Franchot flips out over standardized testing contract #pearson

"I think there's a bigger issue about our state's relationship with this company," said Franchot.

 http://marylandreporter.com/2015/08/26/franchot-flips-out-over-standardized-testing-contract/

Errors in Pearson's LA curriculum

...Also, California education officials have only approved Pearson’s math courses for grades Kindergarten through eighth grade. And the state found errors in every grade, from simple problems, like typos, to bigger issues, like learning standards that were not correctly applied...

http://www.scpr.org/blogs/education/2014/08/25/17192/how-did-la-schools-decide-on-ipad-software-it-star/

LAUSD officials had close ties with Apple, Pearson execs, records show

Los Angeles schools Supt. John Deasy and his chief deputy developed a special relationship with executives from the companies that won a key technology contract, records show, raising new questions about the bidding process in a $1-billion effort to provide a computer to every student in the nation's second-largest school system. 

This collaboration between top L.A. Unified officials and those from tech giant Apple Inc. and Pearson, detailed in public records, underscores findings from an internal school district report, which warned that officials' actions could have created an impression of unfairness in the bidding...
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-ipads-deasy-20140825-story.html#page=1

Another $103,000 for Pearson! #Australiatripwithpurchase

At the June 30, 2014, Board of Education (BOE) meeting the BOE members voted to send another check to Pearson.

4343.1	The SOIP Model Professional Development
	Awardee
	NCS Pearson, Inc.	$103,000

http://www.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/9LCJCD4B1F31/$file/6.1%20Contracts%2025K%20or%20More.pdf

Now, while the BOE is sending checks to Pearson how much is MCPS getting back in royalties from our super cool deal with Pearson? Anyone buying Pearson Forward?  Has MCPS received any royalties?

Here's how much of the MCPS Operating Budget has gone to Pearson related companies since 2010.

$5,569,613 

The Washington Post 2011

But, remember Superintendent Jerry Weast got a fabulous trip to Australia from the Pearson Foundation!  That was worth $5.5 million...

NYT: When Private Firms Run Schools, Financial Secrecy Is Allowed

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/us/when-private-firms-run-schools-financial-secrecy-is-allowed.html?_r=0

Time to Investigate Pearson in Texas by Jason Stanford

Time to Investigate Pearson in Texas by Jason Stanford

Thanks to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, the charitable arm of testing giant Pearson will pay $7.7 million to end his investigation into whether it was illegally helping its for-profit parent company. This comes as a shock to Texans, where Pearson has an eye-popping $462-million testing contract, as opposed to New York where Pearson is only getting $32 million. The surprise isn’t that a special interest cut corners at taxpayers expense but that a state attorney general can investigate it. It’s simply not done here, but then again, why isn’t Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, now running for governor, investigating the Pearson Foundation?...

Common Core Breaks the Rules

Ever hear about a deal that is too good to be true?

In MoCo, our BOE likes these deals.  Votes in closed session, no accountability, and no oversight. 

I wish I never left NY.   

Is a deal that doesn't pass in NY good for our kids in MCPS?  Probably not, but who is going to say no?

From today's Washington Post:

Pearson Charitable Foundation, the nonprofit arm of educational publishing giant Pearson Inc., has agreed to pay a $7.7 million settlement to New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman after he determined that the foundation had created Common Core products to generate “tens of millions of dollars” for its corporate sister.“The law on this is clear: non-profit foundations cannot misuse charitable assets to benefit their affiliated for-profit corporations,” Schneiderman said in a statement Thursday.

Read more here.

Pearson previews education materials developed with Montgomery County schools

Global education and textbook company Pearson previewed its new line of instructional products for K-5 classrooms developed with Montgomery County Public Schools at conference in Florida on Wednesday.
The material and curriculum called “Pearson Forward” has been designed to meet the more challenging demands of new education standards that least 45 states have adopted in an attempt to make U.S. students more competitive than international peers. It will be marketed with the Montgomery County Public Schools brand and sold nationally.
“Forward integrates instruction across reading, writing, mathematics, science and social studies, focusing on the rigors of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), with a strong emphasis on critical thinking, creativity and academic success skills,” according to Pearson’s news release.
The news release also features Erick Lang, Montgomery County Public Schools associate superintendent for curriculum and instructional programs: “The integrated curriculum renews focus on the whole child and nurtures skills that build confidence and success.”...

Read the entire article at The Washington Post.

"Pearson is developing performance-based assessments for all grades..."

That Pearson will be developing the performance-based assessments for all grades using Curriculum 2.0 is just one of many fun facts that can be gleaned from the Request for Proposal for the Project North Star Evaluator.


Project North Star is also known as the Pearson-MCPS Curriculum or Curriculum 2.0.
Call it what you like, the questions and answers below tell a lot about the Pearson-MCPS curriculum project. The questions and answers were part of the Request for Proposal for a contract for a project evaluator. Through this Q&A we also learn that 8 companies were interested in bidding on this contract.

Here's one of the Q and A's:
Question 43:  In the i3 proposal, it indicates that the 2009-2010 school year will serve as a baseline year for student achievement analysis, but the RFP indicates that this current school year (2010-2011) will serve as a baseline. Please clarify.
Answer:  Voluntary implementation of North Star in MCPS began in 2009-2010.  However, the grant was not awarded until September 2010, therefore, baseline year has not been established.


Project North Star RFT

The Board of Education ultimately awarded the contract (see page 11 at link) to evaluate Project North Star to RMC Research Corporation for $249,905.

Starr ups FY13 budget request to $46,052,899 over FY12

On January 25, 2012, Superintendent Joshua Starr released his latest FY 2013 Operating request.  The detailed memorandum to the Board of Education is below.

• In this memo Superintendent Starr asks for an overall increase of $46,052,899 over the FY 12 MCPS Operating budget 
• Starr states that there will be an increase in State aid of $28.5 million.
• Increase of $93 in per pupil expenditures.
• Alternate governance plans are proposed for Forest Oak Middle School and Neelsville Middle School 
• Additional $221,021 for prekindergarten programs
• $300,000 for a Gallup survey of staff
• $825,000 for professional development for Curriculum 2.0 (aka Pearson/North Star)

Jan 25, 2012 Starr Operating Budget Request

Starr eliminates non-Pearson standardized test

We might have to start a new series on this blog called "Read it and Grin."


Gazette:  Montgomery eliminating second grade reading/math test

...TerraNova is produced by CTB/McGraw-Hill, an education publishing company. The school system has a contract with Pearson Education, another education publishing company, to help develop a new elementary school curriculum. Tofig said the decision to stop giving TerraNova is not linked to the system’s curriculum deal with Pearson.

Pearson's payment to MCPS reduced after trip to Australia

The Pearson-Weast Timeline has been updated to show that after Superintendent Jerry Weast took a Pearson Foundation sponsored trip to Australia, he returned to Montgomery County and quietly reduced the Pearson Education, Inc. contracted payment to MCPS by $3.25 million. 

Even Gazette didn't know Pearson deal had changed

In a previous post we released a document purported to be an "amendment" to the Board of Education-Pearson Education, Inc. contract of June 8, 2010.  That document showed that on November 4, 2010 the Pearson payment to MCPS had been cut from $4.5 million to $1.25 million.


But the beauty of doing things behind closed doors, without Board of Education approval, and without public disclosure is that no one ever realizes what is actually going on! Not even the media.


And so, on January 18, 2012, when the Gazette newspaper ran an article about Superintendent Jerry Weast taking a trip to Australia in the summer of 2010 courtesy of the Pearson Foundation, they repeated the $4.5 million payment figure as if it was fact. 


Now we know that after Superintendent Weast took the Pearson Foundation trip to Australia he came back and cut a new deal with Pearson Education, Inc. 

Diane Ravitch on Jerry Weast's Pearson Foundation trip to Australia

https://twitter.com/#!/DianeRavitch

This Tweet from Diane Ravitch links back to this Parents' Coalition article. 

New York Times on Jerry Weast's trip to Australia

NYT:  New Questions About Trips Sponsored by Education Publisher

By MICHAEL WINERIP
Published: January 1, 2012

In the summer of 2010, Lu Young, the superintendent of schools in Jessamine County, a Lexington, Ky., suburb, took a trip to Australia paid for by the Pearson Foundation, a nonprofit arm of Pearson, the nation’s largest educational publisher.
Ten school superintendents went on the trip, which cost Pearson $60,000... 

...Were the trips an effort by the foundation to influence government officials so the company would obtain a lucrative state contract?...

Suddenly, Ethics rode into town.

When was the last time the Montgomery County Board of Education's Ethics Panel met to discuss a possible ethics violation?  How many years has it been? 


What has brought about this sudden change at MCPS? Could it be that there is a new sheriff in town? 


What about all of the other conflicts of interest that have existed for years on the ranch? Will the new sheriff push for a review of those issues as well, or was this just a one time ethics review just for show? 


In December of 2011, the MCPS Ethics Panel actually met, discussed an ethics issue, and issued an Opinion.  The Opinion is shown below with the names of the parties redacted.  

Redacted Montgomery County Board of Education Ethics Panel Advisory Opinion

Montgomery County schools chief targets special ed, test score gap | Washington Examiner

Montgomery County Public Schools parents and staff are most concerned about special education services and the persistent achievement gap between white and minority students, according to a report from the school system...

..."What we're doing internally right now is reorienting my team's work to improve instruction for every child, with a clear need to go deeper school by school," Starr told The Washington Examiner. He plans to analyze the variation in the achievement gap at each school before taking next steps...

...To that end, Starr pledged to hold a districtwide forum on special education in the spring semester, atop parents' concerns that special needs students -- about 12 percent of the school system -- were receiving services that varied by school...

...Another concern was the implementation of Curriculum 2.0, an integrated learning approach adopted by kindergarten and first-grade teachers, as well as some second-grade teachers, this school year...

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/education/2011/12/montco-schools-chief-targets-special-ed-test-score-gap/2041726#ixzz1hwB2tU49

Financial Times: New York probes Pearson Foundation

...The non-profit foundation is funded by Pearson, the parent company of both the Financial Times and Pearson Education, the largest company by revenues in the US educational publishing, testing and services industry. As a tax-exempt body the Pearson Foundation cannot for legal reasons engage in lobbying...

...The CCSSO defended the events that it organises, saying: “As state leaders advance aggressive reform efforts aimed at preparing every child for college and career, it is critical that they learn about what is working in countries that are successfully raising student performance.” 

Read article at this link:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b8c741b4-2cc0-11e1-b485-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1hN7hiNkb

Wall Street Journal: Pearson Faces School Probe

By Lisa Fleisher

The New York state attorney general is investigating whether the nonprofit arm of a school-testing and products company tried to influence public-education officials with free trips to Brazil, Singapore and other countries, a person familiar with the probe said.
Pearson Education Inc. and its nonprofit arm, Pearson Foundation, received subpoenas this week from Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office, which regulates charities and nonprofit organizations. No government agencies were issued subpoenas.
Public-school officials from across the country, including former New York Education Commissioner David Steiner, have come under fire for accepting free trips from Pearson to Brazil, England, Singapore and Finland. After Mr. Steiner attended one trip, put on by the foundation and a national group for state education officials, the state in January awarded the for-profit company a $32 million contract to create tests for third- through eighth-graders.
Mr. Steiner and officials from Pearson couldn't be reached for comment late Wednesday night. Pearson Education is a unit of Pearson PLC of London...ARTICLE CONTINUES HERE

NYT: Testing Firm Faces Inquiry on Free Trips for Officials

The New York Times
By WINNIE HU
Published: December 21, 2011

New York State’s attorney general is investigating whether the Pearson Foundation, the nonprofit arm of one of the nation’s largest educational publishers, acted improperly to influence state education officials by paying for overseas trips and other perks...

Read the full NYT article HERE.

*****

Previous Parents' Coalition blog posting:  Pearson Foundation grant sent Weast, Dale and Hatrick to Australia