Let’s see now…. The state Department of Education awarded Pearson Educational Measurement a six-year, $139.9 million contract to develop, score and report Virginia’s Standard of Learning tests — even though a competing proposal by Harcourt Assessments, Inc., would have cost $35 million less. And it turns out that Pearson made scoring errors that resulted in 60 students being told they’d flunked tests they’d actually passed — and that firm had been involved in a legal settlement in Minnesota back in 2000 for scoring errors that had flunked 8,000 students.
There may have been legitimate reasons for hiring Pearson despite these revelations, but the leadership of the House of Delegates is right to want to know what those reasons were. They are understandably concerned after finding out from newspaper reports that the soon-to-retire state school superintendent Jo Lynne DeMary had served on what the House leadership described as an unpaid “advisory council” for Pearson and she characterized as an annual “think tank” session for state and local school officials.
There may be a perfectly legitimate explanation for giving the contract to Pearson. But the House is right to look into the matter. That $35 million differential is a lot of money — even in a budget as inflated as Virginia’s. As House Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford, put the sum in perspective yesterday, the $5.8 million a year extra paid to Pearson would translate into 150 more teachers across the state.
Read the Richmond Times-Dispatch story here.
