I interpreted it the opposite way--that schools in poorer districts will gradually find it necessary to implement such classes due to financial concerns. The software will be drivel produced by the lowest bidder, who will probably use various shiny features to distract the buyers (who probably won't have spoken to an actual student any time this month).

Students in these classes will struggle to have their questions addressed, and if they are confused, nobody will be able to help them. That's if they aren't disillusioned already by the fact that their school isn't even providing them with a teacher.

Schools in wealthier districts, meanwhile, will choose to actually pay teachers.

Now it is possible that these classes will work out well, but I'm not optimistic. It's certainly something that should be implemented after controlled experimentation to determine effectiveness, not blindly chosen because of poorly considered policies.

I just think that because the primary motivation is cost cutting the focus isn't on improving education. This may lead to the purchase of software that doesn't improve education but looks good from a cost perspective.

I also think a lot of the maintenance costs are underestimated. Someone will need to be doing the IT support for them and I'm sure the computers will have problems just based on the number of kids using them.

I think they can serve well in a supporting role by providing additional instruction and examples after a teacher presents the material as well as identify the students who need additional help that cannot be provided by the software.

Having the same software will make reduce the impact of teachers but that's just going to improve the performance of the worst students at the cost of the best students. In the future I imagine this type of software to be linked to a great teacher and having a remote tutoring model.

I think that's what dangoldin was saying. Poorer communities will be jammed with cheap software and computers rather than great teachers.

The software teaching method definitely has merit, but it's not a solution to "we have overcrowded classes." It's not yet ready for that, and there doesn't seem to be anyone credible claiming that it is.

This is just the outgrowth of bad policy and not enough funding.

That assumes they have great teachers now, which is not a given.

If they have bad teachers, even a semi stupid program will be better than that.