Imagine a school where every child gets instant, personalized writing help for a fraction of the cost of hiring a human teacher — and where a computer, not a person, grades a student's essays ...

A new study has determined that some automated essay graders can do as good a job as humans, but education columnist Michael Winerip says there weaknesses to the automated systems.

Computer grading will destroy our schools Feeding essays into a computer program tells students: No one cares what you have to say ...

Developers say they understand why teachers would be skeptical. But, they insist, computers already drive cars and detect cancer, so they can certainly handle grading students' essays.

Not everyone is thrilled, however. Some observers worry that using computers to grade student essays could signal a back-door attempt to reduce faculty rolls even further.

The computer also is programmed to scan for the elements present in a well-supported essay, said Richard Swartz, an executive with Educational Testing Service, which developed e-rater.

Could a computer really be a good judge of student writing? Pennsylvania education officials, who have tested computerized essay scoring with about 30,000 students, say yes.

There are brute force responses to computer-generated essays. Teachers can require students to write all essays in front of them, in class, but often good writing requires time to percolate.

"I used to encourage my students to use the introduction of their AIR test essays to 'wake up' the human assessor who had probably already read dozens of essays about the same topic. Now, I must ...