Computer technology is the latest panacea for American students’ mediocre academic performance. If we can just pump enough interactive whiteboards, iPads, and eye-popping video graphics into the classroom, asserts the education establishment, we can overcome the knowledge gap between U.S. students and our leading economic competitors.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Netflix Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings set out the possibilities in the Wall Street Journal this September. “Imagine … an online high-school physics course that uses videogame graphics power to teach atomic interactions,” they wrote, “or a second-grade online math curriculum that automatically adapts to individual students’ levels of knowledge.”