Most students have a desktop computer, used for interactive, self-paced learning. The curriculum has been changed significantly, as has the role of the teacher - all for the better according to everyone involved, including parents. The result was improved student learning and higher student motivation. The River Oaks project didn't solve the problems of the community, but it has helped change the community by improving community involvement in the welfare of children. It not only changed the children, but the attitudes of parents and local businesses, for the better.
Schools are a product of economic, social, and values structures.
But, conversely, change a school and you change the world. The most articulate spokesman of this view is social critic and technology skeptic Neil Postman. And so on. These questions evade the issue of what the schools are for. It is as if we are a nation of technicians, consumed by our expertise of how something should be done, afraid and incapable of thinking about why.