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Parents and students in Kansas have concerns about the Summit Learning program

nytimes.com

1–10 of 28 posts

Re: Parents and students in Kansas have concerns about the Summit Learning program

#3
This school is so lacking in funds, they can't even guarantee ten minutes of time with a teacher per week? That's over 200 students per teacher. The new program likely has some problems, but I'd guess the change is just highlighting how bad it was before. Except the student with epilepsy, that's ridiculous.

Re: Parents and students in Kansas have concerns about the Summit Learning program

#4
> “There’s people who don’t want change. They like the schools the way they are,” she said. “The same people who don’t like Summit have been the sort of vocal opposition to change throughout the process.”

It makes sense that the company would respond this way: those who oppose them aren't customers, just the people forced to use the product.

Re: Parents and students in Kansas have concerns about the Summit Learning program

#5

This school is so lacking in funds, they can't even guarantee ten minutes of time with a teacher per week? That's over 200 students per teacher. The new program likely has some problems, but I'd guess the change is just highlighting how bad it was before. Except the student with epilepsy, that's ridiculous.

It’s Kansas. Public education funding was gutted.

That said, the number of parents working in Silicon Valley who would send their kids to a school that worked like this is very low. The closest thing would be Alt-School which pretty much failed.

So on one hand, the hypocrisy is annoying. On the other hand, these schools have no money so maybe this helps them stay open at least.

Re: Parents and students in Kansas have concerns about the Summit Learning program

#7

The idea that children should spend their days staring at screens and never interacting with other human beings seems really sick. But oh so on brand for the Valley.

It fits into the narrative that the Zuckerburg's want for their target market -- a peron that you can track everything they read and learn and consistently target with ads all day long.

Re: Parents and students in Kansas have concerns about the Summit Learning program

#8

This school is so lacking in funds, they can't even guarantee ten minutes of time with a teacher per week? That's over 200 students per teacher. The new program likely has some problems, but I'd guess the change is just highlighting how bad it was before. Except the student with epilepsy, that's ridiculous.

It’s Kansas. Public education funding was gutted. That said, the number of parents working in Silicon Valley who would send their kids to a school that worked like this is very low. The closest thing would be Alt-School which pretty much failed. So on one hand, the hypocrisy is annoying. On the other hand, these schools have no money so maybe this helps them stay open at least.

>That said, the number of parents working in Silicon Valley who would send their kids to a school that worked like this is very low

I wouldn't be so sure of that. Many people prefer self directed and independent learning. And the reality is that once you're out of college effectively all learning happens that way.

Re: Parents and students in Kansas have concerns about the Summit Learning program

#10

The idea that children should spend their days staring at screens and never interacting with other human beings seems really sick. But oh so on brand for the Valley.

It's not just the Valley, it's also the model of traditional schooling. The majority of classroom time in many places is spent sitting quietly and listening to a teacher lecture.

Of course we all understand why school is run this way, but the alternatives would cost a lot more money. Isn't that the story of life everywhere...

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