MCPS, Wireless Generation, and our Tax Dollars

Readers of this blog know that the MCPS Board of Education has been paying Wireless Generation for years to the tune of at least $500,000 of our tax dollars. Here is more news on the corporation, from The New York Times. Note also the involvements of Stacey Childress, of the Harvard Business School.

Mr. Barclay, where are our taxpayer dollars and what was our involvement in Wireless Generation? Is it still continuing? And, what has been the involvement of the 'Harvard Public Education Leadership Project' in this deal? Answers, please.

Subsidiary of News Corp. Loses Deal With State
By SHARON OTTERMAN
Published: August 29, 2011

The New York State comptroller’s office has rejected a $27 million contract with a News Corporation subsidiary to build a data system for tracking student performance, as fallout widens against the international media conglomerate due to a phone hacking scandal in Britain.

Thomas P. DiNapoli, the state comptroller, had given the green light to state education officials in May to pursue a no-bid contract with Wireless Generation, an education technology company based in Brooklyn in which News Corporation had acquired a 90 percent stake last November for more than $360 million.

Last week, however, Mr. DiNapoli decided that the revelations surrounding News Corporation had made final approval of the contract untenable. In a rejection letter, first reported on Saturday by The Daily News, he told state education officials that they should instead put the project out to bid to a variety of companies.

“We believe the record remains incomplete with respect to the vendor responsibility issues involving the parent company of Wireless Generation,” the letter said.

and:

New York will still work with Wireless Generation indirectly, as part of a consortium of states building a shared data framework known as the Shared Learning Collaborative. Financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the $44 million project, awarded to Wireless Generation in June, is being directed by Stacey Childress, a former board member at Wireless Generation. She stepped down and sold her stock in the firm before taking the position at the Gates Foundation, a Wireless Generation spokeswoman said.

and:
“It is especially troubling that Wireless Generation will be tasked with creating a centralized database for personal student information,” the New York State United Teachers wrote in a letter, “even as its parent company, News Corporation, stands accused of engaging in illegal news gathering tactics, including the hacking of private voice mail accounts.”

For more go to The New York Times, here.