The anti-LanSchool argument
Michael Kessler
Editor-in-Chief
This year, Milken is implementing a new program called LanSchool, which will allow faculty and administrators to monitor and control student laptops. LanSchool’s full details can be found in The Roar‘s accompanying news article.
LanSchool presents a number of problems that revolve around three key issues: Its in-class aspects, its out-of-class aspects, and its impacts on student privacy.
First off, Milken technically has a right to restrict and monitor student laptop usage during class time. However, just because such a right exists does not mean that it is right for our particular school and students. In fact, I believe that by using LanSchool to monitor students’ laptop usage during class, Milken actually strips student accountability while contradicting its own mission statement.
One of Milken’s publicly stated academic goals is to “develop independent learners who take responsibility for their academic work and their own success.”* I wonder how students can take responsibility for their academic actions when LanSchool’s monitoring program will not even permit them to assume that responsibility in the first place. Milken is placing its students in a protective bubble with LanSchool that fosters an environment in which its students are not given the freedom to see any poor decision-making result in appropriate negative consequences.
Additionally, LanSchool’s implementation directly contradicts another of Milken’s academic missions to “[prepare] our students for the demands of the world.”* University administrators and college professors do not care if their students are using their laptops inappropriately during class time instead of taking notes on the day’s lecture. If a student consequently performs poorly in the course, he or she will fail and another more focused student will take their place. The same is true in the real world: If someone does not get their job done, that person will be fired, and someone more on task will be hired in their place.
What Milken should do with its students is groom them in a learning environment that mirrors college and the real world, instead of using LanSchool to micromanage its students’ laptop usage. In this way, its graduates will truly be prepared “for the demands of the world.”
Let me be clear: I do believe that a program like LanSchool has inherent value in an elementary or middle school setting. It is at that stage in students’ lives when they should be taught proper academic protocol and be placed in classrooms where they are forced to be focused and on task. But by imposing these same restrictions on older and more mature high school students, Milken oversteps its responsibilities and acts inconsistently with its self-stated goal to “develop independent learners.”
The second major problem with LanSchool revolves around its usage and purpose outside the classroom. Whereas during class there is legitimate, yet flawed reason for teachers to monitor their students’ laptops, no justification exists for the use of LanSchool outside of class. Yet the fact remains that LanSchool is always monitoring students’ computers while they are connected to Milken’s network.
This is a problem because no educational purpose is served by monitoring student laptops outside of class; therefore, this is a baseless infringement on students’ privacy. LanSchool oversteps its bounds as a teacher aid for use in an academic setting by continuing to run during students’ free time.
My final concern with LanSchool is one which applies both in class and on breaks, and has the potential to cause the most severe problems. It deals with the total loss of privacy and control which students are forced to accept when LanSchool is running on their laptops. I understand that Milken students will never have complete Internet privacy because Milken justifiably monitors all Internet sites visited by students while connected to its network. But LanSchool goes much further, thanks to its remote control feature that allows any teacher to view and control any laptop as if they were sitting in front of it.
How does this feature result in students losing privacy and control of their own laptop?
On the privacy front, any teacher or administrator can open and read any file on any student laptop while it is connected to Milken’s network by taking control of the laptop and navigating into the laptop’s hard drive. If a student has any confidential documents or personal emails on their computer, LanSchool gives faculty members and administrators the ability to secretly navigate into the laptop’s hard drive and read any of these private files while on Milken’s network.
As to the loss of control, if a teacher felt so inclined, he or she could also theoretically remote control a student’s laptop, navigate to an inappropriate website, and subsequently pin the blame squarely on the student. Because LanSchool is not capable of determining which mouse movements and clicks were done via remote control, the student would have no way to prove that they were not responsible for the offense.
While I am not implying that any Milken faculty member or administrator would even think of doing such things, the mere fact that these situations can happen without any check is what is truly significant and concerning. When I say that a student with LanSchool running on their laptop is no longer in possession of their laptop, I mean that in the most literal way possible.
Although I personally feel that removing LanSchool entirely is the appropriate course of action, there are certain compromises that I feel would alleviate at least some of my concerns.
First, students should have the right to privacy and control of their laptops outside of class, specifically during free periods, lunch and after school. An easy way to implement this suggestion would be to provide a way to close LanSchool when a student is not in class.
Second, students should be able to know when their laptop is being watched or monitored. In the current framework LanSchool’s “View Only” mode allows teacher and administrative accounts to view a student’s screen without the student knowing they are being watched. This could be easily remedied by displaying an icon that notifies the student when they are being monitored.
It is my hope that the Milken administration will see that student opposition to LanSchool is much more sophisticated than simply being upset over not being able to check Facebook during lulls in class. In the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides states that “man’s actions are in his [own] hands” and that “a person is judged for his deeds… whether good or bad.”** Despite Maimonides’ teachings, LanSchool takes the action out of students’ hands and prevents them from being allowed to make inappropriate (or appropriate) decisions at all, therefore shielding them from the consequences of their decisions.
Additionally, Baba Batra stated that “the entrance of each family tent faced exactly so that one person could not peer in to the other’s tent.” Rabbi James Greene used this quote to support his opinion that LanSchool is halachically wrong because it similarly allows one person to peer into the other’s laptop.***
In conclusion, Milken is sending the wrong messages to its students by implementing LanSchool and I sincerely hope that the administration reconsiders its decision. I would also like to encourage anyone who has any thoughts or opinions on this important technological issue to comment below.
*http://www.milkenschool.org/academics/
**Mishneh Torah, Teshuvah 5:5
***Baba Batra, 60a (interpretation credit to http://www.jewishvaluescenter.org/question.php?id=482)
indoraptor • Jan 26, 2021 at 11:37 am
1 lanschool is spyware witch needs to be nuked and i can never get rid of it due to the fact it is locked on to my computor
alex • Nov 15, 2013 at 8:06 am
i think lanschool is ridiculos no no should have a teacher look at their screen or control their computer it is unfair.
A college professor • Apr 23, 2013 at 9:56 am
I’d like to address one point in this article: actually, college professors care a great deal about what students are doing on their computers during class. Perhaps the most interesting thing, though, is that fellow STUDENTS care even more. They don’t want to be distracted by a classmate’s computer during class. Even if they can’t see the screen, they can tell that the student’s attention and keyboard action is not focused on class.
Anonymous • Sep 20, 2012 at 10:31 am
This is a very late response to a good, albeit flawed, article.
While I applaud your efforts in challenging a situation you find fault with (every student, in fact every person, should do this if they are upset or disagree with something), I disagree with a few points you make:
The first has to do with the infringement of students’ rights/privacy with respect to their use of an institution’s network. When using someone else’s network, whether it be for school or business, there is rarely any implied privacy. The student is using a network provided and paid for by someone else, in this case, the school. On any business or collegiate system, there is always a policy statement that explicitly states that upon signing into said network, user waives any and all rights to privacy.
The second has to do with verifying teacher/admin/student behavior on the network. You stated, “While I am not implying that any Milken faculty member or administrator would even think of doing such things, the mere fact that these situations can happen without any check is what is truly significant and concerning.” You want teacher activity “checked”, then student activity being checked should be okay, too. Lanschool is there to provide that “check” for student behavior – to ensure that the temptation to act inappropriately using the laptops is not acted upon by the students. Though I agree with you – the Lanschool programming team should put in code to verify teacher activity/host
computer activity as well.
Great article – continue challenging everything. It’s the only way you truly grow as a lifelong learner.
Alex • Nov 1, 2011 at 11:01 pm
A very well written piece that paints a sophisticated picture of the opposition to LanSchool. I’d append to the article, however, a technical critique of the software. The fact is, LanSchool is designed to run in a controlled environment, like the computers Milken provides in the library. On those machines, students lack administrative access, ensuring that LanSchool can perform its intended function. On student laptops, however, the student is in charge. When that’s the case, it’s trivially easy to circumvent the software so that it passes along to any viewer whatever the student wishes. The first rule of computer security is that one cannot rely on unverifiable information provided by the client software. By attempting to implement LanSchool unilaterally on student owned machines, the school has ignored the inherent difficulties associated with such software. Instead of a doomed software mechanism, a dialogue needs to be initiated between students and faculty. Otherwise, we risk spending much more time on a “solution” than the problem merits.
Mr. P. Lindsay • Nov 1, 2011 at 8:42 am
“What Milken should do with its students is groom them in a learning environment that mirrors college and the real world…”
You sure you want to open this can of worms? College and the real world is much harsher.
Milken Student • Sep 30, 2011 at 5:08 pm
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Hebrew teachers on facebook. Kudos to both the first and second commenters.
Anonymous • Sep 25, 2011 at 11:56 pm
A protest of Lanschool:
If your teacher is using Lanschool in class, simply don’t use your computer.
Milken has lost its sense of fostering independent learners if this is what it’s resorted to. We’ve been stripped of individuality. I really hope that the student body doesn’t stand idly by to this. If you found out that the government were doing this to you (which they essentially do), you would immediately trace this to a violation of the 4th amendment. Though we’re stripped of natural rights as students, the administration is unwarrantedly searching and seizing our personal information.
This is no different than a paranoid parent reading a child’s text messages or emails. It’s really just time to back off. This whole thing is disgusting! Like Michael stated beautifully, why should the administration care? Let students who are irresponsible enough to lull away on facebook suffer the consequences.
Parents should not condone their children’s exposure to this repressive “Big-Brother” strategy. The reason why this is so problematic is because students are forced, REQUIRED, to sit through dogmatic lectures on Jewish law, and the only escape from near death by boredom is Facebook.
Not only that, but Facebook has assisted with clubs on campus for purposes such as photo extraction for the yearbook and fundraiser awareness. The administration needs to stop this conceit and let the students decide whether or not they want to learn, pay attention, or suffer the consequences of goofing off in class. Economics should not play a factor in this decision because though many may argue that parents don’t want their hard-earned money wasted, but they are just conditioning their children for laziness and exposure to tyranny and coercion in the classroom.
http://www.jewishjournal.com/education/article/using_laptops_offers_lessons_in_ethics_of_technology_20110817/
Quoted from a commenter:
In the article Ablin is quoted as stating “You can’t have the conversation if you put a big firewall in front of the kids”.
Is that not what is being done with the implementation LanSchool? Students will be monitored and prevented from performing from what he has classified as misuse, ensuring that students lose the opportunity learn through experience; and that the necessary ethical discussions will never arise.
THIS IS TRULY SHAMEFUL. We go to Milken Community High School, and our administration is proud of conceit, censorship, and denial of natural rights.
a stuned with lanschool • Nov 14, 2013 at 2:44 pm
This article was very informatve and I thank the carful author who made a logical argument.
my problem with Lanschool is what it does outside of school. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I have been told by my teachers that LanSchool monitors browsing history when NOT connected to the school network. However, this may just be them taking my computer over and checking my history, but my teacher has implied that that is not the case. I also have no ability to hinder or delete Lanshcool (not that I would). But I do not have administrative accesses to Lanshcool. I’m the OWNER of the computer, and I don’t have admistrative access? I should be the only one with that.
Also, the first comment here is to not use your computer while the teacher is using lanschool. I find two problems with this: 1. my teachers do not directly use landschool. My dean of students and tech-advisor screen peek from their offices. This means that I cannot tell when I’m being watched. I could be being watched as you read this (if I’m at school). 2. most things we do in class require our computers, we too are a 1-1 class. Merely closing my computer and not opening it because I “could be being watched” would make me not only crazy and suspecious sounding, but could also get me a detention for not obeying my teacher, not participating in class, and arguing
lastly, I would like to speak for most (if not all) Lanschool students that this system is unfair and inavsive. I do not mind if a teacher watches my computer durring class, I’m a goodie-two-shoes, but the fact that I can’t know when they are doing that, and that they can take over my computer, are violations of my privacy.
I was also forced to sign a paper at the beggining of last year saying I premit lanschool on my comouter. Software so invasive as to require a waver does not belong in a school enviroment, still one of the safest palces in the world. I also suspect that the contract ran out at the end of the year, allowing me to delete Lanshcool over the summer and or to not sign again. As I have stated, I cannot delete Lanschool, nor was the paper I singed reproduced this year. I’m afriad to ask for the paper, afriad to make a reputation or to be suspicious to my teachers, especcially going into 9th grade next year.
Anon • Sep 22, 2011 at 4:58 pm
Lets experiment and see have the kids spy on the teachers and faculty. I wonder what they are doing on their computers when they are supposed to be working.