Computer Software in Schools Is Inadequate, Study Says

Teachers are getting more computers in their classrooms, but they have to wade through stacks of CD-ROMS and computer diskettes that do not meet their students’ needs, a report said recently.

Although government officials declare school technology a national mission and pledge to connect every classroom to the Internet, they are not investing enough time and money in software, the report concluded.

“Technology Counts,” a survey of the nation’s teachers and state education technology policies, appeared in the newspaper Education Week. “Politicians wire the classrooms and think they are done,” Publisher Virginia Edwards said. “But that’s not the case at all.

Teachers reported that the available learning software material does not match state or school district standardized tests, cannot run on underpowered classroom computers, consumes too much instruction time and can cost too much.

“I wouldn’t give many of the [software] titles a 9 or a 10,” said Ed Adshead, a network resource teacher who helps colleagues with computers at Patrick Henry Elementary School in suburban Washington. “We have to hunt for it and then we find it isn’t nearly as good as it looked like or what it was described as.”

Overall, 71% of the nation’s 86,000 schools can reach the Internet from at least one classroom. The report said that of the nation’s 53.2 million students, there is an average of nearly six for every “instructional computer,” including older models without extras such as sound cards and video.

Cost is a problem in effectively using computers, 80% of the teachers surveyed said. Also, 47% said their computers were too weak to run the best software.

“It’s more expensive to fix these than to buy new ones,” said Adshead, pointing to a cart of assorted outdated computer parts.