Save the Libraries, Save the Public School System: Examining Free Internet within K-12 Education

-- By SamuelPittman - 27 Nov 2024

Conjoined in Conversation: Internet and the Learning Forum

This semester has required evaluating the value of a free internet within our society. The conversation surrounding the medium in which a free internet is utilized has proved just as relevant, especially when considered in an academic setting.

The internet is utilized as a surveillance tool in the Law School. The eradication of library access alters how students collect, organize, store, and access informational materials such as books, legal journals, and newspapers.

Looming over the conversation on how to combat the erosion of privacy and maintain freedom for students within the internet society is the impact emerging technology has on K -12 education.

This essay aims to offer an additional consideration. When reconciling how to implement better technology for K-12 students’ utilization we must also consider how we sustain the public school system, especially in the face of the “School Choice” movement.

This essay argues a free internet will be possible in our public school system only if public schools are sustained as institutions. Alternatively, the status quo of for-profit learning tools and underfunded public schools will cause detrimental harm to the potential for free internet and respect for students’ freedom.

Chromebook Learning: An Academic Computing Device or a For-Profit Scheme?

Access to technology has changed the landscape of learning.

K-12 students carry around a Chromebook laptop to accompany their studies as soon as 5th grade. The Georgia Department of Education refers to the integration of Chromebooks into the classroom as: “Chromebook learning." Many local school districts have woven such language into the state curriculum.

Assignments are turned in using a Chromebook. Software that monitors levels of “student productivity” is more common. Students are taught to conduct a Google search in lieu of consulting an encyclopedia. The COVID-19 pandemic all but solidified the shift toward Chromebook learning. Nearly all public schools in the United States closed by the end of March 2020.

As a result of Chromebook learning, intellectual curiosity has taken a hit. Students consult a Chromebook instead of engaging with a librarian. Academic research is conducted under the supervision of ChatGPT? . Essays are written with A.I. software.

Moreover, disparities in some parts of the U.S. are getting worse – especially when considering the disparities between high and low-income areas implicating racial and ethnic minorities.

Thus, the influence of Chromebook learning, which is fundamentally rooted in for-profit learning, has devastating consequences on K-12 learning.

A Three-Dimensional Approach: Sustaining Public Schools in the Face of School Choice

The paradigm of Law, Politics, and Technology provides a basis for analyzing how the internet impacts our society. The paradigm also intersects with privacy: secrecy, autonomy, and anonymity.

However, a free internet cannot be the stop-gap solution for mitigating the harm of Chromebook learning.

Implementing free internet which protects the privacy of students is the starting point but cannot be the endpoint of our conversation. Especially when considering the 54 million students in the U.S. who attend a public school.

Students can utilize computers to benefit their learning and maintain respect for their privacy. Yet, the forum in which students learn is critical and under attack. With most K-12 students learning in the public school system, the free internet should be considered in conjunction with the institutions it’s utilized.

Education and the forum in which it is conducted are not outside the scope of the legal context. U.S. case law has confronted the forum of education throughout history: Brown v. Board of Education, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, Engel v. Vitale, and West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette. The list of case law is by no means exhaustive but illustrative of the point that the forum of learning has been historically relevant to conversations surrounding the intrinsic value of education.

The internet students utilize has fallen into the hands of private tech companies. However, the institutions in which students pursue have fallen into the hands of Trump's presidency. The GOP platform calls for “universal school choice.” Interpreting what school choice entails doesn’t require too much reading between the lines.

The school choice movement is the blueprint for gutting public schools. Trump’s Agenda 47 aims to eliminate the Department of Education, which coordinates federal assistance to education and provides programs such as Title I.

The tension between Law, Politics, and Technology is illustrated in the school choice movement, the Trump administration's plan to dismantle the Department of Education, and the seeping influence for-profit learning has on our public school system.

Software engineered to facilitate fee communication, safely and securely must be examined with an additional dimension. If we consider an internet founded in the preservation of privacy in conjunction with the institutions a free internet interacts with, establishing software we can trust takes on another dimension.

A Free Internet is Only as Good as Our Institutions

Free and open-source software which is inexpensive and immune from the whims of government has immense value. But so do the institutions which intersect and interact with the internet.

Chromebook learning, the potential dismantling of the Department of Education, and the impact of developing technology in classrooms implicate privacy concerns within the educational forum.

Two issues merge: preserving the privacy of students who are entering a critical turning point in their education and sustaining the public school system as an institution that enables learning for students.

My affinity and sensitivity towards the public school system derive from personal experience. I am a proud product of the public education system. Columbia Law is the first private institution I have attended. Moreover, my mother was a public-school educator for sixteen years, working through Stage 2 cancer to keep a roof over our heads.

Chromebook learning and software that surveils students will harm academic curiosity and student privacy. When considering how to combat the erosion of student privacy, it is worth taking a step back to evaluate our institutions as well.

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