A Modest Proposal for the Erie School District.
Opening Pathways for Growth Through Access to Technology
I've been thinking about technology, education, and municipal finances, and a proposal became clear to me that I believe would be highly successful and empowering for ESD students. The proposal is quite simple and builds on the belief that education must fundamentally change how and what students are taught. My conclusion on that stems from what I know about my own school experience and those of others and a firm grasp on modern technology products and services. The best way to make those changes starts with an essential requirement, access to modern technology, which is impossible for many in our public schools. I will start with the proposal and then go into the thinking behind it and the changes we need to see in education.
My proposal starts with a straightforward concept: every student above 5th grade at ESD should get an iPad with the Smart Keyboard and Pencil. For students with limited access to the Internet away from school, pair the iPad with year-long service 4G AT&T data (or Verizon), paid by the district yearly. If you want to guarantee universal access and not require an expensive WiFi system build-out, enabling 4G for all iPads makes sense.
That said, my model assumption is that only 30% of the district would need Internet at home, which roughly translates to 1,924 students. That number of students is a larger share than necessary to ensure equal access, as Erie's internet penetration level is +90%. However, I wanted to be as conservative as possible on costs and map out the worst-case scenario for funding. With that volume, service, and hardware costs will likely drop far below retail levels. Additional cost savings stem from iPad's included cellular connectivity, reducing the need for a hot spot. Providing the Internet with a device is critical, as doing so ensures universal, mobile internet access for all students. That connectivity is the core infrastructure of the modern world.
A core belief behind this argument is that we need a playing field as fair and equal as possible, requiring a plan that puts minimum floor protections into place. With this, we will know that every student has equal access to technology and connectivity. I will lay out my proposal with details below. It is worth noting before continuing that the prices I used for my model stem from retail prices. Companies often provide price relief for education buyers, some going as far as giving free data plans for qualified buyers. ESD would likely be eligible for those programs for some of the school's population.
I believe the Erie School District has 11k students. Assuming roughly equal grade level sizes, this program, with universal deployment, covers 6,416 students in the 6-12th grades. I debated using a laptop as the hardware component, but given all the different ways to work with data and interface with a touch screen, it made more sense to go with a slightly cheaper iPad-based solution. That has the added benefit of eliminating the need for a hot spot, as a cellular connection integrates with the iPads. I am also assuming that hardware is recycled, so as senior year graduates, those iPads get cleaned up and redistributed to incoming freshmen. That said, I. acknowledge that you will almost certainly have to replace iPads every cycle. In my proposal, I suggest that students in the 6-8th grades receive a 10th Generation iPad with 128GB and Cellular. High school students would receive the higher-powered iPad Pros, also outfitted with 128GB and cellular. That means 2,743 students equipped with the 10th Gen. iPad. 3,666 equipped with the iPad Pro. The only other costs associated with this are the data costs and the I.T. infrastructure of the schools. I chose Apple products as, in my experience, they are far easier to deploy to large groups, and ongoing management is a straightforward process. 2-3 I.T. staffers could support the entire fleet.
To give an example of how easy a Mac-based system is, I can secure and update all devices with a few clicks and then issue a fleet-wide download of the Apps required for classes. Once you click that, within a few minutes, all apps pushed out would be installed on every iPad, and user credentials would be associated with specific devices. This process would take a few minutes. That can't be said about PC systems. Here are the raw components of the proposal:
Total Students: 6,416.
2,743 10th G iPads for 6-8th. 3,666 iPad Pros for 9-12th.
10th G iPad $569 Cellular. $419 WiFi Only
Total Cost 100% Cellular = $1,560,767
Total Cost, 30% Cellular = $1,272,752
iPad Pro $949 Cellular. $749 WiFi only
Total Cost, 100% Cellular = $3,479,034.
Total Cost, 30% Cellular = $3,040,734
Monthly Data Plan, 20GB = $25 Cellular Service
(Universal Coverage) = $1,924,800
Cellular Service (30% Coverage) = $577,200
Total Cost, universal data access = $6,964,601.
Total Cost, 30% Coverage = $4,890,686.
% of ESD Budget: (100%) 2.8%. (30%) 1.9%.
$ESD Budget = $251,000,000
For economic context:
2019-2020 = $204,514,434
2020-2021 = $209,990,588
2021-2022 = $246,309,819
2022-2023 = $251,000,000
COVID Aid = $107,000,000
2020-2023 Total Funding = ~$800,000,000
The proposal as % of Budget = 1.9% (30% Cellular). 2.8% (100% Cellular). The proposal as % of total funding through COVID =
.006% (30% Cellular). .008% (100% Cellular).
ESD has spent a lot of money over the last few years, and for a good reason. That said, 4.7% of the Annual Budget committed to providing universal and equal access to technology and connectivity makes excellent sense. It would elevate the standing of our district and its educational outcomes. Importantly, it would be an excellent investment in the future. Technology is a critical, powerful tool for learning and managing life in today's world, to the point that, in my eyes, access to the Internet is a fundamental human right.
I don't usually write about how to spend money. Usually, I put a critical focus on bad financial policies and management. But if we are spending 250mm+ a year, I want as much funding to go toward the most productive ways possible. Providing universal Tech/connectivity coverage to the student body is one of those effective ways; I can't think of another way to spend less than $10mm that would have such a profound and immediate effect. It would lift outcomes, open new doors of possibility, and transform how the classroom operates, hopefully making possible increased student engagement. How I justify a nearly $10mm program? By believing access to technology is among the essential services provided by schools. It's something that all students should have. That access must be constant, competent, and, importantly, done on a level playing field.
Tech needs to be tightly integrated with the core curriculum at the earliest age possible. Teaching students how to interface and leverage IT Is the most important subject you can teach, followed closely by English / reading. The capacity of someone who knows how to use technology Vs. Someone with little to no understanding of how to get the most out of connectivity is massive. Bulk memorization of specific details of historical events (exact dates, etc.) or 100% recall of all the information presented on a periodic table is an obsolete form of education. Instead, teach the arch of history from a high altitude while teaching students how to quickly and thoroughly find important information and, importantly, how to vet the veracity of the information they find.
Teach what the different components of the periodic table are and what they represent, but also teach them how to quickly find scholarly/academic sources that give them instant context on a specific element. The most critical skill from now on is knowing how to access and use information. If I have two candidates for a job, one candidate was a strong performer in school and is a master of how to leverage google and other tools, and someone with a comparable education track record with two years of experience and no I.T./Google skills. I'm hiring the first guy every time.
Education needs to be in sync with the realities of life's demands. I could expand on this at great lengths, but current ways of teaching are coming short of preparing young Americans for life after school. The education system needs to prepare young Americans to function in the real world. Prime examples, financial literacy, tax obligations, and the details of health insurance (and how to obtain it) are all things that desperately need to be incorporated into basic education. It needs to be prioritized and seized upon as soon as an extensive bureaucratic system will allow. Students must be empowered to learn, explore, and create. Providing them with the necessary equipment and connectivity is a tremendous investment for younger generations and will surely pay dividends in the coming years.
The technological advances we make in 2023-2033 will be a multiple of humanity's achievements from 2013 to 2023. We must prepare for that change, and intervening at a young age is an opportunity that should not be missed. Hiding from or ignoring this is a huge mistake. How we fundamentally work will be upended by these things, so we must prepare students to be as adaptable to new ways of doing things as possible. That starts with teaching how to interface and use existing technology. Someone who doesn't know how to access information from Google or leverage digital tools will lack even the most basic job skills demanded by the modern labor market and will be left on the sidelines with few to no routes possible to steady employment.
AI is only making this adaptation more critical. The pace of technological innovation is increasing exponentially. Open AI’s chatGPT has exposed how vulnerable the media industry is. With a few prompts that include facts sourced elsewhere, the service can generate a news article at a higher quality level than 70-80% of “real” articles entirely written by a human. Even simple content creation, AI is already blazing a trail to better work products and efficiencies. I say that as I draft this op-ed in the Grammarly App, catching all sorts of errors that would be embarrassing if otherwise consumed. It operates in the background but makes editing a breeze. There are countless similar applications. Leveraging computer access and connectivity applies to, maybe even more so than in language, STEM. You can plug in very complex math problems into most search engines, and at best, it will immediately solve and show you the steps taken to complete the equation. At worst, you will find a link within seconds that helps compute or explain the calculation. As another example, I tried demonstrating AI’s power by asking ChatGPT to summarize this piece I’m writing for an executive summary for those not looking to spend 5-10 minutes reading.
In summary, the information gap will be the most significant driver of the future wealth gap, so we have to get in front of this and adapt teaching strategies to the realities of modern technology and future innovation. Technology proficiency, more and more, is becoming the most important thing someone can have to manage life, maintain a livable income, and increase their quality of life. Those goals and family are what matter the most. It would be very hard to convince me of another way to invest ~$5,000,000. The ramifications of that investment are countless.
In summary, my proposal, at roughly $5,000,000, would lead to many positive outcomes, including the following: it immediately boosts morale, provides access to other ways to learn, and allows the student to keep learning at home. It also enables creativity to blossom by giving hardware needed to create in digital media. It can innovate how the classroom operates, prepare our students for immediate capacity for many types of labor right out of high school, and successfully build a blueprint for other Public Schools across Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Imagine a world where the rest of the State looks to the northwest corner of the State and says, "They are doing something right in Erie. We need to replicate that here." I can't think of the last time Erie has been a thought leader or an initiative taker the rest of the State can look to as a best practices example.
Suppose the price tag is too substantial for the district to take on alone. In that case, a partnership could be formed with other entities in the city with vested interests, such as building a pipeline of future employees from the local market or meeting nonprofit/philanthropic goals. Several groups are seeking to disrupt and create transformative change. You would need a lot of help to find a more worthy way to spend several million dollars on education. Indeed, it would be hard for a project with a comparable cost that would immediately improve the quality of life, ensure equality, trigger creativity, create a healthier labor market, and enhance the education process and its outcomes. To achieve that, forming a syndicate of similar-minded entities to share the total cost of implementation. UPMC comes to mind, Erie Insurance comes to mind, LORD, and other industry members. The Erie Community Foundation is also a natural fit. In any event, the price tag is low enough, and the outcome is so substantial that someone would quickly sell the proposal.