Lawsuits won’t fix the school funding problem

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/06/2024 (537 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The problem is pervasive and growing, but this isn’t the solution.

On Wednesday, The Canadian Press reported that five Ontario school boards and two private schools have joined a lawsuit commenced by four of Ontario’s largest school boards in a multibillion-dollar legal fight against Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. The social media giants’ parent companies are accused of creating a situation in which teachers are being forced to manage the harmful impacts of the websites.

The seven new plaintiffs who filed the lawsuits this week are seeking more than $2.5 billion in damages for disruption to student learning and the education system. That’s in addition to the more than $4 billion that the original four plaintiffs are already seeking via the action filed earlier this year.

The lawsuits, which mirror hundreds of legal actions filed in the United States by a number of state governments and school boards, allege that the social media platforms are negligently designed, causing serious problems for the education system. In particular, they allege that “more staff and administrator time is being spent on addressing compulsive student social media use, more money is going into the heightened need for digital literacy and harm prevention, and more resources are being spent on handling issues such as cyberbullying and online sexual harassment.”

The plaintiffs also allege that the students struggle to spot misinformation, which then forces teachers to spend more time and resources to help them interpret the information.

The CP report quotes Kelly Pisek, the director of education at the District School Board of Niagara, saying that the students’ use of the websites “increasingly hinders students’ ability to absorb lessons, think critically and thrive in our learning spaces,” and that “As a result, school staff are required to spend more time working to meet the needs of students who face significant attention, focus and mental health concerns.”

One of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, Duncan Embury, is also quoted in the report, saying that “The addition of these school boards and schools to the ongoing litigation against technology companies demonstrates the widespread disruption to the education system.”

In response to the Ontario lawsuits, the websites claim they are working hard to prevent the harms the plaintiffs describe. For example, Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram) says that “These are complex issues, but we will continue working with experts and listening to parents to develop new tools, features and policies that are effective and meet the needs of teens and their families.”

The possibility that social media, and the Internet in general, is “re-wiring” users’ brains and having an adverse impact on children in particular has been a widespread concern for several years, and that concern certainly isn’t limited to Ontario. There is no shortage of stories about children who are struggling in schools, who have lost (or are failing to develop) the ability to concentrate, to analyze issues and communicate effectively, but can a handful of social media websites be credibly blamed for all that harm and held liable for billions of dollars?

Beyond that, what about the role and responsibility of parents to protect their children from potential harm? Shouldn’t they be limiting their children’s access to the Internet via computers and cellphones?

School boards are undoubtedly experiencing the impact — both cognitive and behavioural — and cost of kids being “hard wired” to the Internet, but it’s far from clear that school boards are the appropriate organizations to be suing because of harm allegedly caused to childrens’ cognitive functions. That’s the role of those students’ parents or guardians.

If the plaintiff school boards win or settle their lawsuits, and receive huge amounts of money from the defendant websites, none of that money will go to the children who have actually suffered the harm. Rather, it will go to the plaintiff school boards to help them balance their operating budgets. Does that sound fair to you?

Consider this issue from another perspective: There are those who argue that childrens’ cognitive abilities and general well-being are impaired by consuming too much fast food, and by exposure to harmful chemicals such as paints and solvents. If the lawsuits against social media websites are justified, would it also make sense for school boards to be suing fast-food restaurants and paint companies to recover the cost of extra teachers and educational assistants?

I don’t think it would. School boards may believe that their jobs have become harder because of websites like Facebook and Instagram, but they can’t reasonably rely on the hope of successful lawsuits in order to ensure they have enough money to deliver the educational resources that children need. That’s the role of the provincial government and the boards themselves.

The lawsuits have the appearance of being based upon concerns for students’ well-being, but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that they are really just opportunistic “money grabs” by boards that feel they are chronically under-funded by their provincial government, yet are unable to raise property tax rates to a level that would give them the money they feel they need in order to properly fund their education system.

That’s no way to solve the education funding challenge. Let’s hope these lawsuits don’t soon extend to include Manitoba school boards.