Healy is a professional educator of wide experience, and a recovering techno-fundamentalist. She is scrupulously fair about the evidence presented in various studies on the ways computers help or hinder learning, and quick to offer positive anecdotes where there are positive ones to be had. (She freely notes, for example, what a miracle computers have been for some handicapped children.) But her conclusions about the routine use of computer technology in the classroom are overwhelmingly--and persuasively--negative.
A major theme of Failure to Connect is the federal government's culpable idiocy (not her term, but she implies as much) in jumping uncritically, to the tune of $4 billion a year, on the "computer in every classroom" bandwagon. As she shows, there is scant evidence that computers teach basic skills any better than traditional methods, or that children who don't have computers are somehow "left behind." Conversely, there is abundant evidence that an uncritical infatuation with computers as an educational panacea is replacing skill building and learning with formless play while forcing art and music lessons, and in some cases math textbooks, off many school budgets.
Healy writes lucidly, neatly balancing her discussion of the issues with practical, undogmatic advice for parents and educators. A sober and sobering read about a crucial issue. --Richard Farr