The Next Social Contract for Public Education Needs New Terms of Service

Based on universal access to free and equal schools, the
social contract for public education equates the attainment of a high school
diploma with readiness for college, meaningful participation in the workforce,
and the rights and responsibilities of adulthood. Yet, for too many students,
this social contract is a raw deal, based on shaky assumptions about equity of
opportunity in a digital age and with no guarantee of a return even for those
who are able to abide by all its provisions.

As
New America’s Lindsey Tepe has suggested, it is time to reboot the social
contract for public education. We must revisit our assumptions about and expectations
for schools as public institutions in a digital age, about the preparation and
work of educators, and about the roles for students and families themselves. There
is every reason to expect that both entrepreneurs and enterprising educators will
continue to generate new and compelling ideas about how to effectively address the
challenges facing public education through technology, and for this we should
remain optimistic and hopeful.

Yet, at the same time, we must remain clear-eyed and
recognize the ways in which technology also introduces new issues and potential
threats to the promise of public education. What we need are terms of service
that provide every student and their family assurances that their interests
remain at the fore, no matter what technological genie may spring from the
bottle.

In my view, at least four such assurances are needed in a
digital age:

1.   
We must
ensure every student has access to the digital tools they need to succeed in
school. Any fair discussion of equity of opportunity in education in the
digital age must include the issue of student access to computers and the
internet – both at school and during the school year, as well as outside of
school and over the summer. From textbooks to tests and from research papers to
group projects, public education is in the midst of a sea change in how it provides
learning opportunities to its students, in the tools it offers, and in what it expects
its educators and students to use.

Accompanying the commitment to
provide universal access to learning technologies for learners must be a
parallel effort to ensure that all students have the age-appropriate skills to
use those tools to meet their educational goals, including knowledge of basic
computer operations, computer programming, and media and information literacy
concepts. The goal is to ensure that students can take best advantage of the
powerful learning tools at their disposal wherever their academic and career
aspirations may lead them.

2.   
We must
address conflict of interest in decision-making about technology in public
schools. If technology is to play a significant role in the new social
contract for public education, it is long past due time for us to launch a
national dialogue on the issue of conflict of interest in schools. As parents,
we entrust our children to the public education system in the belief that the
decisions made by educators, administrators, and policymakers are in the best
interests of our children. As taxpayers, we expect schools to make financially
responsible choices, impartially, and on the basis of evidence – and to be
accountable for those decisions. And, we expect that those in public service
will be guided – not by any personal or professional interest or future ambition
– but by a real commitment to the primary beneficiaries of education’s social
contract: students themselves.

It is for those reasons that it may
be hard for some to fathom how commonplace potential conflicts of interest are today:
public educators proudly promote their allegiance to technology brands on their
social media profiles, accept gifts from school vendors, and are encouraged to
commercialize and sell their lesson plans online; technology company
representatives routinely speak at education conferences to make the case for
why their solutions are best; and, it is hardly unusual for administrators and
policymakers to be invited to attend lavish private events with technology
company representatives to discuss the future of education and how their
solutions may best be suited to meeting student needs. Indeed, for some in
education, the payoff to public service appears to be found in being recruited
to serve as a corporate brand ambassador to schools. One is left to wonder
whose interests are being served in the current situation and whether public
and private interests may already be too intertwined to disentangle.

Abstract ethical considerations
aside, what is at stake for not attending to these issues of conflict of
interest? Declining trust in educators, schools, and education leaders may be
the smallest price we pay.  More tangible
costs result from ill-considered decisions that can result in the waste, fraud
and abuse of public funds. Most concerning are decisions that have a negative
impact on student outcomes (whether academic or social) or in more extreme
circumstances even jeopardize the health and well-being of children and
youth. 

3.   
We must
guarantee clear, universal, and enforceable privacy rights for students. One
of the great promises of the increased adoption and use of technology in public
education is the availability of new tools to collect and analyze data about
how best to meet the individual needs of students, support educators, and
allocate scarce resources. Each of these broad purposes is valuable and
important, and few would argue with the proposition that we need more
high-quality information and research to guide decisions about school reform
and improvement efforts and about how to personalize instruction.

While some data collection efforts are managed
by academic researchers or are directly under the control of schools,
increasingly schools (and in some cases individual educators of their own
accord) are relying on or recommending external service providers who use
technology to collect and analyze data involving students at unprecedented
levels of granularity. Once collected, data about individual students may be repurposed,
combined with other data sources, and used in ways to predict behavior that does
not benefit students or may even cause them injury or harm today or at some
point in the future.

Therefore, while the new social contract for public
education in a digital age can and will be strengthened by an increased
reliance on the automated collection and use of data about learning, it must
not at the same time be silent on the privacy rights of students. The patchwork
of current laws and regulations remains riddled with gaps and in most cases holds
neither schools nor vendors sufficiently accountable for their behavior. Students
should not have to trade their privacy in exchange for a free, high-quality public
education.

4.   
We must
ensure that all instructional materials – no matter their form or medium – remain
available for public inspection and review. The articulation of academic
standards for students by elected and appointed public school officials is
nothing less than an expression of community values and collective future vision
for the country. For that reason, states and school districts have long
provided parents and community members with the opportunity to review
standards, curricula, and instructional materials up for adoption by local
schools. While this is an imperfect process and often treated as a necessary
evil, there are myriad examples where this public review process has helped to
identify and remediate errors of fact and bias.

As traditional textbooks are replaced by
their digital counterparts and software is used to supplement or even
substitute for educators, the terms of service of the new social contract for public
education must not walk back the commitment to public review and inspection of
instructional materials designed to help students acquire the knowledge, skills
and abilities embodied in publicly adopted academic standards. There simply is
no room for instructional black boxes in public education. Digital
instructional materials must be subject to public inspection to ensure accuracy
and freedom from bias and – in the case of software applications – that the
software code treats data about student learning responsibly, securely, and
transparently. Moreover, the use of learning analytics and algorithms that
substitute for human judgment about students should be subject to independent
review and validation.

There is every reason to be optimistic about the future of
public education in a digital age. Technology will help us address many of the
core challenges of school reform and improvement in novel ways. At the same
time, it will introduce new challenges. It is for this reason that we must
undergird the new social contact for pubic education with terms of service that
provide assurances that no matter what may change due to technology that
students interests will always remain at the fore of our decision-making.