$350M For "World Class" Test: $0 For "World Class" Standards

With few takers for Dunc's $5 billion set aside for bribing states into more charter schools, pay-per-score plans, and lifelong data surveillance systems, Arne has put aside $350 million for the testing companies who have pencil-ready projects ready to go into action. Does the announcement in Cary, NC mean that SAS's Bill Sanders has a 10 minute head start?

What about standards, you say, upon which to build the new super tests? If that work is to be done at all, it will be done by educators, so there is no need for any extra money to do it. Most likely this new unidirectional and mono-cultural dead end will have the same cart full of bubble sheets leading the same old horse, See Basics, long beaten to the ground by repeated generations of bold backwards thinkers.

. . . .Any tests developed for the new standards would probably replace existing ones.

Asked to explain the money's focus on developing more tests, Duncan said developing the standards themselves would be relatively inexpensive.

Developing assessments, by contrast, is a "very heavy lift financially," he said, expressing concern that the project could stall without federal backing. . . .

To have such an opportunity for the rebuilding and renewal of American public education put in the hands of such arrogant morons is truly a crime against American children.