Weblog of Wesley Fryer

Jeff:

I will email you separately in addition to sharing the responses below to your comment.

First of all, I am NOT anti-content filtering for schools. I am for “balanced filtering.” If you search my original post, you will find the word “balance” in it three times. One quote is, “We need a campaign to celebrate, reward, and highlight companies which support BALANCED approaches to content filtering, not approaches which would make the central committee of the People’s Republic of China proud and happy.” When I speak out on this issue, as I have done consistently and continue to do, sometimes people who hear or read what I’m saying miss this critical point. I’ve worked on several sides of this issue, and am well aware (as I noted in this post) that content filtering is required by US law for E-Rate recipients. One quote from this post is, “Basic levels of filtering are needed and mandated by federal E-Rate law in the United States (for E-Rate recipients) but draconian content filtering is NOT. ” I stand by that statement. So, please understand my position is NOT that all filtering is bad. I have basic content filtering on our home network at our house, and I would not advise any US school or library (whether they are receiving E-Rate or not) to take off all filters. I think “basic” content filtering is needed, not only because of objectionable content issues but also security. “Balanced filtering” is what I advocate for.

Secondly, I very intentionally did not mention the name of your school in my post, and my post was not a criticism of your school specifically. I totally agree that it is a challenge to find a more progressive public school in Oklahoma than yours when it comes to technology integration. The issues I highlight here are common to ALL our Oklahoma schools and many other schools across the United States. This post was not an attack on your school. Organizers of Celebrate Oklahoma Voices have been dealing with these content filtering issues for the past four years, they are very familiar to us and to me specifically. If you or others are interested, we have information and documentation about this available on our learning community forum.

Third of all, I agree that many of the services provided to you as a school district by your filtering company are exemplary in the state. I worked closely with them for the two years I was at AT&T, and I have extolled them by name on my blog in the past. They are MUCH easier to work with and reasonable than some of the other companies providing content filtering services now for other Oklahoma school districts. Given those positives, which I acknowledge, the statements which I made in this post are still valid with respect to your content filtering. I was amazed that a website which was specifically whitelisted one day was blacklisted the next. The other comments and observations I made in this post are still valid (in my view, of course) even though your vendor has done and is doing many great things for you.

I am familiar with the difficulty school organizations in particular, as well as individuals more generally, have with criticism. It is common to take criticism personally. If I had wanted to criticize you, your district, or your vendor directly, I would have used your names in my post. I didn’t. Yes, the name of the vendor is on the graphic. It was necessary to use that screenshot to highlight multiple issues which I wanted to point out in my post, however.

It is impossible for a culture of any kind to constructively change if people who see needed areas of improvement are silenced. I wrestle with these issues on a weekly basis, and sometimes daily. I am working as a constructive change agent inside and outside our state for our schools and in education, and part of my role is serving as a mirror for issues and challenges which I witness and experience. I am very judicious whenever I share criticism. Everyone loves praise, but no one likes to be criticized. I know this is a long comment, but the bottom line I hope you’ll understand is that this post was not an attack on you, your school, or your vendor specifically. If I had wanted to do that, I would have used your names, and I did not.

My blog is filled with posts where I extol and praise some of the most innovative teachers, students, leaders, and schools. Your school (as I said several times during our workshop) is a shining star for many reasons in our state. These content filtering issues do not change that fact, and I am sure I’ll be sharing in upcoming days not only some of the wonderful digital stories created by your faculty, but also my own observations about your school and what you all have achieved with respect to technology integration. We need more leaders in our schools like you have been blessed to have, and I will be pointing that out in future posts. It will be clear I am specifically praising you, your school, and other leaders from your district, because I will use your names specifically.

Last of all I’ll respond to your suggestion that I become a school technology director. I’ve definitely considered that. I’ve also considered returning to the classroom, if I could be fortunate enough to work for a visionary superintendent like you all have had who has done the myriad of things required to implement a sustainable vision for 1:1 learning. (I came very close to applying at another Oklahoma 1:1 district when I left AT&T.) I am sure you are right, because of where I sit the world does not look the same to me as it was if I was a technology director. That said, however, I believe at this time it’s my calling to do what I’m doing. I certainly don’t want to advocate for changes which are impossible or out in “left field,” when it comes to content filtering or anything else. I do know SEVERAL technology directors as well as administrators, in our state and in other states, who have a very different view of content filtering than the one implemented in most of our schools. It IS possible to have balanced content filtering, while protecting both the safety of school constituents (including students) as well as the network and the devices which use it.

JJ: This rant was not an attack on IT directors. While I certainly can point to specific cases in specific districts where the IT director is a HUGE impediment to the cause of digital citizenship and acquisition of the ISTE NETS (that is the case in some large as well as small school districts) I totally agree that it is unfair to lay all of this at the feet of the IT Director. Bottom line, this is about leadership and administrative vision. Yes, IT directors have a responsibility and an obligation (I’d argue) to help inform their administration about risks and about “balance” when it comes to content filtering. That said, however, schools are hierarchical bureaucracies and like all other staff the IT Director works for the superintendent, who works for the school board, who works for the public. So the buck REALLY stops with the top leaders in school districts.

We all have important roles to play, and the role of an IT Director is undoubtedly a vital one. I definitely acknowledge there are a myriad of legal mandates with which schools (and IT departments specifically) must comply. In many cases, however, FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) overrule reason and logical thinking. I’ve taught in school districts and worked in school districts where the threat of lawsuits led administrators to do things that could be rightly judged by outsiders as irrational and against the developmental needs of children. Removing all playground equipment from all elementary schools because of a lawsuit threat from a parent is one non-technical example that comes to mind. There are LOTS of factors here. But let’s bring it back to technology and content filtering.

Your job as the IT director is not and should not be construed by parents, your administration, or your community as “guaranteeing the safety of all students on the Internet at all times.” I recognize that is a common perception, but it is a FALSE one. It is one we need to work together to address and change. If you read through the materials currently available on the Unmasking the Digital Truth project, you’ll see that schools have a GREAT deal of latitude in how they choose to enforce content filtering.

Do you have to block webmail and YouTube? No you don’t. You can choose to, but you don’t have to by legal mandate. If students or adults on your network are searching for objectionable content, that’s not your fault as the IT director any more than it would be a teacher’s fault if a student brought a Playboy magazine to school. I believe we need more accountable networks and communities in our schools to address these issues. Many people today assume falsely that content filters can keep our students on task and keep them away entirely from online content we consider objectionable. They can’t. We need to acknowledge this and adopt MUCH more balanced filtering rules in our schools than we have at present in MANY places.

Praise God we live in a relatively free society. (I won’t digress into a diatribe about The Patriot Act here.) I’ve lived in Mexico, and I’ve visited mainland China twice, Hong Kong once. We believe in freedom of expression and in freedom more generally. The enforced rules of content filtering in many of our schools do not, in my view, reflect our values as citizens of the United States or as citizens of a free society. My September 2007 post, “Content filtering in Communist China versus an Oklahoma school” highlighted some of these contrasts. We should NOT block all video sharing sites, all sites permitting social networking, all wiki sites, and all blogs in our schools. Yet sadly, that is EXACTLY what many of our schools in Oklahoma specifically do now. This is wrong, and I believe we all have a responsibility to help fix this situation.

I acknowledge this is a complicated problem, and no– I do not ascribe to you as a technology director the powers of God. You are in a vitally important role, and I cannot put myself in your shoes to feel how difficult it must be at times to be caught between angry parents and your school administration. These are not easy issues, and I’m not trying to paint over this with a brush which would oversimplify things that have developed because of complex interactions.

I do want to say THANKS for your service and commitment to our kids as well as educators. Educators are SO often not thanked enough, and the work you do makes a difference for many. Please understand I am NOT attacking you personally. I am trying to uncover and bring to further light a BIG problem which we need to fix together. I don’t have all the answers to this, but I am committed to working with others (like you) to find them.

Thank you for your response, and taking the time to share your views. I am listening and paying attention. Only by working with all our educational constituents can we hope to find workable solutions to issues like these.