It is a factor outside of education that Moe believes is the real game-changer: the rapid expansion of information technology. Moe believes, as he and John Chubb argued recently in their 2009 book, Liberating Learning, that technology has the power to weaken the unions by fundamentally changing the way that schools operate. Schools are heavily dependent on human capital—that is, teachers. Technology is beginning to enter classrooms and perform some, though not all, of the tasks for which teachers have always been required. Interactive software can not only supplement, but eventually replace, a portion of teacher-based instruction. Over time, technology could make it so that schools require fewer teachers and thus fewer union members. Moe makes a bold prediction that someday soon, this is going to happen.
Jeff Johnson on 28 Jul 08New research published in the journal Science confirms what all of us teachers have known for a long time: girls are just as smart as boys. I hope none of our tax dollars went into that one. A quick quote from the article before I get into the more interesting findings from the researchers: Overall, the researchers found "no gender difference" in scores among children in grades two through 11. Among students with the highest test scores, the team did find that white boys outnumbered white girls by about two to one. Among Asians, however, that result was nearly reversed. Hyde says that suggests that cultural and social factors, not gender alone, influence how well students perform on tests.
