If we always do what we've always done, we'll always get what we've always got

Forty years after our high school senior gift of a First Edition IBM PC, the Shawnee Mission Unified School District 512 is on a slow boat to China. Five years ago the Board approved the $20 million dollar purchase of Apple computers for every student in the district. Ironically it took 35 years to fulfill the caveat attached to our senior gift which expressed our desire for every school, every classroom, every student to have access to a PC as a way of providing momentum for Virtual Learning. Unfortunately no rational Virtual Learning strategy has been articulated to leverage the exponential ongoing investment in hardware and networking architecture. This includes the deployment of a "carrier class" wireless network who's costs are buried in a high level budget agenda. While improvement in Baccalaureate, vocational concentrations, and Excellence programs that tie together academic and occupational goals are a step in the right direction, the lack of a visionary long term goal to assimilate electronic tools is long overdue. Interesting that the Kansas State Board of Education has the resources that are vital to many rural districts struggling to hedge the disparity with large urban district clusters. With the miles of dark fiber and billions of dollars spent over the past 10 years by USDA Rural Broadband initiatives we are poised to solidify the foundation of a unified Virtual Learning initiative. Technological innovation in 5G wireless deployments over the next 5 years leverages the potential outcomes in collaboration that brings students and their families closer to a visionary game plan that hedges disparity in funding and outcomes unilaterally. SMSD 512 has recently embarked on a Technology Task Force comprised of Subject Matter Experts, Educators, Parents, and Students to accelerate the discussion on the "acceptable" use of computers, with an overarching goal of distilling realistic best practices. Apparently this initiative gained momentum related to complaints by parents that students were streaming inappropriate content. Nowhere in this shallow censorship agenda is a Virtual Learning tangent.While the perceived dilemma could be easily managed with BARK (a security application utilized by thousands of school districts) the intrinsic discussion on the benefits of a Unified Virtual Learning agenda is lost in disjointed incrementalism. I believe the the root cause of this chronic Groupthink impedimenta is a lack of visionary leadership on behalf of the Board, and their Superintendent who just want the noise to go away so they can go back to doing what they've always done, and get what they've always got. Ironically, factual information supports that no mater how much money is pumped into Kansas schools, student out comes remain the same. This is the bedrock that the Kansas legislature stands on in their diminished resolve to adequately fund education. Ultimately a unified Virtual Learning agenda supports a caveat in the first five Kansas Constitutions which required a "school withing walking distance of every child". We can fulfill this by incorporating a unified Virtual Learning characteristic as a Pillar into the current outdated paradigm. Special Needs, ESL, and Title students and their families can benefit most from a strategic shift in the tools teachers need to do their jobs. Every student will benefit from the intrinsic ergonomics of computerization as it relates to effectiveness in the classroom, in the community, and in career development.