Technology and Teaching

Thanks for printing David Klein’s excellent piece, “CSU Planning Unholy Alliance” (Jan. 11), detailing potential intrusions of the private sector into academic life at Cal State University campuses posed by the California Educational Technology Initiative [CETI] project, a proposed partnership with technology giants like Microsoft.

As a Los Angeles Unified School District teacher, I was especially chilled by Klein’s prediction that “professors would be rewarded for marketing products to their students.” That would be as distasteful to me as bowing down to the politically correct gods we have now. With LAUSD’s growing infatuation with computers as a cure for its inability to manage education, our district will be vulnerable soon to falling for a CETI-type panacea. Many schools already have well-funded computer labs, and they are making exactly zero difference in our students’ ability to master skills. Why don’t the telecommunication giants open their own schools, and turn out as many technical-support people as they can employ? That might be useful.

DOUGLAS LASKEN

Woodland Hills

* While some of Klein’s concerns about “unholy” corporate alliances are commendable, I would urge educators to stay focused on their most important goal: improving the quality (and accessibility) of education for all students.

I disagree with Klein’s oversimplified statement, “Surfing the Internet has about the same educational value as channel surfing on television.” While working on my MBA at Cal State Northridge, I found the Internet to be a wonderful way to gather data for papers and to research current events without the frustrations of commuting to campus and digging though antiquated libraries that never seem to have the book you’re looking for.

Perhaps the real problem is that CETI is too drastic a change for an institution that doesn’t have the infrastructure to manage a for-profit enterprise, especially using technologies they probably don’t understand. Why not start by improving the existing structure?

JANICE FERA

Calabasas