While you're defunding the DOE, get rid of Chromebooks and 'portals' in schools

[Hoodat]

While you're defunding the DOE, get rid of Chromebooks and 'portals' in schools

Kids don't need Chromebooks. They don't need apps. They don't need portals.

Libby Emmons  |  02/14/2025

Kids can’t read. They can’t do math. They barely do any work at all and half the time they don’t even bother to turn it in. The state of education in the United States is in a horrifying state. Test scores keep slumping year after year despite the insane amount of money flushed into the school system by federal, state and local governments. It feels like every year since the Department of Education was created in 1980 we’ve seen failure compounded.

Trump’s nominee for Education Secretary Linda McMahon sat for her confirmation hearing on Thursday, though Trump has already said that he’d like to see her step into the role and do away with her own job by dismantling the bloated bureau and moving its responsibilities to other agencies. McMahon has said she’s down with that.

Education didn't used to be this way and it doesn't have to be this way now. As each agency begins to follow in the DOGE footprint, ripping apart government spending, jettisoning wasteful project after wasteful project, the DOE should start by pulling all funding for in-classroom technology.

Kids don't need Chromebooks. They don't need apps. They don't need portals. Kids need teachers who are passionate about their discipline. They need books and paper. They need hands-on learning. This tech wasn’t funded out of nowhere. Chromebooks and the portals they are used to access have all been justified expenditures under Title I, which is about improving academic outcomes for disadvantaged students. But replacing books and teachers with Chromebooks has not produced better outcomes at all.

“It’s making them hate school, kids don’t find value in it,” Moms for Liberty’s Tiffany Justice told me. She said the issue is “how much time they're actualy spending on portals and programs. It's become a babysitting mechanism  .  .  .

https://humanevents.com/2025/02/14/libby-emmons-while-youre-defunding-the-doe-get-rid-of-chromebooks-and-portals-in-schools

[bigheadfred]

I agree with this. My two oldest g kids are in the eighth and ninth grades. I can see the damage done.

[roamer_1]

This is really weird, because I am actually moving into ChromeOS... Away from Windows.

But ChromeBooks ain't the problem. TechEd ain't the problem...

The problem is they ain't teaching kids HOW to think. They're teaching them WHAT to think.

[mountaineer]

They can't write, either. The young ones don't use pencils and crayons enough to develop the muscles in their hands, and as they get older, they demonstrate that they literally cannot express coherent thoughts with words.

[libertybele]

Kids don't need Chromebooks. They don't need apps. They don't need portals. Kids need teachers who are passionate about their discipline. They need books and paper. They need hands-on learning.

Amen!

Home schooling children in this day and age, I'd say is a necessity if you truly want your kids to learn.