She can sing, play the piano, figure statistics, read Shakespeare, and she’s going to Duke. Oh, by the way, she is a national champion in Discus, too.

From the ceiling of Jessica Barger’s Algebra II classroom hangs a silver metal box, projecting a Powerpoint from the teacher’s new computer. The students use black rectangular remotes to answer questions from the Powerpoint and their answers are recorded on the teacher’s computer...