Introduction

In 2013, Bill Gates predicted that in the next decade, educational technology spending would be about a US$9 billion market (Kamenetz, 2013, p 43). The Silicon Valley Business Journal predicts educational technology spending in publicly funded schools in the United States to double to $13.7 billion by 2017 (as cited in Malkin, 2014). News Corp's Rupert Murdoch has openly discussed education in the United States as a $500 billion market (Kamenetz, 2013, p 43).

Tablets represent a rapidly growing segment of educational technology and publishing contracting. Yet, some of the largest early adoptions of tablet technology have made news headlines as stunning disasters. In North Carolina, which received $30 million in Race to the Top funds, ‘The Guilford County public school district withdrew 15,000 Amplify! tablets last fall. Pre-loaded with Common Core apps … the devices peddled by News Corp. and Wireless Generation were rendered useless because of defective cases, broken screens and malfunctioning power supplies’ (Malkin, 2014, unpaged). Similarly, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) spent $1.3 billion for overpriced Apple e-books that came with Pearson's Common Core branded apps. Students ‘breached the LAUSD's ipad firewalls and made a mockery of their adult guardians. Despite hefty investment in training and development, many teachers couldn't figure out how to sync up the tablets in the classroom’ (Malkin, 2014, unpaged). However, there is much more at stake than questionable product quality, no-bid contract accusations, or even school commercialism. The expansion of tablet technology is part of a much larger trend in for-profit education.

Educational publishing corporations and media corporations in the United States have been aggressively pursuing public tax money and they have been converging, especially through the promotion of standardisation, testing and for-profit educational technologies. Educational publishing corporations produce, for example, textbooks, tests, curricula, lesson plans, apps, tablet content, evaluation software and data-tracking products, student teaching online platforms, and online education products. Media and technology companies – including News Corp, Apple and Microsoft – have significantly expanded their presence in public schools to sell hardware and curriculum products, such as tablets and learning software aligned with the Common Core State Standards. Media/technology corporations partner with education corporations, as in the partnerships between Microsoft and Pearson, and Apple and Pearson, to produce Common Core products.