Pearson Junkets for D.C. Superintendent Make Print Edition of Washington Post

In today's Washington Post print edition there is a story about the D.C. State Superintendent of Education.  As part of that story, reporter Bill Turque details the two Pearson Foundation funded trips taken by the D.C. State Superintendent.  But if a Montgomery County Public Schools superintendent takes the same trip the story ends up on a Post blog after the superintendent leaves.


Same situation, different reporting. 

D.C. education agency’s progress questioned

...This year, Mahaley has taken week-long trips to Brazil and China for conferences to explore teaching methods. The trips, sponsored by the nonprofit Council of Chief State School Officers, were not made at public expense. 

But the mid-September Brazil conference was paid for by a grant from the Pearson Foundation, a philanthropic arm of the giant textbook and educational testing company. The company won an $860,000 contract from the agency in September 2010 — three months before Mahaley’s appointment — to provide alternative standardized tests for students with significant cognitive challenges, according to OSSE officials. A $700,000 option under the contract was renewed for this school year.

Mahaley and a Pearson spokesman said that although company executives joined school officials in Brazil, no agency business was discussed...