Sunday, June 22, 2008

Press Release: NY City Department of Education

(Editors’ note: The New York City Department of Education, due to its commitment to saving administrative costs and freeing up money for the classroom, has contracted to name GBN News as the sole distributor of DOE press releases. The DOE has concluded that its press releases can be distributed at lesser cost, while achieving wider readership, with this exclusive no-bid contract. Following is the first GBN-distributed press release.)

The Department of Education is pleased to announce an exciting new development in data management, which will vastly improve the delivery of services to the school children of NY City, and will result in the maximization of educational output throughout the system. To achieve this, the DOE, in partnership with Microsoft and Blackwater USA, will be engaging in a $500 million expansion of the ARIS computer system.

Phase One of the upgraded system, to be completed by September, 2008, will enable the DOE to deliver personalized instruction and monitor student and teacher performance in “real time” through the installation of ARIS terminals at every desk in every classroom in the city. Phase Two, slated to be rolled out in January 2009, will feature terminals in every child’s home, to monitor homework production and test preparation and insure maximum “time on task”. Finally, Phase Three, to be implemented in time for the 2009-2010 school year, will see the installation of ARIS terminals in every teacher’s home, to assist and monitor teachers in maximizing their OSP (Out of School Productivity).

Due in large part to the upgrade of the ARIS computer system, student test scores for the 2009-2010 school year rose an average of 63%. This should once and for all silence those defenders of the status quo who have opposed our data-driven reforms.

(Editors’ Note: Please disregard that last paragraph. To save distribution costs, the DOE gave it to us in advance. It was not supposed to be released until June, 2010. We apologize for the error.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How do you kow that test scores for the 2009-210 school year increased by 63 percent when we are currently in 2008. Are you cooking the books?

Gary Babad said...

As the disclaimer notes, that paragraph was not supposed to be released until 2010. GBN News regrets the error, but under the terms of the no-bid contract, is not accountable for the content of DOE claims. For that matter, neither is the DOE.