This is from December from the NYC Public School Parents' blog. I missed it then. They are actually buying confidential student and teacher data from NY schools.
Regents agree to give NY student data to limited corporation run by Gates and operated by Murdoch's Wireless GenThis week, the Wall St Journal reported that the NY Board of Regents approved the state's sharing of student and teacher information with a new national data base, to be funded by the Gates Foundation, and designed by News Corp's Wireless Generation.
All this confidential student and teacher data will be held by a private limited corporation, called the Shared Learning Collaborative LLC, with even less accountability, which in July was awarded $76.5 million by the Gates Foundation, to be spent over 7 months. According to an earlier NYT story, $44 million of this funding will go straight into the pockets of Wireless Generation, owned by Murdoch's News Corp and run by Joel Klein.
The Regents approved this project, despite the NY State Comptroller’s veto this summer of the State Education Department’s proposed no-bid contract to Wireless to build a state-wide data system, apparently because the state is not paying money to participate. According to sources who were present, while several Regents expressed concerns, Betty Rosa of the Bronx was the only member to abstain. The others apparently thought that even though the Comptroller-- and the public as well—had opposed this contract in large part because of the privacy issue and the involvement of Murdoch’s company, which is still embroiled in a major phone-hacking scandal in the UK, these issues were not important enough to ask for more information or to delay the state from going forward with the deal.
In other words, companies will be making "more money off our kids’ test scores."
That's surprising. In August of last year NY backed out of the contract with Murdoch's Wireless Generation. Guess he has more power than we thought.
New York City ditched a $27 million education contract with News Corp subsidiary Wireless Generation, citing the ongoing investigations into the phone hacking allegations related to News Corp's now-defunct News Of The World tabloid.
State Controller Thomas DiNapoli rejected the Education Department's contract with the company, the New York Daily News reports, which would have paid $27 million to create software to track test scores. The funding would have come out of the state's $700 million "Race to the Top" education funds, but DiNapoli's office said that there were concerns about News Corp's "incomplete record" and about the ongoing scandal"In light of the significant ongoing investigations and continuing revelations with respect to News Corp., we are returning the contract with Wireless Generation unapproved," wrote DiNapoli's office of the decision.
NYC stopped a contract that would give Rupert Murdoch $27 million of Race to the Top funding.NYC comptroller stopped a contract that would give Rupert Murdoch $27 million of Race to the Top funding.
Sounds like the State Comptroller was ignored.
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