Week 8

I previously talked about updating technology in the school system and how it was an extremely optimistic idea. As expensive and as farfetched as it sounds, updating a whole school, it is happening in New Jersey. My time in a school has shown me how state testing effects the teachers and how they approach their lesson plan. The standards and tests change and so much the way the teacher approaches their content. After this year, New Jersey is switching over the the PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness of College and Careers) and it requires the students to take the tests on a computer. 

The article I had found focuses on Edgewater and the process of updating their schools in preparation for the test. The School Board has apparently set up a three year plan that will update the schools computers so that they will be more than ready for the new state testing. This is ideal but the revamp is going to cost the school district $90,000 every year!

This is great for Edgewater but about schools that do not have the money to update their computers or bandwidth? Schools in urban areas or blue collar towns that do not have the ability or funding to update their computer systems are going to fall behind. Worse enough, what if the schools that are already suffering due to budget cuts do manage the upgrades but then the state decides to go into another direction with testing? Sure it is great that the school upgraded but the tech and training that was poured into the PARCC testing strategies would have been wasted. Schools just do not have the time and resources to waste when it comes to their students futures.