good points. But I disagree that self-regulation skills come from school. The foundation of self-regulation is laid down during the toddler years.... Parenting. Not preschool or daycare - which actually may worsen self-regulating skills for young children, but from their primary caregiver.
Totally agree with general self-regulation. I am speaking specifically of self-regulated learning skills (SRLs) - a subset of the larger SR lit. If basic self-regulation is lacking, then there's little chance SRLs will ever enmerge.
interesting point about those who completed online courses possess strong self-regulated learning skills. being born in the 80s, and having not been exposed to EdTech in my early years, i myself find it hard at times to follow a course online. my peers in the same age group have similar experiences.
COVID - like you said is the biggest test. a lot of kids around 10 years old these days, find it hard to self regulate or sit down to listen. mostly are behaving like 4 year olds trapped in a 10 year old body.
What are remarkable article. I was not surprised by the findings that EdTech has unequal benefits for students who already had sound foundation of education (my experience working at a virtual school showed me this). The negative impact it can have on learning, however, really drives home the point:
"Because digital environments train patterns of fragmented attention and habitual multitasking. The more time students spend switching between messages, videos, and feeds, the more that becomes their default mode of engagement."
I think this really speaks to what a lot teachers have seen in terms of students who are hooked to their technology and social apps. Thank you so much for writing this!
Thank you for another excellent piece. The graphs are jaw-dropping. One point you allude to but is worth noting explicitly is that in many districts including Los Angeles, this equity argument comes cynically framed in a racial justice context so as to make it seem unassailable. Superintendent Alberto Carvalho did this routinely - specifically targeting “black and brown schools… that need it most” for his AI/ed-tech pipe dreams. The irony is heartbreaking. See https://johnallenwooden.substack.com/p/alberto-carvalho-silicon-valleys
We are running into this equity argument w the Madison, WI school board as well. What tragic irony that the edtech they’re clinging to is actually hurting the kids most they claim to be protecting.
Your data makes the equity illusion case definitively — digital learning benefits those who already have the self regulation skills that structured environments build, which means it compounds advantage rather than equalizing it. But there's a structural question underneath the edtech debate worth sitting with. Every equity solution in education history — from MOOCs to Chromebooks to personalized learning — assumes the content being delivered is valuable and the problem is access. Your data suggests otherwise. The students who most need structure and human guidance are precisely the ones the system has least incentive to serve well, because the mandate means it keeps them regardless. If school had to earn attendance the equity calculation changes completely. The shortest path between any student and genuine self sufficiency becomes the institution's only real priority. Not because it's noble but because nothing else keeps the lights on. The equity illusion isn't just about edtech. It's about what happens when an institution that can't lose its students doesn't have to deserve them.
Some takeaways I'm really pondering after nearly 30 years as an ed tech educator and administrator (ICT teacher & coordinator, Tech Director) in international schools -- Jared's work really has me reevaluating my career path...
- "If technology were an equalizing force, increased exposure should have narrowed gaps."
- "If technology were the great educational balancer, then we would expect to see at least some counteracting effect. We don’t."
(I always believed that "just in time" access would benefit student learning without fail...)
- "In practice, however, educational technology functions less like an equalizer and more like a cognitive amplifier: students who already possess knowledge, discipline, and academic support may gain modest benefits (or at least suffer less harm), while those lacking these foundations fall further behind."
(I’ve always wondered about the actual effects of screen reading versus physical reading -- especially for younger students. In my own experiences, I adapted well to reading digital content in the early 2000s by using the strategies I had mastered from decades of physical reading and annotating. Copy/paste into a word processor and use highlighter + comments to make margin notes. Shift from extensive paper based outlines to tech tools like Inspiration and word processor outline tools. Writing evolved for me from hand written rough drafts to word processed drafts using both physical and digital notes and outlines. Touch typing, learned in 9th grade on an IBM Selectric, served me well to become a better writer through high school, undergrad university, teacher education, master’s, and professionally.)
-------------------------
Now, with AI on the scene in secondary (and even upper primary) education, the stakes are even higher.
To borrow from Jared's "So, When Is EdTech Good For Learning?" I would posit that we need to critically review, and even resist, the question: “When does AI work in primary/secondary education?” As Jared wrote, "a question that tacitly assumes the answer must be affirmative"...
Rather, we must investigate the question "Why should we believe that AI will improve learning at all?” Again, from Jared, "the conversation changes with it – and so does the burden of proof."
Jim from one EdTech to another - I too have had quite a reconning. Jared’s work has been a real eye opening experience. I too ‘adapted’ some of good pen and paper skills to tech tools and often wondered why others struggled so much to do the same. I think now it’s due to the fact that they didn’t have strong analog skills before attempting to digitize them. I see now that our youth can’t possibly be ‘digital natives’ - seriously the way we are wired changed in less than a generation???
Tech is still cool … but it is a tool. AI threatens to redefine that though and takes way too much of the friction away from the process.
Excellent, read. Thank you so much, Jared. As an educator of 38 years of high school students myself , I have seen the steady decline of the vast majority of my student’s ability to pay attention, to critically reflect , to create original ideas and even to thrive.
It's all part of the grand plan to improve or at least do no harm to the elite students whilst the students at the lower end of the economic scale fall by the way side with their cognitive skills befuddled and eroded leaving them brainwashed zombies
The equity argument was always downstream of a sales argument. Platforms needed a moral frame to justify scale, and “democratizing education” was it. But democratizing access to a tool that requires prior privilege to use isn’t equity — it’s the illusion of it. Which is exactly your title. The real question now is whether AI tutoring systems will break this pattern or just run it faster.
I think it is not enough to ask whether digital systems are equitable for users inside wealthy societies, because those systems are already premised on extractive frontiers, sacrificed territories, and cheapened labor elsewhere. The problem is not only unequal access to digital society, but the violent material basis of digital society itself. The real digital delusion is arguably the fantasy that digital society is neutral or progressive, when in fact it is built on a racist, capitalist, and colonial machine of control.
This article critiques the idea that digital learning and MOOCs can close educational gaps. While these tools promised to make education more accessible, they often benefit students who are already doing well, leaving those with less support further behind. The pandemic highlighted these issues, as students from lower-income backgrounds struggled more with online learning. Data shows that the achievement gap has only grown wider, with technology amplifying existing inequalities rather than bridging them.
It was NEVER about education....it was about selling an education product. Big difference.
good points. But I disagree that self-regulation skills come from school. The foundation of self-regulation is laid down during the toddler years.... Parenting. Not preschool or daycare - which actually may worsen self-regulating skills for young children, but from their primary caregiver.
Totally agree with general self-regulation. I am speaking specifically of self-regulated learning skills (SRLs) - a subset of the larger SR lit. If basic self-regulation is lacking, then there's little chance SRLs will ever enmerge.
interesting point about those who completed online courses possess strong self-regulated learning skills. being born in the 80s, and having not been exposed to EdTech in my early years, i myself find it hard at times to follow a course online. my peers in the same age group have similar experiences.
COVID - like you said is the biggest test. a lot of kids around 10 years old these days, find it hard to self regulate or sit down to listen. mostly are behaving like 4 year olds trapped in a 10 year old body.
What are remarkable article. I was not surprised by the findings that EdTech has unequal benefits for students who already had sound foundation of education (my experience working at a virtual school showed me this). The negative impact it can have on learning, however, really drives home the point:
"Because digital environments train patterns of fragmented attention and habitual multitasking. The more time students spend switching between messages, videos, and feeds, the more that becomes their default mode of engagement."
I think this really speaks to what a lot teachers have seen in terms of students who are hooked to their technology and social apps. Thank you so much for writing this!
Thank you for another excellent piece. The graphs are jaw-dropping. One point you allude to but is worth noting explicitly is that in many districts including Los Angeles, this equity argument comes cynically framed in a racial justice context so as to make it seem unassailable. Superintendent Alberto Carvalho did this routinely - specifically targeting “black and brown schools… that need it most” for his AI/ed-tech pipe dreams. The irony is heartbreaking. See https://johnallenwooden.substack.com/p/alberto-carvalho-silicon-valleys
We are running into this equity argument w the Madison, WI school board as well. What tragic irony that the edtech they’re clinging to is actually hurting the kids most they claim to be protecting.
Your data makes the equity illusion case definitively — digital learning benefits those who already have the self regulation skills that structured environments build, which means it compounds advantage rather than equalizing it. But there's a structural question underneath the edtech debate worth sitting with. Every equity solution in education history — from MOOCs to Chromebooks to personalized learning — assumes the content being delivered is valuable and the problem is access. Your data suggests otherwise. The students who most need structure and human guidance are precisely the ones the system has least incentive to serve well, because the mandate means it keeps them regardless. If school had to earn attendance the equity calculation changes completely. The shortest path between any student and genuine self sufficiency becomes the institution's only real priority. Not because it's noble but because nothing else keeps the lights on. The equity illusion isn't just about edtech. It's about what happens when an institution that can't lose its students doesn't have to deserve them.
Some takeaways I'm really pondering after nearly 30 years as an ed tech educator and administrator (ICT teacher & coordinator, Tech Director) in international schools -- Jared's work really has me reevaluating my career path...
- "If technology were an equalizing force, increased exposure should have narrowed gaps."
- "If technology were the great educational balancer, then we would expect to see at least some counteracting effect. We don’t."
(I always believed that "just in time" access would benefit student learning without fail...)
- "In practice, however, educational technology functions less like an equalizer and more like a cognitive amplifier: students who already possess knowledge, discipline, and academic support may gain modest benefits (or at least suffer less harm), while those lacking these foundations fall further behind."
(I’ve always wondered about the actual effects of screen reading versus physical reading -- especially for younger students. In my own experiences, I adapted well to reading digital content in the early 2000s by using the strategies I had mastered from decades of physical reading and annotating. Copy/paste into a word processor and use highlighter + comments to make margin notes. Shift from extensive paper based outlines to tech tools like Inspiration and word processor outline tools. Writing evolved for me from hand written rough drafts to word processed drafts using both physical and digital notes and outlines. Touch typing, learned in 9th grade on an IBM Selectric, served me well to become a better writer through high school, undergrad university, teacher education, master’s, and professionally.)
-------------------------
Now, with AI on the scene in secondary (and even upper primary) education, the stakes are even higher.
To borrow from Jared's "So, When Is EdTech Good For Learning?" I would posit that we need to critically review, and even resist, the question: “When does AI work in primary/secondary education?” As Jared wrote, "a question that tacitly assumes the answer must be affirmative"...
Rather, we must investigate the question "Why should we believe that AI will improve learning at all?” Again, from Jared, "the conversation changes with it – and so does the burden of proof."
It's an educational and moral imperative.
Jim from one EdTech to another - I too have had quite a reconning. Jared’s work has been a real eye opening experience. I too ‘adapted’ some of good pen and paper skills to tech tools and often wondered why others struggled so much to do the same. I think now it’s due to the fact that they didn’t have strong analog skills before attempting to digitize them. I see now that our youth can’t possibly be ‘digital natives’ - seriously the way we are wired changed in less than a generation???
Tech is still cool … but it is a tool. AI threatens to redefine that though and takes way too much of the friction away from the process.
Thank you Jared! Our school has been telling us this crap is vital to “closing the gap”. 😡😡😡😡
Excellent, read. Thank you so much, Jared. As an educator of 38 years of high school students myself , I have seen the steady decline of the vast majority of my student’s ability to pay attention, to critically reflect , to create original ideas and even to thrive.
It's all part of the grand plan to improve or at least do no harm to the elite students whilst the students at the lower end of the economic scale fall by the way side with their cognitive skills befuddled and eroded leaving them brainwashed zombies
The equity argument was always downstream of a sales argument. Platforms needed a moral frame to justify scale, and “democratizing education” was it. But democratizing access to a tool that requires prior privilege to use isn’t equity — it’s the illusion of it. Which is exactly your title. The real question now is whether AI tutoring systems will break this pattern or just run it faster.
I think it is not enough to ask whether digital systems are equitable for users inside wealthy societies, because those systems are already premised on extractive frontiers, sacrificed territories, and cheapened labor elsewhere. The problem is not only unequal access to digital society, but the violent material basis of digital society itself. The real digital delusion is arguably the fantasy that digital society is neutral or progressive, when in fact it is built on a racist, capitalist, and colonial machine of control.
This article critiques the idea that digital learning and MOOCs can close educational gaps. While these tools promised to make education more accessible, they often benefit students who are already doing well, leaving those with less support further behind. The pandemic highlighted these issues, as students from lower-income backgrounds struggled more with online learning. Data shows that the achievement gap has only grown wider, with technology amplifying existing inequalities rather than bridging them.