Rupert Murdoch, News Corp get 12.5 mil contract from Ed Dept for more testing. Shameful.

[madfloridian]

Where's the accountability? Seems only the public school teachers are held accountable. Corporate heads whose companies wiretap are in the good graces of Arne's Department of Education.

In case anyone thought our testing protests were being heard, this is the answer. The Department of Education has $175 million in grants to give out for developing more tests for the future. They are not listening to the teachers, parents, students.

Amplify Insight Wins Contract from Common-Core Testing Consortium

One of the two consortia developing tests for the Common Core State Standards has awarded a $12.5 million contract to Amplify Insight to develop a digital library of formative assessment professional learning tools for educators.

Amplify Insight is a division of Amplify, an ed-tech company whose chief executive officer is Joel Klein, the former New York City schools chancellor. Amplify is the education arm of the media conglomerate News Corp., led by Rupert Murdoch. Last week, Amplify received a blast of media attention when it unveiled a new tablet device, loaded with classroom management tools and interactive lessons, at the South by Southwest education gathering.

This will be the second contract awarded to Amplify Insight by Smarter Balanced, with the first one being granted last year to what was then Wireless Generation, in partnership with ETS, to develop software to report and analyze results from the assessments.

A competitive procurement process was used to issue the award, one that was overseen by Washington state's office of the superintendent of public instruction. (Washington state is one of the member states in the Smarter Balanced consortium).

Murdoch and Amplify are also getting big money from Chicago schools. Maybe these school systems haven't heard of his companies problems abroad? I doubt that. Must be they don't care.

In case Chicago missed it, Rupert Murdoch is now profiting from the testing craziness hitting Chicago's public schools. He owns an outfit called "Wireless Generation" that is now a contractor with CPS. Anyone who doesn't already know that the administration of Chicago Public Schools, the nation's third largest school system, is in the hands of amateurs (or worse, outsiders who want to destroy public education and turn it over to the private sector at all costs), should be contacting any of the 241 principals of the so-called "Track E" schools which begin receiving their students on August 13, 2012.

Things have gotten so crazy in the 2012 world of edits, memos, Power Points, orders, reforms, re-reforms, and re-re-re-reforms from the administration of former Rochester school supt. Jean-Claude Brizard and former "Relationship Banker" Rahm Emanuel that it would take a team of a dozen investigative reporters on the ground school-by-school (with a backup team of another dozen researchers) to separate out the greed, mendacity, incompetence, and silliness that is being foisted on Chicago behind the smokescreen of the latest iteration of "School Reform." Meanwhile, the city's communities, teachers, principals, and children will be facing centrally planned chaos as the first full year of Rahm's version of "School Reform" kicks in non Monday August 13, 2012. The 241 Chicago "Track E" schools would make this sub-system one of the 20 largest school districts in the USA were it a separate system. But it would be one of only three (the other two are Detroit and New Orleans) currently ruled by a group of outside mercenaries dedicated to destroying public education.

NYC was going to give Rupert Murdoch's Wireless Generation 27 million in 2011, but with all the outrage they thought better of doing it.

NYC stops News Corp contract

New York City ditched a $27 million education contract with News Corp subsidiary Wireless Generation, citing the ongoing investigations into the phone hacking allegations related to News Corp's now-defunct News Of The World tabloid.

State Controller Thomas DiNapoli rejected the Education Department's contract with the company, the New York Daily News reports, which would have paid $27 million to create software to track test scores. The funding would have come out of the state's $700 million "Race to the Top" education funds, but DiNapoli's office said that there were concerns about News Corp's "incomplete record" and about the ongoing scandal

"In light of the significant ongoing investigations and continuing revelations with respect to News Corp., we are returning the contract with Wireless Generation unapproved," wrote DiNapoli's office of the decision.

Accountability is only for public schools teachers, the corporations not so much.

[MotherPetrie]

1. That is absolutely positively DISGUSTING

[madfloridian]

13. I totally agree.

[liberal_at_heart]

2. I'm so angry right now I can't even speak

That's it. If democrats can't stand up for my child and everybody else's children, then I'm done. I'll just sit home on the next election. And everybody can blame me all they want for whoever wins and I will just blame them right back for not giving a damn about my son. F**k No Child Left Behind, and f**k Race To The Top.

[lonestarnot]

3. Good gawd. Sounds like Nixon keeping up the Vietnam war. They just do whatever they want

because they think they can.

[madfloridian]

4. Because they think they can. Best reason ever.

Right or wrong don't seem to matter, just big money and greedy hands.

[lonestarnot]

5. We can overcome that when critical mass of suffering/sufferers out number those barely making it,

clinging by fingernails.

[liberal_at_heart]

6. there is always a turning point. The question is how long will we let it go before

we actually take action. Because I have a son struggling through special education, for me, the time is now.

[lonestarnot]

7. For many of us, it will be too late.

[blkmusclmachine]

8. Race to the Top: Thx, BHO!

[madfloridian]

16. RTTT is paying off districts to do what the "reformers" want done.

You only get the big money if you do what Arne says.

[ReRe]

9. No words, mf

This gives me a great big giant headache and sick feeling in my stomach. What is wrong with Arne Duncan? What is wrong with anyone who would do business with Rupert Murdoch at this point in time? Is this just business as usual at the top? Down here on the ground, we are held accountable for the company we might unknowingly be keeping. Yet, if you pass into that 1% barrier, you can do no wrong? Two worlds. Two sets of laws. And they are running the show in the USA. I'm out of here. This just makes me ill.

[madfloridian]

10. "if you pass into that 1% barrier, you can do no wrong? "

Just about hit the nail on the head on that one.

[Rex]

11. It really is a plutocracy.

nt.

[madfloridian]

14. The wealthy and connected can do no wrong.

Just let the poor or needy get out of line, and there is a privatized prison waiting for them.

[Rex]

15. After Bloomberg said he has a private army and used it on the OWS

crowd, I realized we have come to accept two worlds in this country. Well some have, I don't and never will. But many do and they will not realize we live in a caste system until THEY themselves are in dire need and the system fails them too.

[Wilms]

12. ^

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

17. K&R nt