Crowd-sourcing curriculum, evaluations

Mongomery county superintendant of schools recently said:

"a good way to create assessments for Common Core-aligned curriculum would be to crowd-source the development and let teachers design them rather than have corporations do it. He criticized policies that help make public education 'a private commodity.'"

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=3833§ion=Article


This is one of the things that computerization makes possible -- it's an extension of the collegiality & sharing of ideas and materials that is routine in any educational community where instructors aren't divided against each other by competition over promotions, favor from administrators, fear of job loss, etc.

I know this because I've experienced it personally -- both a competitive work culture where sharing was limited because it might give someone else advantage or take away one's own advantage -- and an expansive work culture where sharing was routine.

Such 'crowd-sourcing' by people actually engaged with their subject matter & their students would I'm sure create better curricula, evaluations & materials than anything produced by corporate drones & at a much lower cost.

Yet it won't be allowed to happen -- even though computerization makes it possible on a much wider scale than ever before. Notice how Common Core was designed -- with heavy influence from Gates et al & in name only participation from actual teachers.

The uses and benefits of technology depend on who controls institutions. When institutions are controlled by an elite with the intention of maintaining control in the hands of the same elite, technology will not produce efficient or 'best' outcomes, just tighter control.