Quisling Quizlet

I'm posting a letter I sent to the Board of Trustees of my local School District of Richardson TX, where all 3 of my kids go to school.  It's generally considered a good district but they've thoughtlessly implemented Quizlet, a gamified piece of ed tech, thinking learning would magically happen once they put this 'free' piece of software in front of students.  Instead they've actually damaged students' ability to pay attention and in doing so have become a de facto drug pusher and are now offering ADHD meds to 13 year olds (with no notice to the parents) to ameliorate this dismal situation that they created in the first place. 
It's a good example of how well meaning people damage children's ability to learn by putting too much faith in ed tech and by taking short cuts in 'free' software they know they shouldn't be taking but they do anyway b/c, hey, everyone's doing it.

Here's the letter.  
 
Thank you for taking the time to read this note.  I’m grateful for your efforts in working with our kids in Richardson.
Attention is a limited resource.  It takes effort and intention to focus one’s resources on a specific topic for any length of time.  It’s a skill that many of us take years to develop.  And with current technology in specific it can be so difficult to build up the attention muscles necessary to focus.  It seems as though there’s always something else vying for our limited resources.  It’s in this environment that the Richardson Independent School District introduces a tool called Quizlet in an attempt to help the students of the district learn.

I was introduced to Quizlet when my daughter was taking French in 7th grade.  I had heard of the product before but had not paid too much attention to the details.  Well, now Claire really needed some help in French so I was digging into the tool with her because it was the sole resource she had-no book, nothing else, just this app on her RISD provided Chromebook.  Which, as it turns out, per my kids is common in classes 1 through 12.
The first thing that was apparent to me as I began to understand the app was that it was distracting as all get out. Just as soon as one ad for, say, Spotify would fully load the page would halt and redraw to another ad, say for Kohls or Sams or something.  What really started me down the rat hole, however, was the ad for Vyvanse which was obviously a pharma ad.  You may have never heard of it-I certainly hadn’t.  

It turns out Vyvanse is a drug for ADHD.  So, if you, or more specifically your kid, has trouble maintaining the level of attention necessary to successfully learn in school, then perhaps you, or they, should consider Vyvanse, with a dr.’s recommendation of course.

In the beginning, while I didn’t particularly like it I didn’t think too much about it.  I mean, how different was this arrangement from many of the freemium software models that are ad supported.  However, the more I considered it and not too long at that it was clear to me that this arrangement was wrong on a few levels.

Just to be crystal clear: while diluting the student’s ability to focus on the lesson at hand RISD is then using this ‘tool’ to present ADHD medication ads to students to help these same students improve their ability to focus.  I hope the absurd and malevolent nature of this process isn’t lost on the reader.

In talking to the teacher she noted that she paid for the ‘pro’ version out of her own pocket.  She doesn’t want the kids to be ‘bombarded with ads’ while she’s giving her lessons in class.
  
When I raised my concerns to the administration of the school Micah Armstrong the Assistant Principal noted he found ‘nothing inappropriate’ in the ads and if I found anything inappropriate I could report it to him but as things stood the tool was RISD approved and the school would keep using it in its current form.

So, at least at the school level it’s clear that actually degrading a student’s ability to focus and then offering a pharmaceutical solution to improve that situation is fine-it’s fully appropriate.  It begs the question as to what might be ‘inappropriate’ and the only thing I can think of is it has to be nudity, right?  I mean what else can it possibly be?  Alcohol I suppose might push them over the edge.  We know drugs are allowed.   
  
The absurdity of the situation is remarkable.  We send our kids to learn challenging subjects knowing that focus and attention is hard and the school either doesn’t know this or knows and chooses to look the other way because the value of the kids’ attention isn’t better spent on learning.  It’s better spent on some tool to pretend that learning is happening-which seems…inappropriate.

The cost of this product is certainly a piece of the puzzle.  I have no idea how much it is.  The teacher pays for it out of her own pocket and Mr. Armstrong noted the school simply has no money to pay for the product.  In other words not spoken they simply must use the attention of the students sent to them on a daily basis to pay for the product.  But is that really the case?
From my kitchen window I have seen over the past 3 years a multi-purpose activity center; a softball field; a baseball field; and an additional wing to an elementary school constructed-all things that I’m assuming the district had to use dollars to pay for vs. ads students watched.  So, it seems like they were able to find the money for these things-perhaps it’s a matter of values and prioritization.

I have recently heard from Robin Gunter, RISDs Executive Director of Instructional Technology, who ultimately responded to my concerns saying Quizlet wouldn’t be used with my kid.  While that’s great there are 50k other kids whose attention is being trampled on and used as chits to pay for something the RISD should pony up for if they think it’s a worthwhile tool vs. forcing students to comply with a tracking policy (https://quizlet.com/cookies) that, among other noxious behavior sends them ads long after they’re off the site.  In Claire’s case she has no other options, there is no text book; she must comply with this autocratic behavior.  It is shameful and I’m bringing it to your attention because I’m positive that you as a board member are unaware of what is being carried out in your names on a daily basis.