DOE Shells Out $443,750 To UChicago Impact For 5Essentials Survey

The Delaware Department of Education is paying UChicago Impact, a non-profit owned by the University of Chicago, $443,750.00 for the 5Essentials Survey.  The work will be completed in a year.  This is all part of the Delaware School Success Framework, aka, the school report card.  How much time and resources has the DOE spent on this part of our ESEA flexibility waiver?  My biggest question is why the DOE pays so much money to outside vendors.  I’m sure their response would fall somewhere along the lines of “our Department can’t be biased with these things so we need an outside voice”, but if you look at the “partners” of UChicago Impact, the bias is already there.  They are all about the corporate education reform movement.  The questions in their 5Essentials Survey are extensive and intrusive in my opinion and I don’t see any benefit coming to schools with these.  It is just more ammunition for the DOE to blast teachers and schools.

While the scope of the work is vast, how can the DOE keep contracting with vendor after vendor with no oversight whatsoever by the state?  Yes, I’m sure this is in their budget, but why are they allowed to have such an extensive budget when the students of Delaware have to sit in bloated classrooms with limited resources?  This is a waste of money.  $443,000 for a survey?  Why are we making sure these education “fix it” companies are well-fed, but we can’t even do the same for our own citizens?  Delaware DOE, you are actually making the problem worse.  It almost seems like the Delaware DOE wants to have an elite “country club” status in education.  But they don’t realize how much they are starving Delaware schools of what they truly need.  Below is the contract with UChicago Impact and the Delaware DOE.