Districts Tackle Technology Gaps

Education technology experts say the gap between districts that appear to be well prepared to put common-core online assessments in place and those that aren't is significant and could pose challenges down the road.

Some districts are already piloting common-core tests, while others are just getting started in figuring out how to build up their technological bandwidth in preparation for them.

A recent report by the State Educational Technology Directors Association suggests the readiness concerns are justified, indicating that 72 percent of schools do not meet the basic Internet bandwidth requirements of 100 kilobits per second per student set by the association, or the minimum of what's required to run a school-wide 1-to-1 computing environment. Further, a 2013 survey conducted by the Washington-based Consortium for School Networking and Market Data Retrieval, a Shelton (CT)-based education market research firm, found that an overwhelming 99 percent of districts indicated a need for increased connectivity. It also found that only 57 percent of elementary schools and 64 percent of secondary schools had wireless Internet capability.

Later this spring, the 23 states included in the Smarter Balanced consortium, will participate in a field test. Its purpose is to gauge each district's readiness in advance of the 2015 formal assessments. The 17 states, plus the District of Columbia, in the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, are also planning similar field tests this spring. Whatever bumpy ride this technological preparation takes, experts say online assessments are the undeniable wave of the future, and not just for common-core tests. They see online tests, and adaptive ones in particular, as a key tool for building personalized learning programs that address individual students' strengths and weaknesses.