New York Scraps $27 Million Contract With Murdoch Education Affiliate Wireless Generation

[tpsbmam]

Source: HuffPo

Wireless Generation tracks student test performance and is an independent subsidiary of News Corporation. The New York City Comptroller's office first approved the contract last month amid investigations surrounding Murdoch's involvement in the News of the World hacking scandal.

The amount from the contract was to come from the state's $700 million Race to the Top grant. State Controller Thomas DiNapoli "quietly rejected" the contract, citing News Corporation's "incomplete record" for qualifications, the Daily News reports.

DiNapoli's decision to sever the deal comes after teachers union leaders urged state officials early his month to drop the contract, according to HuffPost reports.

"It is especially troubling that Wireless Generation will be tasked with creating a centralized student database for personal information even as its parent company, News Corporation, stands accused of engaging in illegal news gathering tactics, including the hacking of private voicemail accounts," Michael Mulgrew and Richard Iannuzi, who respectively head New York City's and New York State's teachers' unions, wrote in a letter to state officials Aug. 4.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/27/new-york-scraps-21-millio_n_938929.html

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Good for the teachers' unions. Amazingly enough, it seems someone was listening. I suspect the uproar was enough to embarrass the hell out of the state personnel, leading to scuttling the contract.

I'm watching with great glee every bit of blowback that brings Murdoch and his sleazy operations down.

[jerseyjack]

1. Wireless Generation was part of the corporate plan to milk NCLB.

Set unrealistic goals for schools.
Don't fund the failing schools.
Withdraw funds from failing schools.
Gather data to prove the schools are failing.
When they do fail, turn them over to for-profit charter schools.

[aquart]

2. Well, that's a weekend dump I'm glad to get.

[roxiejules]

3. Giant sucking sound of money going to private contractors instead of schools

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2011/07/widening-murdoch-scandal-and-wireless.html


June 9, 2011: NY SED asks the state comptroller permission to award a $27 million no-bid contract to Wireless Generation, to build a data system like ARIS; with federal Race to the Top funds, and that the no-bid aspect of the contract is necessary because of the tight timeline. Wireless Generation claims that Klein had nothing do with the state’s decision to grant them this contract.

Wireless earlier took over the ARIS contract from IBM, which cost city taxpayers $80 million to build. The contract and purchase price was widely called a boondoggle and a super-mugging at the time; later, these warnings were borne out when teachers and principals pointed out its numerous flaws, especially as compared to more useful data systems that were acquired by schools for relative pennies. Recently, NY1 ran a three part series, pointing out the numerous deficiencies of ARIS.

[Fearless]

4. This is very very good for students. Let's get corporations out of education!

[JackRiddler]

5. That would be Joel Klein failing to lobby after all.

The world occasionally produces happy surprises.