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Articles by Alex Molnar
Time for a Pause: Without Effective Public Oversight, AI in Schools Will Do More Harm Than Good.
Ignoring their own well-publicized calls to regulate AI development and to pause implementation of its applications, major technology companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Meta are racing to fend off regulation and integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into their platforms. The weight of the available evidence suggests that the current wholesale adoption of unregulated AI applications in schools poses a grave danger to democratic civil society and to individual freedom and liberty.
We Need Better Education Policy. Summit Public Schools Shows Why.
Summit Public Schools (SPS), a California-based charter school network established in 2003, is widely promoted nationally as a success story to be emulated. A policy environment friendly to charter schools and digital technologies, together with hundreds of millions of dollars in technology industry contributions, enabled its growth and its national visibility.
Virtual Schools in the U.S. 2023
Over the past two and a half decades, digital technologies and virtual education have moved quickly to the top of the K–12 public education reform agenda. Proponents, including business leaders, school reform organizations, foundations, and for-profit and nonprofit service providers, argue that virtual technology will revolutionize teaching and learning, dramatically reduce the cost, and expand the availability of high-quality education.
De-escalating ‘dataveillance’ in schools
Technologies meant to promote student safety may also invade their privacy and treat them as threats to be managed, rather than learners to be cared for. If the transformations in K-12 education over the last two decades had to be encapsulated in a single phrase, “data-driven” would surely be a top contender.
Da legst di nieder!
Diesen Sommer entdecken viele Menschen das Camping wieder. Wenn die deutschen Zeltplätze an Ost- und Nordsee überfüllt sind, lohnt sich ein Blick nach Österreich. In der Alpenrepublik gibt es noch einige unentdeckte Ferienziele. Lesen Sie weiter mit Tagesspiegel Plus Nie waren verlässliche Informationen wichtiger Exklusive Inhalte für Tagesspiegel Plus-Leser Der preisgekrönte Tagesspiegel Checkpoint Ohne Risiko: Jederzeit kündbar Schon Digital-Abonnent? Hier anmelden
Perspective | New report provides reality check on virtual schools
But online learning has been with us for years before the coronavirus pandemic in the form of virtual schools, many of them operated by for-profit organizations. The growth of these schools has been tracked since 2013 by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC), a nonprofit education policy research center located in the School of Education at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Alex Molnar recommends an Urban Review piece
The professional journal for educators Search The person in the curriculum The Urban Review, 8 (3), 191-201. September 1975. By James Macdonald James Macdonald, my doctoral adviser at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, has had a major influence on my work. He saw curriculum design and teaching as moral acts, and he placed the person at the center of the curriculum.
Kappan authors ponder the role of business in schools - kappanonline.org
Businesses have long had an interest in schools, both as venues to educate future employees and as places to sell their goods and services. But to what extent does the business community’s desire to make money influence what goes on in schools? Kappan authors have raised that question numerous times over the years, with both businesspeople and educators weighing in.
Federal policy and the push to privatize education - kappanonline.org
Getty Images Under Republican and Democratic administrations alike, the federal government has encouraged the outsourcing of core parts of public education’s work. Both in the United States and around the world, the 21st century has seen a massive expansion of efforts to privatize educational services that were formerly provided by public agencies and school systems.
Keeping an eye on the global education industry: A conversation with Anna Hogan - kappanonline.org
Kappan’s editor talks with Queensland University researcher Anna Hogan about the rapid growth of commercial activity in Australia’s schools and in school systems around the world. PHI DELTA KAPPAN: In this issue of Kappan, we explore the relationship between private industry and public education, focusing mainly on the selling of goods and services to schools in the United States. But, of course, the U.S. isn’t the only place where the private sector has become a major player in public education.
Buyer beware: Using external providers to improve schools - kappanonline.org
What should schools, districts, and states know about the organizations they hire to support school improvement efforts? Whether they’re seeking to improve instruction, revamp their curricula, or provide more social-emotional support, schools with limited staff time and resources often turn to outside experts for help.
Perspective | New concerns raised about a well-known digital learning platform
The Summit platform markets itself on its website as a “complete, customizable, standards-aligned curriculum for grades 4 -12 in core subjects” that “comes with hands-on projects, teaching and learning resources, as well as assessments — all of which are customizable by educators.” In recent years, concerns about student data privacy have been raised, and there have been protests in multiple places by students and parents objecting to the digital learning culture that it fosters.
Institute for New Economic Thinking
Widespread criticism of elites and their ‘experts ’ raises questions about how economists should perceive their role, and what role societies should give them.
Personalized Learning and the Digital Privatization of Curriculum and Teaching
Personalized learning programs are proliferating in schools across the United States, fueled by philanthropic dollars, tech industry lobbying, marketing by third-party vendors, and a policy environment that provides little guidance and few constraints. In this research brief, authors Faith Boninger, Alex Molnar, and Christopher M. Saldaña consider how we got to this point.
NEPC Resources on Class Size
Find Publications by Topic ----- Please select topic -----Accountability and Testing (158)Affirmative Action (5)Assessment (32)Charter Management Organizations (22)Charter Schools (131)Class Size (32)Classroom Teaching and Learning (26)Community Schools (9)Computing, Technology, and Information Systems (28)Corporate Involvement in School Reform (18)Curriculum and Teaching (81)Democracy and Education (24)Discipline Policy (14)Diversity: Race, Ethnicity, Class, Culture, and/or Gender (163)Early...
Asleep at the Switch: Schoolhouse Commercialism, Student Privacy, and the Failure of Policymaking
Digital technologies used in schools are increasingly being harnessed to amplify corporate marketing and profit-making and extend the reach of commercializing activities into every aspect of students’ school lives.
How companies learn what kids secretly want while they’re doing their homework
If you have children, you are likely to worry about their safety — you show them safe places in your neighborhood and you teach them to watch out for lurking dangers. But you may not be aware of some online dangers to which they are exposed through their schools. There is a good chance that people and organizations you don’t know are collecting information about them while they are doing their schoolwork. And they may be using this information for purposes that you know nothing about.
How Companies Learn What Children Secretly Want
If you have children, you are likely to worry about their safety – you show them safe places in your neighborhood and you teach them to watch out for lurking dangers. But you may not be aware of some online dangers to which they are exposed through their schools. There is a good chance that people and organizations you don’t know are collecting information about them while they are doing their schoolwork. And they may be using this information for purposes that you know nothing about.
How Companies Learn What Children Secretly Want
If you have children, you are likely to worry about their safety – you show them safe places in your neighborhood and you teach them to watch out for lurking dangers. But you may not be aware of some online dangers to which they are exposed through their schools. There is a good chance that people and organizations you don’t know are collecting information about them while they are doing their schoolwork. And they may be using this information for purposes that you know nothing about.
How companies use school educational software to sell to children
But you may not be aware of some online dangers to which they are exposed through their schools. There is a good chance that people and organisations you don’t know are collecting information about them while they are doing their schoolwork. And they may be using this information for purposes that you know nothing about.
How Companies Learn What Children Secretly Want
Digital data points are collected from children by private companies that provide educational technologies to teachers and schools. Getty Images/Hero Images If you have children, you are likely to worry about their safety – you show them safe places in your neighborhood and you teach them to watch out for lurking dangers. There is a good chance that people and organizations you don't know are collecting information about them while they are doing their schoolwork.
How companies learn what children secretly want
If you have children, you are likely to worry about their safety – you show them safe places in your neighborhood and you teach them to watch out for lurking dangers. But you may not be aware of some online dangers to which they are exposed through their schools. There is a good chance that people and organizations you don’t know are collecting information about them while they are doing their schoolwork. And they may be using this information for purposes that you know nothing about.
How Media Outlets Got Hold Of Orlando Shooter's Student Records
Perhaps you were among those who were curious but somewhat surprised to find the Orlando shooter’s student records and grades published by various outlets last week. Usually, a federal student privacy law known as FERPA (the Family Education Records Privacy Act) would prevent a state or local agency or a school from releasing information to the press — even if the journalists filed a FOIA request for the information. However, that wasn’t the case here.
Enabled by Schools, Students Are Under Constant Surveillance by Marketers
BOULDER, CO (May 17, 2016) – Schools now routinely direct children online to do their schoolwork, thereby exposing them to tracking of their online behavior and subsequent targeted marketing. This is part of the evolution of how marketing companies are using digital marketing, according to a new policy analysis.
MPS School Board should reject proposal to increase class size
On March 10, Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Darienne Driver announced that she was proposing to increase class size in grades 1-3 in the 64 Milwaukee schools participating in Wisconsin's Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) class size reduction program. Modified in 2015 by Wisconsin Act 53, the SAGE program is now called the Achievement Gap Reduction (AGR) program.
State Sen. Alberta Darling's recovery district idea is designed to fail
For more than 35 years, the main prescription for what ails Milwaukee's schools has remained constant: school choice. In the 1970s and 80s, specialty and magnet schools were going to integrate MPS. In the 1980s and 90s, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program was going to empower African-American parents through vouchers.
Virtual Schools in the U.S. 2015: Politics, Performance, Policy, and Research Evidence
This 2015 report is third in a series of annual reports on virtual education in the U.S.. It is organized in three major sections. Section I examines the policy and political landscape associated with virtual schooling and describes the current state of affairs related to finance and governance, instructional program quality, and teacher quality. The authors analyze to what extent, if any, policy in the past year has moved toward or away from their 2014 recommendations.
School Reform Proposals: The Research Evidence
In order to clarify what we know about effective public schools, the Education Policy Studies Laboratory (EPSL) at Arizona State University invited a group of distinguished education scholars to review the research on a series of education reform topics. The following literature reviews are the result. Some reviews focus on specific proposals that are proffered for making public schools more effective.
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