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A recent Slate article asked, “What do the best classrooms in the world look like?” Their answer: Surprisingly low-tech.

To find these classrooms, the author looked to Finland and South Korea, both of which perform better than the United States on international standardized assessments without really utilizing technology in the classroom. She points to KIPP charter schools, claiming them among the most effective in the nation, and explains how one KIPP school uses technology--to make teachers' lives easier, not to engage students.

It’s not that this piece is wrong, exactly. Having never been to South Korea, Finland or the KIPP school featured here, I can’t speak to their use of technology in education. But I have problems with the assumption on which the author seems to rely: That these schools are the best in the world, and the ideal model for reform efforts.

Actually, what she claims, after mentioning how these classrooms look like those of 1989 or 1959, is that “the most innovative schools around the world do not tend to be the ones with the most innovative technology inside them.” Now, I agree that innovative doesn't need to mean technology, but it does need to mean something new. Not schools that are like those of 1989 or 1959. That the author uses the term “innovative” in this piece illustrates to me that its overuse in education reform discussions has caused it to lose all meaning.

But I digress. The main problem here is that the author appears to claim that since students in South Korea, Finland and KIPP schools score well on standardized assessments, we should hold them up as the ideal. And of course, there are things we can learn from these examples. All have longer school days than the typical American school. Teachers tend to come from the top of their graduating class, unlike those in most American public schools.

But these examples are not necessarily the ideal. If I had a fifth-grader, I wouldn’t want her practicing call-and-response multiplication table chants. And I wouldn’t want her watching a teacher lecture day after day.

Another sign that we shouldn't try to blindly replicate the education of Finland, South Korea and KIPP: Despite the high scores their country receives on international assessments, Finnish professors are concerned that students have only basic mathematical skills, and that “these skills are simply not enough.” Sounds similar to the complaints of some American professors to me...

While its important to learn from schools and countries that are successful as defined in the now traditional way (performance on standardized assessments), we should not strive simply to emulate them. We need to move beyond them, to surpass them. And despite what the author of this piece suggests, smartly incorporating technology as one of many education reforms is a way in which we can do that.

*Hat tip to EdReformer for spotting the Slate article. Read their take.