Five districts and the California School Boards Association are suing the state for $1 billion to recover the cost of computers and other technology needed for Common Core testing. They say the state must pay for unfunded mandates. The state says the districts must pay to comply with federal law.
The irony is that Arne Duncan keeps saying that the Common Core was developed by the states and is not a federal program. It is surely not mandated by NCLB.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Arne is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkYNBwCEeH4
Just as a reminder, the SBAC field tests last spring in California were required to be taken on computers. However, schools were given long periods of time to administer the tests, so that schools did not have to purchase computers for each student.
But get this…….for the next three years, California school districts can opt to use paper and pencil versions of the test. Clearly, someone realized that the rollout of technology would be spotty at best throughout the state. So, what was the rush to do 1 to 1 in LAUSD or any school district?
Well, the FBI is investigating that one it seems.
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-lausd-ipads-20141203-story.html#page=1
I am starting to think that there must be folks benefitting financially from all the new tests and standards – else why all the urgency.
Regardless of who wins this funding battle, it’s our kids who ending up paying the most in lost instructional time and appropriate resources.
Our public radio site was jumping up and down about a tax status called 501c4…..it is a way to keep money secret….when I pointed out that it has been convenient for charter schools…..they deleted my comment. I thought this paragraph about a California outfit was illustrative….but……public radio does not want to go overboard in revealing secret sources of money….About the California Charter Schools Association Advocates (CCSA Advocates) (501c4)
The California Charter Schools Association Advocates (CCSA Advocates) is a 501(c)(4) organization dedicated to increasing the involvement of the charter school community in the public policy arena, creating a pipeline of charter school supporters and activists, electing public officials who support California charter schools, and growing the political influence of the California charter school movement. The Vision of the CCSA Advocates is to empower parents and educators to unleash a new era of innovation within public education so that highly autonomous and accountable schools of choice provide quality learning opportunities for all California students. The Mission of Advocates is to increase the number of students attending quality charter schools in California as quickly as possible by creating a political environment that is supportive of charter schools.
So many ramifications! In the district I work in, the technology chase is well under way (no mention of paper and pencil option for three years). Funding is from a recently approved local measure designed to upgrade facilities and technology. Previous CC funding has gone almost exclusively into infrastructure/bandwidth expansion. Without the local measure, I can’t imagine how other districts are pulling off the tech buy without significantly diverting funds from other areas.
The other element is the rush to judgment on what tech to buy. Our district has had a short debate about Chromebooks vs iPads, but 1:1 is in the ether, and if we don’t leap soon, there will be no time later. At least that is the way it feels. The Deasy decision in LA seems not to be cautionary for us at this point.
Still, perhaps one could argue that CC testing is bringing us along to tech prepared schools far quicker than anyone thought possible. How the technology gets harnessed by teachers and the PD necessary to train/retrain them all will likely determine if there is really a benefit at the end.
The testing itself may become some sort of ironic afterthought…
Reblogged this on seldurio and commented:
NY districts need to do the same thing.
This is just the beginning of the money chase. Suing the government for 1 billion dollars to cover the cost of the computers, needed for the Common Core testing, is just the start of the who pays for what game. The cost of technology is also a only a small a part of the implementation of the Common Core State Standards. This new movement towards standardized education is being done exactly like every other systematic education mandate that has been attempted in the past. Bureaucrats theorizing ideas that are connected to special funding then mandating school districts to carry them out. All of this gets done without proper advance planning or funding in localities around the United States. Its hard to imagine that the development team responsible for creating the Common Core Standards had no idea the costs that school districts would en-cure to implement the standards. School districts were unprepared and underfunded for the implementation of the Common Core Standards. Not only do most schools lack the proper technology to fulfill the basic education requirements, they were not and are not equipped to implement the Common Core Testing. The technology and the funding are only parts of a much bigger picture. The proper training of both staff and students has also been dramatically under represented. Schools districts are now reporting poor testing results as they begin to examine how unprepared students were at using the necessary technology to complete the first round of Common Core Tests.