In the midst of its budget crisis, DOE asks the PEP to approve six million dollars for Pearson
Amid the Covid pandemic which will require smaller classes and new health and safety measures, and despite huge proposed cuts to schools next year, DOE is asking the Panel for Educational Policy to approve six million dollars to be awarded Pearson at its Thursday, June 18 meeting (though the meeting is wrongly dated on the list of proposed contracts as Wed. June 17.)
Of that six million dollars, $1.7 million is for a one -year extension of Pearson's controversial assessment to test four-year-old children for their “giftedness” – a standardized exam which many experts say has little reliability or validity, and is highly correlated with race and class.
Another $4.8 million is to be awarded Pearson for a one-year extension to its SchoolNET platform, used to administer interim assessments and report scores.
The document that lists these contracts, known as the RA for Request for Authorization, reveals that in 2016, DOE asked the NYC Technology Development Corporation (NYCTDC), to recommend an alternative, and they recommended that this be outsourced to another vendor, “as the DOE did not have the internal resources and/or expertise to develop, maintain, and continuously enhance an assessment platform to meet its needs, particularly given the number of external solutions readily available assessment platform to meet the needs for a formative assessment platform.”
At the recommendation of the NYCTDC, DOE released a new RFP for an assessment platform in March 2018, more than two years, ago, with multiple responses from vendors, CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: In the midst of its budget crisis, DOE asks the PEP to approve six million dollars for Pearson
