Posted by Portola Valley Parent, a resident of the Portola Valley: Westridge neighborhood, on Mar 26, 2011 at 11:52 am

The article of last week you are referring to should not be retracted. The 21st century initiative and use of technology did very little to aid my child's learning of English and History. In fact those would have been the last topic areas I would have chosen to integrate technology into as a school administrator. It was a source of confusion and a huge distraction from the topics my 7th grader was supposed to be learning. I pray my child did not lose too much academic ground during this mess. Where was the oversight by the administration in the beginning or before these changes were trotted out? Do not blame and punish the teachers for doing as they were told when things did not totally work out. Believe me, there are quite a number of families who are dismayed by the changes in the 7th grade curriculum who did not sign that petition.

Posted by elle, a member of the Woodside School community, on Mar 27, 2011 at 6:06 pm

Regarding the guest opinion's reference to receiving technology design and innovation guidance from sources such as Stanford's Denise Clarke Pope, and other sources; these groups are a work in process researching methods that frankly requires a lot of capital and financial resources. When research is conducted on children's learning,it is often done at schools that don't have a lot of parental participation ( I know I've been involved with it), therefore allowing the students to be researchers guinea pigs. In this case, whereas technology is expensive, the school being "used" for research needs to be rich. CM has the means and therefore, your children my friends, are very rich guinea pigs for a social experiment. Whether or not it is successful, the CM school board fell hook, line and sinker for it and seemed to enjoy the publicity when it first came out. Be careful for what you wish for.