It seems so odd that things like this can happen in our education system now. It just doesn't seem to matter about that alleged illegal phone hacking his News Corp has been doing. I guess the rich and powerful often don't have to be accountable to the rest of us.

Rupert Murdoch is now profiting from the testing craziness hitting Chicago's public schools.



In case Chicago missed it, Rupert Murdoch is now profiting from the testing craziness hitting Chicago's public schools. He owns an outfit called "Wireless Generation" that is now a contractor with CPS. Anyone who doesn't already know that the administration of Chicago Public Schools, the nation's third largest school system, is in the hands of amateurs (or worse, outsiders who want to destroy public education and turn it over to the private sector at all costs), should be contacting any of the 241 principals of the so-called "Track E" schools which begin receiving their students on August 13, 2012. Things have gotten so crazy in the 2012 world of edits, memos, Power Points, orders, reforms, re-reforms, and re-re-re-reforms from the administration of former Rochester school supt. Jean-Claude Brizard and former "Relationship Banker" Rahm Emanuel that it would take a team of a dozen investigative reporters on the ground school-by-school (with a backup team of another dozen researchers) to separate out the greed, mendacity, incompetence, and silliness that is being foisted on Chicago behind the smokescreen of the latest iteration of "School Reform." Meanwhile, the city's communities, teachers, principals, and children will be facing centrally planned chaos as the first full year of Rahm's version of "School Reform" kicks in non Monday August 13, 2012. The 241 Chicago "Track E" schools would make this sub-system one of the 20 largest school districts in the USA were it a separate system. But it would be one of only three (the other two are Detroit and New Orleans) currently ruled by a group of outside mercenaries dedicated to destroying public education.

Last year New York City to its credit stopped a contract that would have given Rupert Murdoch and his Wireless Generation 27 million dollars of Race to the Top money.

NYC stopped a contract that would give Rupert Murdoch $27 million of Race to the Top funding.



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.

Wireless Generation will still be employed as a subcontractor by one of the companies that did get the bid for the NYC schools.

City gives Rupe’s fone firm scraps



Nearly a year after the state Education Department’s failed attempt to award a no-bid, $27 million technology contract to Rupert Murdoch’s Wireless Generation company, the state announced a do-over Monday. The contract with the News Corp. subsidiary overseen by former city schools chancellor Joel Klein was initially rejected last August by State Controller Thomas DiNapoli, who raised concerns over allegations of illegal phone-hacking by News corp newspaper sin England. This time, Wireless Generation lost out to four other companies on a competitive bid for $50 million in technology contracts — though one of the companies will employ Wireless Generation as a subcontractor. “They’ll get a small piece of a smaller pie than they would have received under last year’s proposed contract,” state Education Department spokesman Tom Dunn said.

They should not be getting any of the pie. Teachers are held accountable almost to the extreme, but those on the side of the "reformers" are not held to similar standards.