Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship
Rep. Angela Arsenault, D-Chittenden-2, is a major proponent of keeping Vermont students safe from the oversaturation of technology.
This session, she sponsored two bills, H.830 and H.650, that aim to do just that.
H.650 passed the House, while H.830 could either pass next session or be added to this session’s miscellaneous education bill, according to Arsenault.
H.650 would regulate technology products allowed in schools by creating a system to review and register them. H.830 would allow students and parents to opt out of using technology in schools.
Although the crossover deadline has passed, Arsenault said she is hopeful that H.830 will still have legs in the future.
“(H.830) was originally introduced in 2015 by Rep. Anne Donahue. So, that just lets us know that parents have been waiting more than a decade to secure the right to opt out of education technology,” she told the House Committee on Education on April 8.
The bill cites statistics showing that student reading test scores have declined steadily since 2016, a year when computers outnumbered students in Vermont schools.
Arsenault said that while she understands that getting rid of technology in schools altogether isn’t possible, giving families a choice is something she feels very strongly about.
“I’m aware of a Vermont family whose two teenagers are attending a Waldorf high school in Washington, D.C. because they have family there, and after several attempts to opt their teens out of ed-tech in Vermont, the school in D.C. was their best option because they would agree to it,” she said.
H.650, the technology registration bill, passed the House on March 27. The legislation asks the Agency of Education to consult with the secretary of state on a process to review education technologies before they could be used in schools.
Arsenault hopes that the combination of these bills can create safer schools.
“At the heart of the issue is the Google Chromebook default settings, which have been reported to recklessly grant students open access to almost the entire internet, exposing them to harmful content, like pornography, violence, extortion and cyberbullying,” she said.
Arsenault said that numerous schools across the state are already implementing safety measures, such as contracting with surveillance-focused technology companies that use artificial intelligence to monitor students’ web activity, including email. The services use keyword searches to try and determine if a student is being bullied online and to predict if a student intends to commit an act of violence, Arsenault said.
Rep. Robert Hunter, D-Bennington-4, raised some potential concerns about teachers adapting their curriculum for students who opt out of certain classroom technology.
“The people who’ve been in the game now for 10 to 15 years only know this,” he said, adding that one or both of these bills could mean great change for teachers across the state.
“This would be a major shift for a lot of educators,” he said.
Andrew Liddell from the EdTech Law Center in Houston, Texas, said H.650 is an important step to keep schools transparent and accountable for technology use in the classroom.
“Over the last 15 years and counting, the edtech industry has preyed on the public’s inherent trust in schools and educators’ concerns about preparing students for the future,” Liddell told the Senate Committee on Education on April 21. “To pump schools full of technology does not keep students safe, does not help them learn and flagrantly violates their privacy rights.”
If signed into law, H.650 would take effect on July 1.