Amplify, the company owned by Rupert Murdoch, won a $12.5 million contract to develop formative assessments for Common Core tests. The award was made by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, one of two groups funded by the Obama administration to create national tests, administered online. Joel Klein runs Murdoch’s Amplify division.
When Murdoch purchased Wireless Generation in the fall of 2010, he said:
“When it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the U.S. alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs that extend the reach of great teaching,” said News Corporation Chairman and CEO, Rupert Murdoch. “Wireless Generation is at the forefront of individualized, technology-based learning that is poised to revolutionize public education for a new generation of students.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Perfect. Open scum hired by ostensibly “good” people to perpetrate more horrors on kids and schools to further the corporate agenda, and PAYING them to do it. Who is writing this script, Alfred Hitchcock?
well said. this is beyond vile.
Michael, I hear your venom, and feel that if more people spoke like you, maybe our wee little voices will be heard. Remember Horton Hears a Who?
Looks like my Irish luck ran out. Ugh, ugh and double ugh!
I literally JUST blogged about this. Definitely adding your comments to the post. Thanks for continuing to shed light on this crazy profiteering mess.
Simple solution – EVERONE who has a child going to public school from K-12 opt out of any form of online testing/education. That will make Amlify’s stock drop.
yes!
Great Idea!!!
April’s Fool day is still 2 weeks away . . .
This was an early April Fool’s joke, wasn’t it?
Lots of tax dollars being spent on assessment.
Which professionals/teachers are capable of assessing on their own.
I don’t need or want their garbage. It is a waste of time for my students.
Yes. In the old days when local control still existed, teachers used to design units for the district they taught in, and they wrote the tests that went with them. And they did it for pennies. My mom used to do that during the summer to get a little money, and it was very little money. Not the billions of tax dollars that these corporate vultures take.
lets keep making the uber rich money on the backs of students,parents and teachers. This is criminal.
For Murdoch, this is about the “$500 billion dollar sector (in the U.S. alone)” not the reach of great teaching. Murdoch’s statement only verifies what I knew all along. They view education as a big pot of money that desperately needs corporations to get their greedy hands on.
Opt out of testing. Opt into learning: the way that technology can truly transform schools is not by replacing teachers with video “lessons” but by enabling each student to create a personal learning network and a self-directed portfolio of exemplary work which together enable real learning and simultaneously demonstrate its fruits.
They still have to learn how to read, write and think. Putting a device in their hands doesn’t make them magically become better readers and writers.
Precisely. Technology in schools should not be about replacing teachers, it should be about empowering students. I use the question, “Who’s telling the computer [or any electronic device] what to do?” This is, is the student simply supplying responses to a programmer’s/content developer’s prompts, or is the student creating their own content or learning how to do so, how to take control of the device and use its full capacity? Unless the student is being put in charge of creating something or expressing something, the device is likely wasting their time.
Don’t we already have a national std. test? Ever heard of NAEP.
Obama needs to stick to what he knows best, like playing golf with Republicons, and leave education to people who really care about the future of the country.
If you voted for Obama, Jon Awbrey, I can’t credit your claim to be someone who really cares about the future of the country. No need to fess up. It’s a secret ballot, for a while, unless the unions get hold of the election system (I allude to card check). Just sayin’ . . .
Many teachers did not vote for Obama so stop with your assumptions.
Seriously, no one can possible think Rmoney would have been BETTER for public ed? The oncoming train wreck would have just moved faster.
Terri, no doubt Romney would have been worse. But why does Obama pursue the same policies as Romney, excepting only vouchers? Have you heard him ever denounce for-profit schools? Don’t you tire of all the emphasis on high-stakes testing?
To Terri,
Would this have imploded faster under Romney? Maybe.
What is “better” at this point anyway?
Obama is not supporting public schools, public school children or teachers.
If they destroy the profession and our public schools, what will they have? What is their end game? Comparing worse to worst is pointless now.
“Seriously, no one can possible think Rmoney would have been BETTER for public ed? The oncoming train wreck would have just moved faster.”
Yeah, had Romney won the election, he’d do something crazy like award a contract to develop Common Core tests to Rupert Murdoch.
Who Me? I voted for Hillary, and will again if I get a chance. Everything in between is just the usual game of 2-party system damage control.
Diane, I suspect that the only reason that this post hasn’t generated more comments than any other post that you have written is because we all expected this to happen. The groundwork was laid and Murdoch is just cashing in some of his chips.
But we should be UP IN ARMS over this!
Marching “IN ARMS” over this? I didn’t think public school people really approved of carrying a gun during a protest. I don’t. I think public protests should be totally non-violent, without pictures of guns on tee shirts or pop tarts nibbled into the shape of a pistol.
This guy is a sound biter, no policies, no evidence, just right wing slogans to rev up the audience. For what?
As soon as I wrote that, I knew someone would jump on my choice of idiom.
How about if we JOIN our arms – you know, the ones attached to our shoulders – and unite to stand up to the challenges with which we are confronted.
Link arms sounds just fine for a non-violent demonstration. Petitioning the government for redress of grievances is a long and honored tradition. Were exactly should we link arms, unless you are speaking metaphorically, and what specific grievance do we have?
If someone other than the teacher — who knows her/his students extremely well from teaching them every day — develops the “formative assessments”, then they are not really formative assessments. Let’s call them what they are: more tests in preparation for the tests.
Really? I am shocked by this…well, no, I am not. It is only the beginning. Pearson/Murdoch, all the same.
FIRE DUNCAN! Hire Ravitch!
I would actually support that change, but if you voted for Obama, your credibility is nil.
My heart weeps for children and teachers. My heart weeps for the humanity of our country.
Truly a nightmare:( Only it gets worse when one is awake. I’m with you Wordsmatter. I weep too:(
It makes me sad. It makes me sick, but it is really pissing me off.
Who do these people think they are fooling? What happened to the elected officials who took some type of oath to protect the people, especially our children?
Is everyone a fraud? Has everyone been bought?
What happened to defending the people of our country and what happened to hope, Obama?
Before the election, I saw you speaking on CNN about your concerns for Malia and a Facebook account. YOU said you were concerned with protecting her privacy.
Is the it Obama? Is that ALL you got? Concern for your children only?
I am way more than disappointed and so glad I didn’t vote for you twice.
In taking these “oaths” most politicians swear to “protect and preserve” the constitution of the United States, not to protect the people. We’ve seen how well they do that job.
Ah… the Obama administration dealing with the finest people of the highest moral character. A man whose company sleazily hacked into the phone of a murdered girl. Way to go Obama and company. You’ve really set an example for the nation. Crime does pay!!! That will go well with your ED Secretary’s lack of respect for privacy too.
Where is the government to say NO. Where are out elected representatives? Who do they represent? We are quickly becoming a nation for the wealthy, by the wealthy, and of the wealthy. I only pray that this Republic will become for the people by the people and of the people once more. As the founding fathers conceived.
And YOU voted for Romney, right Ari H. Steinfeld? If you voted for Obama, your statement above is hypocritical and frivolous. Get serious.
You are assuming again. Isn’t that frivolous?
Regardless of whom anyone voted for, isn’t it everyone’s responsibility to call what is wrong, wrong? Do you keep your mouth shut and accept everything that happens if you voted for someone who is partially responsible?
Bad question, because I’m sure that you’ve never voted for anyone but a top-notch candidate, even though this hasn’t been possible in any of your lifetimes.
Harlan, what choices do we have? The billionaires back their horses and we get the choice of the few. You know there weren’t any good candidates that had a chance to win. Both Romney and Obama stunk. People felt they chose the lesser of the two evils.
It’s so horribly obvious what’s going on. I’m just sick. We have to fight the good fight!
I’m sick to my stomach by all of this nonsense, travesty, and chicanery from the deformers with money. The 1%ers continue to destroy, destroy, and then destroy. The cancerous approach by Murdoch to eat away the money that should be used for public schools and teachers will bring the death of the public school system faster than anyone can imagine. Every child will be online learning, but authentic teaching by a teacher in front of a classroom will phase out and become extinct.
Arnie has high standards:
http://occupyamerica.crooksandliars.com/diane-sweet/rupert-murdoch-hit-600-new-hacking-cla
Looks like thugs hang out with other thugs….brings new meaning to gangs.
Folks, all the outrage in these comments is totally appropriate, but remember, and tell everyone you know, that parents hold enormous power in this situation. All this is about our children, without whose cooperation nothing can happen. When enough people opt out of testing, the main engine of the profiteers will run out of gas. My kids will not take a state test or turn on a computer at school or perform any other exercise or school work that my wife and I do not know for a fact has been generated by their teachers. We can pull the plug on Wireless Generation and Amplify.
So, question. I’m a student and don’t understand exactly what this is about? What I see it as being, given the comments, is that its like a boring sort of Leapfrog. Or mass produced education. Is this correct? Someone correct me if its not
This is being done TO children and TO their teachers and leaders. How is it possible for the corruption of possible the seed of a good idea (changing the manner in which children are given learning opportunities) to be turned into this money making, politically enforced, top down demand while schools scramble to be obedient. This is not an example of good leadership with good intentions. This is an example of disconnected, driven, confused people barreling through the institutions of learning in which our children are growing up. Does this make any sense?
Someone needs to point out that you can’t really develop formative assessments for the common core assessments. You might develop formative assessments for the common core standards but this would be a waste as most have pointed out. There needs to be some accountability for this kind of decision and I don’t see it anywhere.
I have been writing “formative assessments” (FA) for the past couple of years for a college textbook publisher. They are offered as online test banks for professors’ use, for individual textbooks. They consist of multiple choice questions (stems) that are followed up by offering a hint as well as enriched feedback addressing each of the distractors (wrong possible answers) as well as the right answer.
A few observations:
Even though I author these things, it’s not always quite clear to me what an FA is, or how they will be implemented by the individual teacher.
Writing one good FA question, one tailored to the text, requires about one hour to complete. They require a lot of craft, and can be quite mind-numbing to compose. Naturally, a set of FAs for a given chapter also requires that they be well distributed across the specific chapter content and coverage.
When I see these test banks as they appear online, I am not blown away. The format has many problems, and one of the more pernicious outcomes is to get people inured to interacting with machines and getting accustomed to this as a way of life.
While I am no fan of Rupert Murdoch, or NewsCorp, the fact of the matter is that these materials are going to be created by someone, and the way things are set up these days, that someone is probably going to be hired by a corporation. (The key phrase is “the way things are set up these days.”)
As a general matter, I am in favor of trying to establish national standards in K-12 education. Judging from reviews I receive authored by college teachers, many students are arriving at college without adequate skills in the basics. This deterioration seems to be an ongoing trend. So perhaps a national curriculum would help.
Thirty years ago, my son attended kindergarten and first grade in Japan. His school teachers were highly professional yet also guided by a highly articulated national curriculum. I was quite impressed with how specific, thorough, and well-organized the curriculum was. Even though we had been living in a backward rural area in Japan, when we returned to an affluent suburb in America, it took quite a while for my son’s American class to catch up, particularly in math (not to mention music and art!).
Who is Rupert Murdoch exactly, and why is his organization being hired to provide this kind of “testing” work. Here’s an excerpt from Robert Parry’s book, “Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, The Press, and Project Truth,” in the Chapter entitled “Perception Management,” where evidence in the book is being presented to show who and what were involved in the propaganda efforts to portray the US involvement in the illegal Contra wars in Latin America during the Reagan/Bush White House years:
“Based at the National Security Council and overseen by the CIA director William J. Casey, “public diplomacy” had as its overriding goal the Orwellian concept of ‘perception management.’ The initial operation was called ‘Project Truth.'” (p.12) […]
“Raymond [Walter Raymond Jr, a 30-year veteran of CIA propaganda operations who was assigned to the National Security Council staff in 1982 (p. 49)] already had adopted some of the ideas Casey was hearing from the P.R. men, concepts that echoes the early proposals about the combined public-private backing for Project Truth and Project Democracy. In line with the recommendations, Raymond arranged financing in August 1983 for ostensibly independent groups that endorsed President Reagan’s policies.
According to a memo dated Aug. 9, 1983, Raymond reported that USIA, director Wick, “via [media mogul Rupert] Murdock [sic], may be able to draw down added funds” to support pro-Reagan initiatives. The phrase “draw down” suggested that Murdock previously had allocated funds for the operation. Raymond recommended routing the “funding via Freedom House or some other structure that has credibility in the political center.’ (Note #34: With Raymond’s backing, Freedom House would become a major recipient of U.S. government largesse. The government-funded National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, awarded Freedom House $200,000 in 1984 to build “a network of democratic opinion-makers.” It’s total bounty from NED would reach $2.6 million by 1988, more than one third of Freedom House’s total budget.” (p. 62-63)
Too bad students have become another commodity for big business.Can’t wait to retire from what used to be my passion.I pity the next generation of robots coming up, AND some of the younger teachers who never had a chance to feel that creative passion for teaching a subject that you love. Mine is art.
$12.5 million would buy a lot of library books.
Smarter Balanced
doublespeak
Now we are going to have to name an airport after him!
Commie Core is bringing out the cock roaches
The travesty of our time is that we as teachers and parents and student need to really wake-up,push back and find back our collective voice to to say No More. We can no longer isolate ourselves nor deceive ourselves into inaction. The violent assault on our mental, physical, financial health from so called reform and nonrenewable technology innovations new teacher evaluations and data collection/reporting systems (i.e. Grow reports now ARIS, SESIS) will become half measures financially and educationally, (Again) to perpetuate generations of children ill prepared to compete domestically and globally. We have substandard technology from the last century, school buildings decaying due to deliberate neglect. When a Success academy or any other Charter School co-occupies in a NYC school all of sudden the building in less than six months will have an upgraded renovated space and state of the art technology and lots of resources. The rest of the building remains almost the some. This collusion is criminal against what we as a nation should fight against. Duncan was right it is the civil rights issue of our time but in the hands of corporate profiteers, contractors, politicians from mayoral control to the White House.
What a scam! http://mashable.com/2013/08/29/news-corp-education-tablets/
Won? Was there any other real competition for the contract? Who?
I feel this is misleading. The contract is to develop online professional development tools NOT standardized tests. I appreciate your concern about a FOX affiliated firm getting a contract to develop education tools, but you lose credibility with this misleading, knee-jerk response.
surprise…surprise. Oh wait no it’s not, they planned it this way years ago.
Almost every enterprise of any size now relies on cloud computing in some or
the other way for meetings its targeted revenue and synchronization
of work across all its work locations. In this blog, we will be in brief going over what Cloud Computing
is and how Mobile Cloud Computing is shortly going to be the future of communicating and conducting business all over the world.
Most of them are greatly involved with data processing and makes an integral part of
the corporation.
Time will never be an issue with this kind of technology as
it is not as complicated as having to maintain your own IT infrastructure and hardware.
Your server would be online in a matter of minutes.
Most of them are greatly involved with data processing and makes
an integral part of the corporation.