up a straw man—the false accusation that the Alliance for Childhood is “anti-technology”—and then knocks it down. But it is CoSN, not the Alliance, that paints a black-and-white picture of technology in education, by pointing only to positive uses—usually based on faith rather than proven experience—and ignoring the facts about the costs and dangers of an uncritical belief in technology as the solution to every educational problem.

The Alliance recognizes the essential role technology has played in human history. We propose a more developmentally sound way of introducing children to the critically important questions of whether and how we will take control of our technologies to ensure that they are used to serve justice, democracy, and ecological sustainability in an increasingly fragile world.

An Appalling Lack of Evidence

Current approaches to technology education, supported by CoSN, the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), and the U.S. Department of Education, emphasize the use of advanced technologies by every child and every teacher from kindergarten on up. Yet as Tech Tonic documents, there is an appalling lack of research evidence justifying this massive and costly experiment, particularly if one looks for long-term, cost-effective gains. Just this year, Susan Patrick, head of the Office of Educational Technology at the Education Department, admitted that evidence for the effectiveness of high technology in education was lacking and that “despite a decade of investment, most achievement indicators are flat.”

We do not conclude that “technology inherently makes a less humanistic or caring or nurturing environment,” as CoSN claims. Tech Tonic does not even address that issue. Our report raises a different question, which CoSN completely ignores: what are children’s actual basic needs and how can parents and educators thoughtfully employ the full range of technologies to meet those needs?

CoSN’s statement that Tech Tonic says technology “should not be part of children’s environment” is a gross misrepresentation. The Alliance recognizes that advanced technologies are an important part of human life today. We are simply saying that we have not seen evidence of lasting benefit from their use with young children, and we think a much more creative and thoughtful approach is needed in the use of advanced technologies in middle school and high school.

CoSN Ignores Children's Real Needs

Younger children’s needs are better served by a broader definition of “educational technology” than CoSN’s, which is limited to expensive advanced electronics. The Alliance for Childhood, along with the National Academy of Engineering and the International Technology Education Association, argues that early education and parenting practices that encompass the full spectrum of tools and techniques are more developmentally sound and more cost-effective. CoSN’s view is not about what children need; it’s about what high-tech corporations need.

CoSN states that educational technology enables “human connections.” We argue that connections mediated by machines are often superficial and that emphasizing virtual reality in childhood makes little sense when children desperately need real connections to physically present adults.

As for CoSN’s statement that technology can help create collaborative work environments, the Alliance agrees. Indeed, Tech Tonic includes numerous examples of older students creatively using technology in this way to promote environmental responsibility and a just society. One purpose of Tech Tonic is to encourage these kinds of thoughtful uses of technology instead of the wasteful, ineffective, and potentially harmful practices now being aggressively promoted by the high-tech industry.

Who Is Behind CoSN?

Keep in mind just who CoSN is. While it calls itself an association that represents school district technology leaders, its 75 corporate partners include many of the largest technology vendors in the country—including Microsoft, Dell, IBM, and Intel. CoSN’s efforts to make sure billions of taxpayer dollars will buy unproven technology for schools have been enormously successful. The extensive financial and political connections between education officials and school technology vendors are documented in Chapter 3 of Tech Tonic. We urge citizens to wake up to the pernicious and increasing influence of corporations in policymaking for public education.

Educators and journalists should also be aware that Education Week, a major national source of news about elementary and secondary education, is another of CoSN’s corporate partners. It is disturbing that this respected publication, which ought to be independent and objective in reporting on technology education issues, is instead part of a lobbying group promoting a one-sided agenda that benefits wealthy corporations at the expense of children’s real educational needs.

The Alliance for Childhood calls for a long-overdue reassessment of our assumptions about technology in children’s lives, and for a more balanced and sensible approach to nurturing healthy children. We invite the Consortium for School Networking to retract its inaccurate statements about Tech Tonic, to explain how its financial entanglements with major technology vendors serve the public interest, and to engage with us in an open and continuing exploration of these issues.

Joan Almon and Edward Miller
Alliance for Childhood