"One day last fall, Kristine Barrios' 9-year-old daughter got stuck on a lesson in IXL, the personalized learning software that served as her math teacher. She had to multiply three three-digit numbers without using a calculator. Then she had to do it again, her mom says, more than 20 times, without making mistakes. At Alpha School, the private microschool the girl and her younger brother attended in Brownsville, Texas, she had been working a grade level ahead of her age in math, Barrios says."
"She could do three-digit multiplication correctly most of the time. But whenever she made an error in IXL, the software would determine she needed more practice and assign her more questions. She told her mom that she had asked her "guide," the adult who supervised her classroom in lieu of a teacher, to make an exception and let her move on. She said the guide's reply was that she needed to get it done, that it was expected of her."
A private microschool in Brownsville used personalized learning software, IXL, as the primary math instructor while adults served as supervisory "guides." A 9-year-old was forced to repeat a three-digit multiplication lesson more than twenty times because the software flagged errors, prompting parents to sit with her for hours until she completed it. The child became emotionally distressed and later fell farther behind her targeted goals despite completing the assigned work. School staff reported the child skipped lunches to continue work, indicating intense pressure to meet software-determined objectives and targets.
Read at WIRED
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