Discovery Education given inside track on lucrative Nashville Public Schools contract

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Metro Nashville Public Schools gave a Maryland company the inside track on a lucrative deal to boost science and technology curriculum in middle schools, a NewsChannel 5 investigation discovered.

Schools Director Dr. Shawn Joseph and his leadership team turned to Discovery Education to help develop the vision for the initiative, then the company was awarded an $11.4 million contract with no real competition.

"So many of us in conversations outside those senior leadership meetings would talk about: can you imagine what we could do if we had half that amount of money and we implemented our own plan in our schools?" said Dr. Kris Elliott, who headed the district's STEM efforts for two years.

"It was a shame that we weren't allowed the time and space to talk about ways to make this sort of improvement process, that it was just automatic: it was a vendor and they were going to solve all of MNPS's problems."..

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/metro-schools/maryland-company-given-inside-track-on-lucrative-mnps-contract?fbclid=IwAR394RveMRZT5N9MQ1H6y3UU_BosmOoZOni9_Ep7W88EAX4VUPa9uE59oBs