Education Company Monitors Social Media For Test References

theodp writes: As if people haven't found enough to hate about the new 11+ hour K-12 PARCC standardized testing, the Washington Post reports that Pearson, the world's largest education company, is monitoring social media during the administration of the PARCC Common Core test to detect any security breaches, saying it is "obligated" to alert authorities when any problems are discovered. The monitoring of social media was revealed in a message that a New Jersey School Superintendent sent to colleagues about a "Priority 1 Alert" initiated by Pearson in response to a student who referenced a PARCC test question in an after-school Tweet. The news was broken in a blog entry by former NJ Star-Ledger reporter Bob Braun, who also posted the Superintendent's message and called the monitoring of social media nothing less than "spying." Pearson has a contract of more than $100 million to administer the PARCC in New Jersey.

Comments

Re:$100 million

[Anonymous Coward]

Replacing them with robots and TVs is essentially what the common core, and before that, the myriad of state standards with standardized tests, aim to do. Gone are the days of planning particularly interesting lessons related to the actual kids in the room, having the flexibility to explore a particularly curious topic, etc. Most teachers are picking up their "Teachers Manuals," almost exclusively from giants like Pearson, and following numbered steps like its the magic recipe for teaching kids X topic.

Whats missing? Actually learning how to LEARN. Which then shackles the majority of the kids to the awful system ignorant people have created for them.

Its disgusting and citizens should be enraged by it but those most prone to get angry and speak out are far too busy on non-issues like the AP History curriculum not being patriotic enough.

Re:$100 million

[tompaulco]

More like "Fire the school administrators who approve this crap." This one is not on the teachers.

Fire the school administrators anyway. People complain about the teacher's union, but teacher's salaries have barely kept up with inflation. The administration budget, meanwhile, has gone up by thousands or tens of thousands of percent all across the country. Why were we able to get by in the 70s and 80s with effectively a couple of secretaries and a principal, but now we need an entire separate building to house hundreds of administrators? Why is the student to administrator ratio less than the student to teacher ratio? It is needless red tape and needless expense that drives up property taxes and sales taxes and reduces the amount of money going toward education. Fire all of them and education will be improved.
In my school district, in the 1970s, the band program received $15,000 a year, which helped to repair, replace and purchase instruments, music, and equipment. It is now $1,500 in actual dollars or $243 in inflation adjusted dollars. Meanwhile the administrative staff in my school district has gone from a size of perhaps 20 in the 1970s to several hundred now. The number of students in the district has remained approximately the same. The number of teachers has gone down so we can afford to pay all the administrators. Other services have disappeared as well. Bus service is only available if you live more than 1.5 miles from the school. School lunches have been cut back such that about once a week my kids come home and tell me that the cafeteria ran out of the meal and gave them a cold sandwich, yet charged full price.
What administrative costs have done to our schools is a nationwide epidemic and needs to be reversed and quickly. The entire department lives only continue its own existence at the expense of our children's education.