Guest Commentary: 'City Journal' on Disrupting Class

Larry Sand is a retired teacher and president of the California Teachers Empowerment Network, a group educators in California came about when several teachers became aware that they were not getting the type of balanced information at their school sites which would enable them to make informed decisions related to their profession.
Sand recently wrote an article for City Journal, an website devoted to urban policy issues.
"Slowly but surely, 'disruptive technology' is penetrating the nation’s ossified public education system. The effects may be liberating for students, but they would be devastating for teachers’ unions. In his extraordinary book, Special Interest, Stanford political scientist and Hoover Institution senior fellow Terry Moe describes a succession of union victories—for tenure, strike rights, and seniority protection; against accountability, charter schools, and vouchers for disadvantaged families. But Moe argues that those victories won’t last. Union power will be marginalized, in part, by online learning. Emerging technology-based education, Moe writes, is the 'long-term trend . . . and the unions cannot stop it from happening,' " Sand writes.
"The greater ramifications of digital learning—and the greater threat to union preeminence—will be seen at the K-12 level," Sand adds.
Click here to read his complete post.