Sacramento, CA — A coalition of conservative activists is decrying efforts by the California-based Progressive Citizens for Common Core’s (PCCC) push to replace school computer keyboards with a more “progressive and modern generative input medium.”
“We’re firm believers in data-driven, research-based decision making,” said PCCC president and founder and former school teacher Stacey Stints. “We want to put the keyboards of the future in the hands of our students. They need to find their way when typing. And who knows? Maybe the next creative genius is out there right now.”
The Common Core State Standards Initiative is an educational initiative from 2010 that details what K–12 students throughout the United States should know in English language arts and mathematics after each school grade. Critics maintain that its standards are too “homogenous” and lack the diversity to serve different learning communities and that it focuses too much on skills instead of content.
To that end, PCCC’s new keyboard approach attempts to address many of Common Core’s shortcomings. The most obvious change is that keyboards are blank and must be constructed either by individual students or by what Ms. Stints calls “communities of learners.”
“We want to let students create their learning realities,” continued Ms. Stints. “In a way, this is a return to the ways of the 1980s. It removes the elitist and orthodoxy of the traditional computer keyboards.”
Although most keyboards will come with blank keys, several companies including computer peripheral giant Logitech plans “templates” for students to aid in assembly.
“We’re planning on all kinds of different keyboard starter kits, as we’re calling them,” said Logitech spokesperson Bethany Millbright. “We have layouts for phonics and inventive spelling. We even have a keyboard with pictures on it to help those children who are struggling with their letters.”
The entire computer keyboard overhaul is expected to cost California upwards of 1 billion dollars.
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