Concerning “Vendor B”, the OIG found that:
o
Vendor B paid the administrator $1,500 for her participation on a one-day K-12 Advisory Board — the one and only day that the board ever met. The totality of the evidence led the OIG to conclude that the event was little more than a sales meeting with key administrators from across the country.
o
On five occasions between 2008 and 2010, including the 2010 advisory board meeting,Vendor B flew the administrator to conferences and, once there, paid for her food and lodging. In all, Vendor B spent well over $3,095 on travel, lodging, and meals for the administrator.
o
Vendor B’s actions at issue in this investigation were consistent with allegations currently subject to an out-of-state investigation into abuse of its non-profit foundation by sponsoring travel junkets for high-level education officials in order to win favor with those officials and win contracts from the school districts they represent.
o
The administrator hid the $1,500 payment from Vendor B for her work on the advisory board by depositing the money into a CPS internal account. (In a separate investigation which is mentioned below, the OIG discovered that the internal account was largely a personal slush fund.) The administrator later withdrew the money to pay a veterinarian bill for her pet dog.
Concerning Vendors
B and C, the OIG recommended appropriate sanctions for each company.
The OIG also recommended appropriate discipline for other CPS staff involved in the ethical violations.
The Pearson curriculum, like someone in one of Stalin's photos, has been erased from MCPS and is now referred to as 'Curriculum 2.0.' According to the contract MCPS holds with Pearson, teachers and MCPS are required to shill for the curriculum. That is in the contract. That could be one reason teachers aren't speaking out about their experience with the new curriculum.
ReplyDeleteTangentially-related - when the 2 Seattle schools declined to administer the MAP the year, one of their complaints was that the purchase of the tests was a no-bid process. I wonder in how many other schools and school systems this is the case?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/11/teachers-refuse-to-give-standardized-test-at-seattle-high-school/
One bullet point, the one that made me think of PCMC, reads as follows: "*The MAP test was originally introduced by then superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson while she was a board member of the Northwest Evaluation Association, the company that sells the MAP. When Dr. Goodloe-Johnson was fired, the MAP somehow survived the housecleaning. We object to having to give a test whose existence in our district is the result of scandal."