Science & Tech Quote by Major Owens

“Education technology” lands here less like a buzzword and more like a political lever: a way to talk about fixing public schools without immediately wading into the third-rail fights over taxes, unions, zoning, or segregation. Major Owens frames it as “very important” not because devices magically raise test scores, but because “massive challenge” is the kind of phrase legislators use when the problem is too big to solve with one bill - and too urgent to ignore.

The intent is pragmatic and strategic. Owens is pointing to ed-tech as scalable infrastructure: tools that can stretch thin resources, standardize access to materials, and modernize systems that often run on outdated workflows. In the public-school context, “massive challenge” usually signals crowded classrooms, uneven funding, bureaucratic drag, and achievement gaps that track with race and income. Technology becomes the politically palatable promise that you can widen opportunity without first rebuilding the entire social contract.

The subtext is also defensive. By emphasizing technology, Owens implicitly rebukes the idea that public schools are hopelessly broken or that privatization is the only answer. Ed-tech, in this framing, is a way to invest in the public sphere while sounding future-facing rather than nostalgic.

There’s a quiet caveat embedded in the sentence: technology matters because the system is under strain, not because it’s a substitute for teaching, stability, or equity. The line reads like a policy pitch with a warning label - tech is necessary, but it’s being asked to carry the weight of problems it didn’t create.