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Last weekend, Matt Richtel wrote a piece for the New York Times that has lit up the education blogosphere: “In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores.”

In it, Richtel questions the shifting of public tax dollars towards education technology when those technologies have not been proven to improve student standardized test scores. Some are outraged, claiming that money could be spent lowering class sizes or on other proven strategies for school improvement.

My immediate reaction was, “But current standardized tests are not a good measure of what we expect children to know in the 21^st century.” And several bloggers have responded to this piece with similar sentiment.  

My next thought was concern about how some education “advocates” and watchdog groups who track public spending will use this information to bolster their argument against funding education technology. And I found myself wondering what kind of schools their children attend.

That took my mind back to a piece I remember from School Finance 101 last July. In it, Bruce Baker explains his decision to send his children to private independent schools while being a staunch defender and supporter of the public system. While some call such individuals “hypocrites,” Baker sees a distinction in that “it is hypocritical for pundits who favor for their own children, expensive schooling with diverse curriculum, small class size and little standardized testing … to argue for less money, class size increases and increased standardized testing … when it comes to other people’s children.” However, Baker believes that “other children – those whose parents are not able to make this expensive choice – should have access to well-funded schools that also provide small class sizes, diverse curriculum, and for that matter, place less emphasis on standardized tests and treat teachers as responsible, knowledgeable professionals.”

Baker’s criticism is of “public officials and vocal ‘ed reformers’ who prefer high quality, well funded education for their own and then loudly and publicly advocate for a very different quality (and type) of education for the children of others.”

I have to wonder: Of those criticizing the investment in educational technology, how many have children who have access to similar technology in their schools or in their homes? 

And as Karen Cator, the director of the office of educational technology at the US Department of Education, who agrees that standardized test scores are an inadequate measure of the value of technology in schools, was quoted in this article: “Test scores are the same, but look at all the other things students are doing: learning to use the Internet to research, learning to organize their work, learning to use professional writing tools, learning to collaborate with others.”

How many of those criticizing technology investments would throw a fit if their own children went to a school that didn’t allow students to develop such skills because they were too busy trying to improve scores on a fill-in-the-bubble test?

I don’t know the answer to that question. But from what I know about this phenomenon in other contexts, my guess is, most.