As educators cope with the task of integrating information technology into the schools, two main discourses have appeared: the discourse of reform and the discourse of inequality. The discourse of reform suggests that schools must transform themselves in order to make effective use of computers. As an educator in Hawai'i commented,

Though the model of a learner-centered environment is not new, it is believed that technology provides the impetus, which will finally allow this dream to be realized. According to one optimistic (but not atypical) prediction, the introduction of more computers in the schools will help bring about eight major shifts in education, including changes from "whole class to small group instruction," "from lecture and recitation to coaching", "from a competitive to a cooperative social structure", and "from all students learning the same things to different students learning different things" (Starr, 1996, n.p.)

While the discourse of reform is hopeful, the discourse of inequality is troubling. From this perspective, increased use of technology in the schools is bound to heighten distinctions among students based on class, language, and race. As a teacher in Hawai'i explained,

• Home access: Wealthy families are seven times as likely as poor families to own a home computer, and white families are more than twice as likely as Black families to own one. The percentage gap in both of these areas increased from 1994-1997. Black and Hispanic families trail (non-Hispanic) white families in computer ownership by a substantial margin even within the same income groups (Novak, et al., 1998). Even when low-income families do have computers, the educational boost achieved from these (as measured by children’s gain in academic performance) is far lower than the educational boost achieved by students from high-income families with computers, presumably because the families are able to provide (Attwell and Battle, 1999) more guidance in selecting appropriate software and encouraging appropriate educational use.
• School access: More than 78% of public schools in low-poverty communities had Internet access in 1997 compared to less than 59% of public schools in communities with high poverty rates. And public schools with over 50% minority enrollments had an average of 8.4 students per computer, while schools with fewer than 5% minority enrollment had 6.6 computers per student (Market Data Retrieval, 1997).
• Use within schools: African-American students and Hispanic students are more likely to use computers for drill and practice, whereas white and Asian students are more likely to use them for simulations or applications, thus allowing more opportunity for critical inquiry and complex analysis; the same differences appear between poor students and wealthier students (Wenglinsky, 1998).

The truth of course will probably lie somewhere in-between. Not all wealthy schools will use computers well, and not all poorer schools will use them badly. Nevertheless, there are a number of factors that make the nightmare scenario all too likely, including the depth of already-existing inequality in U.S. schools (Kozol, 1991), the heightening economic polarization in the U.S. in recent years (Mishel, Bernstein, & Schmitt, 1996), and a hundred-year history in which learner-centered reforms have almost always been implemented more readily among privileged students than among poor ones (Cuban, 1993).

But just because one master narrative might ring truer does not mean that it is true. As Bryson and de Castell (1998) point out, the "normativizing" (p. 76) of any one particular account of educational technology as the account imposes premature closure on what may be accomplished, thus discounting and restricting the human agency which can actually bring about transformative educational results. Classroom research, and particularly qualitative research which attempts to understand classroom practices from the perspective of the participants, can help bridge the gap between story and reality.

To further explore the relationship between technology and educational reform, I carried out qualitative research in schools and universities in Hawai’i from 1996-1998. I’m going to discuss data from two of those studies in my talk today. First, though, let me briefly introduce the situation of education in Hawai’i, especially as it affects issues of educational equity.

Hawai’i has a highly stratified educational system, which dates back in large measure to the plantation system which emerged some 200 years age. The relatively small number of white colonists established their own private schools, which were of high academic quality. Native Hawaiians and immigrant workers attended public schools. Many of these public schools were of good quality in the 19^th century, when Hawai’i had one of the highest literacy rates in the world?and I mean literacy in Hawaiian, not in English?but they began to deteriorate in the 20^th century following the US backed overthrow of the sovereign Hawaiian monarchy. The Hawaiian language was banned, decontextualized methods of instruction that were inappropriate for Hawaiians were imposed, and relatively few resources were devoted to public education. Over the course of the 20^th century, other Pacific Island immigrants, such as Samoans, who shared many of the linguistic and cultural characteristics of Hawaiians, were socialized together with Hawaiians into the lower economic and educational strata. At the same time, many Chinese and Japanese immigrants were able to escape from the poorest neighborhoods, attend better schools, and achieve better educational results.

As a result of this historical process, the educational achievement is highly stratified, with only 9% of Hawaiians completing at least a college degree, as compared to 25% of whites, 39% of Japanese, and 44% of Chinese. Raising the academic achievement of Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders in Hawai’i is thus a strong priority for educational and social improvement in the state.

With this as a background, I’d like to look at the results of the qualitative studies I conduced. The first study I’ll discuss, carried out over the 1997-1998 academic year, examined the process of technology and educational reform in two schools. The first, Leina High, is a public school in one of the poorest neighborhoods of O'ahu. The second, Kaunani, is one of the most elite college preparatory schools in the nation. The study was NOT meant to be a comparison of "rich good school vs. poor troubled school". Both Leina and Kaunani have reputations for excellent use of new technologies, and that is why I selected these two schools for investigation. Through the study, I was hoping to learn more about good uses of new technology in radically different sociocultural circumstances as a way of discovering both the possibilities of reform as well as some of its limitations.

I conducted the study using an interpretive qualitative approach (Erickson, 1986) based on classroom observations, interviews, and analysis of texts. I chose the two schools based on interviews and informal discussions with school district administrators and teachers as to their opinions of the best schools in O'ahu in integrating technology and instruction. From the suggestions offered, I chose these two schools based on their distinct socioeconomic populations. I then visited the two schools on approximately a weekly basis over a six-month period in the 1997-1998 school year. During my visits, I interviewed school administrators, technology coordinators, counselors, department chairs, classroom teachers, and students on their thoughts regarding integration of technology in education. In the majority of cases I tape recorded and transcribed the interviews. In situations where spontaneous discussions arose that were not possible to record, I took notes during or immediately after the discussions. From my discussions with administrators, department chairs, and teachers, I sought the names of teachers who had a reputation for outstanding use of information technology in their teaching. I observed these teachers' classes during my visits to the schools. During these observations, I interacted with students and spoke to them about their experiences. I sometimes helped students while they were working at computers. I took notes during my observations, or, if I was busy helping students, immediately thereafter. Finally, I was provided by teachers and administrators with school reports and documents, and also had access to papers, reports, newsletters, and World Wide Web sites produced by students.

I will briefly describe the two schools, and then compare the similarities and differences of the reform process.

Leina High

Leina High is a sprawling school of low bungalows in a semi-rural corner of O'ahu. The neighboring community of Leina is one of the few remaining areas on O'ahu with a large percentage of Native Hawaiians. It is also one of the most economically depressed areas in the state. Fewer than 10% of the adults living in the area have completed bachelor's degrees, and per capita income in the area is less than $10,000 per year.

Leina High's character is shaped by that of the neighboring community. Half the students are Native Hawaiians and many of the rest are Samoan and Filipino immigrants. Most qualify for free or reduced-cost lunch programs. Some live in homeless encampments on nearby beaches. Twice as many students are performing below grade level as is the national norm, and only one-sixth as many are performing above grade level. Of those who are able to graduate, the majority seek work, join the military, or study part-time at nearby community colleges. Only 11% of seniors claim that they plan to enter directly into a four-year college or university; no statistics are available on how many actually do.

Many people would consider Kaunani (K-12) School to be the polar opposite of Leina. Located in a well-to-do neighborhood of a big city, Kaunani is one of the most expensive private schools in Hawai'i and one of the top-ranked college preparatory schools in the United States. Approximately 97% of its graduates go on directly to four-year colleges and universities, with many going to elite private colleges on the U.S. mainland.

Kaunani has strict admissions policies, requiring a battery of tests for all applicants. In addition to paying some $10,000 per year, potential Kaunani students (even applicants to kindergarten) must test two full years above grade level. The ethnic mix is also quite different at Kaunani than Leina; most Kaunani students are of European, Japanese, or Chinese ancestry, with relatively few Hawaiians, Samoans, or Filipinos.

What then did I find in my visits to Leina and Kaunani? First of all, as it turns out, both schools were implementing similar restructuring processes in order to better integrate technology. At the same time, there were serious underlying differences that affected how students benefited, or did not benefit, from these reforms.

There were four areas of reform that were common to both of these programs, and to the schools overall. The first area was interdisciplinary team teaching. Both schools had set up a number of special programs to encourage teachers to work together across disciplines to help students make better interdisciplinary connections. At Leina, for example, these included a special mass media program, involving teachers from video production, computer programming, business, journalism, and yearbook production, and a Hawaiian studies program, involving social studies, language, and nutrition teachers. At both schools, this interdisciplinary team-teaching was facilitated by a second area of reform, block scheduling. At Leina, every class has a double period once a week, which could be used for special project work. At Kaunani, teachers have even more control over their schedule than do most college teachers. Each teacher is assigned a certain number of contact hours per day, which they can divide up however they want over a six-day cycle. For example, science teachers are assigned 85 student-contact hours a day, which they can fulfill with any combination of lecture, discussion, and lab sections, of any size, as long as they sum up to the total contact hours. A third area of reform, and arguable the most important one, is what might be called collaborative apprenticeship learning. Teachers at both schools are encouraged to have their students learn through active engagement in group projects, rather than principally from lectures. Often this involves technology. For example, advanced learners of Japanese at Kaunani produce a Japanese language radio program based on interviews they conduct in Japanese over the Internet with students in Tokyo.

Finally, administrators in both schools worked hard to engage teachers and staff actively in the reform process. This occurred both through involvement of staff in the development of a shared school vision, and in giving teachers a great deal of leeway and authority to implement that vision. At Leina, the school vision revolved around an extensive school-to-work program, with students selecting career pathways in general areas (e.g., communications, business and management, health service, human services, or natural resources) and then taking courses in these areas and participating in extra-curricular activities such as visits to local workplaces. The school is a designed School Community Based Management site and thus receives extra support the Hawai’i Department of Education for teacher and community involvement in decision making, including the potential for teachers to receive special waiver days (in which students are dismissed from school for teacher planning. Leina High had also won an award for having the best technology vision in its local district, and teachers were actively involved in helping to shape the plan. At Kaunani, the school was in the midst of launching an ambitious new five-year plan emphasizing critical thinking skills; collaborative and autonomous learning; global education; and ethics, spirituality, and community service. Teachers had a tremendous amount of leeway and support to engage in launch creative projects in support of this plan, and were even given grants from the university to do so. An English teacher and a social studies teacher, for example, had used a school technology grant to buy laptop computers for all their students to be used in a new combined team-taught class on American literature and history.

In summary, both schools were following the book in terms of technology-enhanced school reform. And in some ways, they were receiving similar results, at least in the schools’ best programs. Students I observed in both schools were actively engaged, enthusiastic, and working autonomously. At the surface level, this would seem to support the discourse of reform, indicating that educational restructuring necessary for appropriate use of technology is possible at both rich and poor school alike.

But surface views can be deceiving. For while the forms of education were similar, the underlying purpose and content were decidedly different: One school was producing scholars and the other school was producing workers. And the introduction of computers did absolutely nothing to change this dynamic; in fact, it reinforced it.

To illustrate I will describe two programs, a Marine Science program at Leina, taught by Ms. Lee, and an advanced placement biology program at Kaunani, taught by Mr. Harper. Each of these programs was a special, prestige program open to a minority of students. The Marine Science program at Leina was open to 10^th to 12^th grade students who were selected based on written recommendations from other teachers. The Advanced Placement Biology program at Kaunani was open to students who had completed other science courses with a high level of achievement. While they were not equivalent courses?neither one existed at the other school?each was the considered among the best science courses that that school had to offer.

Each of these programs involved all the areas of restructuring mentioned above?including collaborative apprenticeship learning and interdisciplinary team teaching, supported by computers?but to dramatically different ends. The students in the AP Biology course at Kaunani were being apprenticed as junior scientists. They performed the kind of experiments that scientists might perform. And they used computers as tools in this process. Specifically, they used special hand-held devices to probe the temperature, acidity, absorption spectra and other features of plant life in the classroom and in nearby ponds. They then downloaded data from these devices to personal computers, where special software allowed them to graph, compare, and interpret the data. For team teaching, Mr. Harper, teamed up with a mathematics instructor, so his students could learn to better make use of calculus in their data analysis.

In contrast, the Marine Science program at Leina, while engaging, motivating, and interesting to the students, had relatively little to do with scientific inquiry or disciplinary knowledge. The students spent time growing seaweed in special outdoor ponds. They traveled on a boat trip around Oah’u. And these used computers to collaboratively produce a regular newsletter about their personal experiences. The newsletter includes articles describing the students’ boat voyage, their journals, and the people they met. For team teaching, Ms. Lee teamed up with a business teacher, so her students could learn to better market their seaweed.

The teachers in the two science programs are quite explicit about their differing instructional goals. As Mr. Harper, the Kaunani biology teacher explained:

Nor were some of her other activities oriented toward mastery of science, such as getting the students together once a week to read stories from Chicken Soup for the Soul, or even having students write their own local version, entitled "Portuguese Bean Soup for the Soul," based on the name of a locally popular dish. Ms. Lee explained to me how her value-based cooperative learning is tied to the vocational needs of the students.

The differences between Ms. Lee’s and Mr. Harper’s classes were quite representative of the more general differences between classes at Leina and Kaunani. In all computer-enhanced classes at Kaunani, the technology was being used to advance academic inquiry and disciplinary knowledge. At Leina, computers were mostly being used to produce limited content newsletters or Web pages.

How do we understand this situation? I believe that the differences between Kaunani and Leina are well explained by Cuban’s (see also Cuban, 1993; 1986) model of constancy and change in U.S. schools. Cuban studied previous educational innovations over 110 years, including the introduction of film, radio, and television, and found that none of these innovations qualitatively altered American education. Cuban suggests that deeply-held cultural beliefs about the nature of knowledge, how teaching should occur, and how children should learn steer policymakers and teachers toward certain forms of instruction, and that these forms of instruction are guided by the broader role of the schools to "inculcate into children the prevailing social norms, values, and behaviors that will prepare them for economic, social, and political participation in the larger culture" (1993, p. 249). In other words, attempts at reform will usually do little to affect the economic and racial stratification of American schools.

However, and this is what I think is most interesting about this study, in this case we have the results predicted by Cuban, but not the process. Cuban had suggested that precisely the kinds of educational reform described in this study?including collaborative apprenticeship learning, student-centered project work, and restructured classrooms?are very unlikely to be fully implemented in low-SES schools. In this case, though these surface reforms were implemented.

I believe the explanation for this falls in important changes in the American economy in the 20 years since Cuban first published his work. We are now fully immersed in what has been called new capitalism (see Gee, 2000). The Fordist, vertically based hierarchies of the industrial era have proven too inflexible for the new knowledge economy. Companies are desperately trying to restructure themselves to become what management consultants call learning-organizations, based on shared values, horizontal networks, teamwork, constant exchange of information, and a rejection of compartmentalized knowledge (Gee, Hull, & Lankshear, 1996). Workers in these restructured companies of new capitalism require a whole new set of skills and attitudes, which have also been spelled out endlessly by management consultants (e.g., Senge, 1991). These include a commitment to company values, an ability to collaborate, cooperate, and communicate in teams, and knowledge of basic computer operations for finding and exchanging information. So whereas a generation ago, a restructured classroom might have been at odds with the needs of the broader economy (focused then on mass production, narrow application of skills and vertical hierarchies), today, a restructured classroom exactly fits the needs of the emerging economy. And it was fascinating for me to realize how consciously Ms. Lee and other teachers were of this situation. As Ms. Lee explained to me.

At Kaunani, students also learned to work in teams, but for very different purposes. Their teamwork involved both mastery of disciplinary knowledge and also management of complex systems. And this started very young. For example, I visited the class of a 5^th grade Kaunani science teacher, whose students were working on what’s called a Lego-Logo project. This is based on the original Logo computer programming project, but now the computers are wired to small cars assembled from Lego blocks. The children program the computer in order to make the cars start, stop, turn, etc. Anyway, this Kaunani teacher to me his own implicit goals in introducing computer-based project work:

Kaunani’s students’ use of computers also corresponds to the imperatives of the modern economy. As Robert Reich (1991)explains, beyond the ranks of the service and production workers who make up the majority of the workforce is a small but growing number of what are called "symbolic analysts." This category covers all the problem-solving, problem-identify, and strategic brokering activities which dominate the economy, and includes research scientists, software engineers, investment bankers, lawyers, real estate developers, management information specialists, strategic planners, and systems analysts. Budding symbolic analysts also need how to use computers, but not for simple information exchange, but rather to conduct experiments, interpret data, and produce new knowledge. They learn these skills starting from a young age in top-notch private schools and well-to-do suburban public schools. And from all that I observed at Kaunani, the school is doing an excellent job of preparing fresh batches of symbolic analysts for the new economy.

Where from here?

It may seem that my assessment of teachers’ roles at Leina is harsh. I hope that is not the case. Actually, I felt they were doing an outstanding job in very difficult circumstances. There are several points that need to be pointed out about their task. First of all, they are working in extremely challenging and difficult circumstances. Hawai’i has still not yet recovered from the 1980s recession, and the schools have suffered deep cutbacks. Much of what Leina has achieved, and the school’s achievement is considerable, has come through tremendously hard work of the teaching staff and community. For example, at Kaunani, union electricians swept through campus and wired every building on campus to the Internet in a few weeks. Leina High has been slowly installing Internet cables to the various buildings over the best few years, usually relying on volunteer teacher and parent groups to come in on weekends and dig the necessary ditches. And while Kaunani teachers who want to do interesting media-based projects fill out a short form to get funds or equipment from their school’s huge endowment, teachers at Kaunani have to either get by with little or spend their evenings and weekends looking for their own outside grants. Lack of financial support, and ensuing crowded classes, makes the kind of advanced academic work which is common at Kaunani difficult at Leina. For example, due to a lack of facilities and instructors, it was not possible at Leina to have both introductory and advanced video production courses. The advanced students thus took classes mixed in with the beginning ones, and with some 35 students in a class, it was extremely difficult for the teacher to help the six to eight of them who were at an advanced level. And many of Kaunani’s students live in very precarious situations, sometimes with out homes, often without means of communication such as telephones, let alone computers and the Internet.

In spite of these difficulties, Leina’s teachers are doing an outstanding job. They have a vision for their school, which is based on helping Leina’s students become prepared for the workforce, and they are moving ambitiously, and creatively to help achieve that vision. As part of the preparation for the workforce, they are trying to ensure that their students have at least basic computer skills, and for a handful of students involved in advanced media courses, these skills are quite impressive. A few students from Leina have won international awards for video and media production.

Part of the reason for their success is the fact that their programs are conducted in a manner which is culturally appropriate for the school’s Hawaiian and Pacific Island students, who make up the vast majority of Leina’s population. Project-based hands-on work, a great deal of social interaction, and use of a variety of media are all factors which have been demonstrated to be compatible with patterns of Hawaiian communication and learning (Au, 1980; Martin, 1996; Sing, 1986), and from my own observations, Leina’s students responded extremely well to these approaches.

While they are having success in many areas, though, they still have a long way to go in advancing the academic achievement of their students. This is evident both from the relatively small number of Leina graduates who go on to university, as well as the low-level of academic content observed in many Leina classes. In this light, its useful to consider a strain of research in recent years which has compared "communitarian" and "academic" approaches to educational reform. Research has shown that communitarian reforms, which include an emphasis on shared values, democratic governance, positive relations among teachers, and caring attitudes toward students, have by themselves had mixed results in raising academic level of achievement (see discussion in Phillips, 1997). These reforms have worked better when they have been combined with what is termed "academic press," in other words, measures designed to ensure high academic standards through a challenging curriculum, high teacher expectations, and assignment of homework (Philips, 1985; Shouse, 1996). Indeed, students from low-SES background are especially dependent on academic press in schools, for reasons explained by Shouse:

The sociocultural context of both Kaunani and Leina differ substantially from what will be found in California’s schools, but, as this California/Arizona shows, the underlying principles involved are similar. If we are to further educational equity and teaching excellence in California’s schools we must identify and promote teaching approaches which incorporate both communitarian-oriented classroom reform AND high academic standards. Without this, our efforts to integrate computers into the classroom will most likely leave in place, or even reinforce, patterns of social inequality.

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