New York City education officials reported that they are giving IBM an $80 million contract
to create a supercomputer to track public school students that will
track each of the city's 1.1 million schoolkids in minute detail.
The five-year deal (one of the largest ever awarded by the city)
centers around a program called "ARIS" - "Achievement Reporting and
Innovation System" - and will be able to track a student's biographical
details, education needs, education history, test scores, etc., and
provide up-to-the-minute information.
Now, aside from the civil liberty issues that I have with this idea,
I wonder why the fuck the city is spending that kind of money on a
computer system when the money would be better served increasing
teacher salaries or building new schools to avoid overcrowding. Heck,
this is a school system where teachers are often forced to buy supplies
with their own money and where creative classes (like art & music)
continue to be dropped from the curriculum!
And they wonder why NYC's middle class is continuing to flee to the suburbs in mass droves!
