A county parent is asking the state school board to stop, at least temporarily, a business deal between the county school system and an educational publishing company as two school board members continue to question the agreement...
...Councilman Philip M. Andrews (D-Dist. 3) of Gaithersburg, a member of the County Council's Education Committee, said he is still reviewing the contract and had no comment.
Council members Michael J. Knapp (D-Dist. 2) of Germantown and Valerie Ervin (D-Dist. 5) of Silver Spring — the other members of the education committee — did not return calls by press time.
On Monday, Berthiaume questioned whether the school system's deal blurs the line between public education and business.
"I've never seen an instance of a government entity on any level basically agreeing to become a contractor to a private company," she said.
Berthiaume said she received a paper copy of the contract on June 7, but couldn't review it until the afternoon because of a busy day at work. Board members agreed to put the contract on the agenda for the following day.
"The board never took a vote to negotiate the contract with Pearson," Berthiaume said. "It was ‘Hey, we got this awesome deal, and we're going to do this.'"
Board member Durso, a former principal at Springbrook High School in Silver Spring, also questioned why the contract had to be approved so quickly.
"I still don't see what the urgency was," Durso said. "I didn't think we had ample time to make a sound decision. We'll have to see if it's the success that some people think that it's going to be."
Here is the March 11, 2010 video where Superintendent Jerry Weast told the County Council's Education Committee (Ervin, Knapp and Andrews) that he was looking for a publisher for a curriculum deal.
Below is the Request for Stay to the State Board of Education and State Superintendent that is referenced in the above Gazette article. Thank you to all of the people who contributed to this document. It is the compilation of many concerns regarding the surprise MCPS deal with Pearson Education, Inc. Silent, as of this date, is the voice of classroom teachers who will have to implement this new initiative, the Pearson curriculum, in grades 1-5.
Request for Stay
Why indeed did this contract have to be rushed through the BOE in 24 hours? Most people deliberate longer than that when they decide to buy a car!
ReplyDeleteThis deal doesn't pass the "smell" test. If it was such a good deal, why didn't the BOE authorize negotiations several months ago, tell MCPS to interview several publishers, etc?
The mere fact alone of the secrecy and the RUSH signals that the citizens of the county need to know more about how this whole deal came about. Maybe it is a good deal? How would we know?
Lyda
they had to vote on it that moment because they had all of those people in the board meeting that they were appointing to the positions relating to the contract! there was never a moment where weast thought this wouldn't go through.
ReplyDeletethey had to vote on it that moment because they had all of those people at the board meeting who were being appointed to all of the positions relating to the contract! there was not a second where weast thought it wouldn't pass. the vote was a joke.
ReplyDeleteThank you for keeping our gov't accountable, Janis.
ReplyDelete