How the .01% will profit (and profit and profit) from the common core: It’s not the standards. It’s not the tests. It’s the online testing.

Longer version posted on New Jersey Spotlight, Feb 4, 2013, in reaction to: “Online Testing Is Coming to New Jersey Schools -- Ready or Not”
http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/13/02/03/online-testing-is-coming-to-new-jersey-schools-ready-or-not/

“ by the spring of 2015, close to 1 million students between Grades 3 and 11 are expected to sit at laptops or tablets taking their annual state math and language arts exams.

That will be no small technological feat for an education infrastructure that plays catch-up every year as it is.”

To take the new common core online tests, students need to be connected to the internet. Right now, many are not.

Making this happen will cost billions, and it will be a never-ending source of profit for testing and computer companies: We can be sure that the equipment will be obsolete soon after it is installed, and when the brave new electronic tests do not result in academic improvement, technology companies will convince us that the next version, requiring more sophisticated and expensive equipment, will be better.

All this comes from tax dollars. Take from the needy, give to the greedy.

This is happening everywhere: The Florida Board of Education is proposing to spend nearly a half a billion dollars to build the infrastructure for all-computerized state testing.
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/content/time-hardwire-florida-schools-senate-ed-chairman-says

Susan Ohanian provides background about the New Jersey’s testing plans: The NJ Department of Education Chief Performance Officer, is excited about” the technology-enhanced test items that will better measure the full range of students' knowledge and critical thinking skills outlined in the Common Core State.” http://www.susanohanian.org/core.php?id=412