A national group of educators, doctors and children’s advocates flung itself in the path of the technology-in-schools bandwagon Tuesday, saying that billions spent on equipping and wiring classrooms is fueled more by parent fears and corporate sales pitches than any real evidence of computers helping children learn. Instead, computers pose hazards to young children such as eyestrain and obesity, while robbing them of the creativity, human relationships and hands-on learning key to their development, according to the report, “Fools Gold: A Critical Look at Computers in Childhood.”

Written by the Alliance for Childhood and supported by more than 80 educators and child-development experts — including professors at Stanford and the University of California-Berkeley plus primate researcher Jane Goodall — the report calls for an immediate moratorium on adding computers to classrooms so the presumed benefits and hazards can be studied in depth. “To speak against computers is considered blasphemous, not only in Silicon Valley but around the country,” said Lowell Monke, an alliance founding member and assistant professor of education at Wittenberg University in Ohio. “It’s time for a few heretics to stand up and say we need to look at this more closely. We can’t just sit on this bandwagon charging down the road with our public funds and our children.”

The report cites existing research that shows computers have little effect on academic achievement and studies of early childhood development. It received mixed reviews locally, in the heart of the technology movement. Larry Carr of the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group said fostering creativity and computer skills in children are not mutually exclusive. “We do need to produce very well-rounded students who know how to problem-solve, think critically and work in teams,” said Carr, director of education and workforce preparedness. “Technology can be another tool in teaching all those skills. “While the benefits of computers may not have scientific support, University of California-Berkeley psychologist Alison Gopnik, author of “The Scientist in the Crib,” said neither do the claims of the alliance. Still, she said, “Playing with building blocks is more profound intellectually than anything a child could do in front of a computer.” Nevertheless, the report thumbs its nose at technology as the holy grail for public education, a widespread belief that drove President Clinton to hook up classroom computer lines on the first Netday in 1996 and Gov. Gray Davis to call for a dramatic tripling of the state money spent on technology in schools.

In other circles, California is often chided for having just one computer for every 14 students statewide, compared with the national average of one computer per nine students. A recent report card by kids in Common, a local child-advocacy group, gave Santa Clara County a D in providing children access to technology. “You may be doing less damage,” Monke quipped of California’s lag in exposing kids to computers. “We have to stop looking at this issue in terms of quantities of computers in schools. We have to realize education has to be developed around sound principles, and draw technology in where it’s appropriate.”

According to the report, money is being bled from already minimal course offerings to pay for expensive, “unproven technology.” Some of that money could address more pressing issues that affect learning in low-income communities, such as quality child care, preschool, nutrition and lead poisoning. “Nearly 1 million children live in lead-poisoned housing whose health and educational opportunities are being jeopardized, and we know how to remove that problem,” said Edward Miller, co-author of the report
and former editor of the Harvard Education Letter. “It just takes the political will to solve them.”

The report also charges the politics surrounding the “high-tech-for-tots agenda” is heavily weighted with the viewpoint of high-tech executives, who stand to gain from the sales of their products in schools. “Wiring and computerizing America’s schools is an urgent priority — not for children, but for high-tech companies that need to constantly expand their markets,” the report states. Sun Microsystems Vice President Kim Jones denies that profit is the sole motivation for corporate involvement in schools. She said her company made no money by organizing Netday, a volunteer effort in 1996 to wire 12,000 California schools to the Internet. But she says rather than eliminating technology, the industry needs to make it simpler to use.

“I agree 100 percent that technology has not been very effective in the classroom,” said Jones, who oversees global education and research. “I would tend to agree with them that probably studies should be done.” Miller said corporations aren’t the only force driving the frenzy. “It’s fear on the part of parents who themselves feel threatened and uncomfortable with technology,” he said. “They want their children to succeed in school and in life. They see people making huge amounts of money in technology and think…the earlier the better for their children. But that’s what’s fallacious.”

Real-world learning

The report recommends that elementary education return its focus to hands-on, real-world learning and that older students learn not only how to use a computer, but how it works and the ethical and social implications of technology. It also calls for the U.S. surgeon general to do a full report on the physical, emotional and developmental hazards computers pose to children. “It will not stop the tidal wave of technology,” said Larry Cuban, a Stanford professor and former president of the American Educational
Research Association. “It will get more people talking about it when there has been virtual silence among policymakers about the uses and consequences of technology in schools.”