My kids' 'free' school cost me $2000 today

This Dad is not a fan of parents spending money on devices for their kids to take to school. Especially when there’s no choice in the matter…

I’ve just had the dubious pleasure of shelling out the better part of $2000 so two of my (public) high school age kids can be properly equipped to receive education this year. No, I wasn’t buying solid gold pens and Cartier school bags. I was buying something much less useful. Apple iPads. And I couldn’t escape the nagging feeling that all I was really doing was providing them with weapons of mass distraction.

In the 2007 federal election campaign, Kevin Rudd promised that if he were elected Prime Minister, he’d spend $1 billion giving every high school child (in years 9 to 12) a laptop with high-speed internet access.

Rudd was elected and he came good with the promise. Six years later, 967,000 laptops had been handed over to high school students (at a cost of $2.4 billion, but you didn’t really believe it would be done on budget, did you?).

My Grade 12 child was the beneficiary of this free(ish) program, so I don’t have to buy him a computer, just pay all the extra fees that weren’t covered by Kevin’s promise (like the extra support and networking needed). Unfortunately the free(ish) computer gravy train stopped at the 2013 Budget station and was never seen again. It was unceremoniously axed by a government that had bigger bills to pay.

The reason for the cash splash (according to the 2008 budget papers) was ‘to prepare one million secondary students for the jobs of the future’.

Parents love computers in schools (especially if they’re free), so the move was a sure-fire vote-winner.

Teachers also generally regard computers as a Good Thing to have in schools, even if they can’t immediately think of anything to do with them.

And of course kids think it’s just terrific that they can spend class time taking care of important business on SnapGram and InstaChat (or whatever).

So while it was very nice of the government to spend our tax dollars buying overpriced laptops (for us to service), unfortunately it established the expectation that if your child doesn’t have a computer in their schoolbag they’re not receiving an education. This means that schools are now expected to continue laptop programs even though they have no funding for the machines or the people needed to service them.

The inevitable consequence is that parents are being asked to stump up the cash. This will make public education even less ‘free’ than it was before and private education, well, not really making much difference to that at all.

That’s not to say computers can’t be used to do useful things in a classroom. They most certainly can. But the research suggests that simply sticking computers into a class that was otherwise failing to perform (which according to the latest international results is a pretty accurate description of the average Australian classroom) is unlikely to fix the problem – or change anything (other than the thickness of your wallet), really.

Computers are tools just like chalk and blackboards. Having the tool isn’t sufficient. Using it well is the key to obtaining a meaningful benefit.

Obviously, using a computer significantly enhances your ability to learn skills that require a computer. It stands to reason you’ll definitely learn programming and word processing more quickly if you have a computer to practise on. But beyond that the benefits are not exactly mind-blowing.

Some types of tutorial program in some subjects can fill in the gaps for a poor teacher but none of the voluminous research on computers in school has shown they can outperform a good teacher. Even then, they are very dependent on the capabilities and training of the teacher. If the teacher doesn’t know how to use the tool to get a result then it is unlikely to happen by magic (which, by the way, was the budget item that teacher training was filed under).

Worse than that, the device itself introduces a massive source of potential distraction. Now I know this doesn’t apply to my kids (who are angels) but I hear there are some children out there who may be tempted to look at something other than textbooks and tutorial programs on their new iPad. Facebook, Snapchat and Skype seem to feature heavily in the stuff I see on the laptop screen while my year 12 student is ‘studying’.

We didn’t have 16 ways to communicate with the person sitting next to us in my day, but even the humble calculator could be pretty damn defocusing (well, at least until we all got sick of typing 80085 anyway).

The country is $2.5 billion worse off and many parents are now looking down the barrel of a one (or more) gorilla bill to start the year. Indeed there is a very good chance that all we have achieved is to inject a massive distraction to the classrooms already struggling to keep kids focused on learning. And that is putting aside the massive equity issues this introduces by creating digital haves and have-nots.

Have we just done the equivalent of requiring every driver to send text messages while driving (and force them to purchase a phone to do it with)? And if so, how about we just, not do that any more.

Blackboard and chalk anyone?

Are you required to buy your kids devices at their schools? Would you, or do you think it's too expensive for most families?

 

David Gillespie's latest book, Free Schools?, offers a guide to parents for choosing the right school for their kids without costing a fortune - and draws some interesting conclusions. David investigates the education system and challenges our most common assumptions - particularly the idea that high-fee private schools deliver better results.