I'd say the tools are of the least importance there. Nevertheless, somehow we tend to think that most problems can be solved just by throwing technology at them.

Sometimes the only way to address problems with entrenched interests is to change the playing field, technology can serve this purpose. So instead of having to fight tons of battles against teachers unions, implements some technology that drastically weakens their position -- in this new landscape political battles can now be won.

I of course think school vouchers is the end all be all of school reform since it allows anyone to open a school and to compete with any ideas that they think might win...

I have yet to hear a convincing explanation of how technology is the answer to our education problems.

Depends on what technology.

1. Books are clearly better than only having lectures - so there's one example of where technology has improved education.

Depends on educational problems:

1. What age group are we focusing on? * Adults are clearly different from teenagers * Teenagers are clearly different than children

A one size approach, probably won't work.

2. College Lectures are an outmoded form of teaching. It'd better to have the lecture recorded and perfected, and then allow the student to watch it -- making sure to jot down their questions and then discuss with the professor and fellow students -- it's a better use of everyone's time and makes the content available to everyone. In science and math I expect this to be a huge win at the lower levels where mechanical notation and rules need to be learned.

As we progress up the abstraction layer to where we need exemplars to train our ability to recognize patterns I think that computers will still have a long way to go -- this is where guided direction is important.

3. When I was a child I had difficulties learning to read, I did some special classes primarily involving software that significantly improved my reading ability. I extremely happy I was afforded that opportunity.

The per user costs of technology reduce dramatically as the number of users enlarges; the cost of teachers scales linearly with the number of users. At present, society is not willing to pay enough to provide the average student with quality teachers; if an up-front investment in technology can better that standard--even at the cost of worse-than-usual products of the Florida school system for a few years--it's a net win for society.