Moving Fast and Breaking Schools with Remote Proctoring

Chapter 6 looks at the failures of educational innovation during the Covid-19 crisis. As schools scrambled to adapt to remote learning, remote proctoring technologies rapidly expanded. They implemented surveillance systems that violated student privacy and disproportionately harmed vulnerable students. Despite claims of maintaining academic integrity, remote proctoring created a stressful, punitive environment that prioritized monitoring over genuine educational support while failing to do nearly enough to address the inequalities at the heart of accessing and using digital resources. Sadly, the rush to innovate missed crucial opportunities to upgrade core educational infrastructure and truly support students during a time of unprecedented challenge. As if this wasn’t bad enough, some schools continue to use remote proctoring software. A pandemic problem has thus become the new normal.