“The Contractor will have a track record of influencing teachers, school leaders, parents, school boards, and other constituents, and will have the exceptional interpersonal skills and credibility to drive rapid performance through school turnaround initiatives. This critical role will report directly to the Chief Accountability and Performance Officer.”
The deadline for the bids on contract DOE 2015-13, Priority School Supports Contractors, expired on June 1st. Three bids have been entered on this contract, and a couple of them are very big names in the corporate education reform world: Pearson Education and American Institutes for Research. The third bidder, Innovative Educational Programs, hails from Newark, New Jersey.
Any of these three companies would be very bad for priority schools in my opinion. Pearson runs the PARCC tests in many states. American Institutes for Research (AIR) is the assessment vendor for Delaware, and has been ever since DCAS was introduced. And Innovative Educational Programs is from an area where many turnaround schools have been converted to charter schools. So much so that hundreds of students recently protested these types of actions a couple weeks ago.
The last thing any Delaware school needs is more contractors coming in, attempting to make our students more “college and career ready” through “rigor” and “grit”. Especially the most vulnerable students: low-income, minority and special needs.
To read the actual bid proposal, please go here: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_2015-13PrioritySchoolSupp_RFP.pdf
To read the list of bidders, go here: http://bidcondocs.delaware.gov/DOE/DOE_2015-13PrioritySchoolSupp_RFP.pdf
The Season Of Myths 