The Fix is in: Dept of Education in no rush to select the AIMS replacement test

By Brad McQueen

School has been in session for two weeks and the Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal and the Arizona Board of Education have added to teacher uncertainty by not choosing Arizona’s high stakes state test that will replace the AIMS test. Since Superintendent Huppenthal and Governor Brewer replaced our Arizona-created learning standards with the federally-created Common Core learning standards, making the AIMS test an obsolete measure of student academic growth, a new test is required to measure the new standards.

The Department of Education originally promised that the new test would be selected at the beginning of the new school year, but now says that it will be selected in October, just months before the new test is due to be given.

There has also been no notice given of Board of Education meetings to choose the new test nor have there been public announcements to solicit public input on the new test before it is chosen. Smells like we are going down another typical Huppenthal/Department of Education deception where they will pick the test in the cover of secrecy with a last minute self-created crisis of urgency where they will attempt to pick their favored testing group, the PARCC/Pearson testing group.

My guess is that they will try to reason that with the urgency of the test being given in months, they will choose the PARCC/Pearson test which has had a four year relationship with Superintendent Huppenthal, he was on their Board of Governors, and the Department of Education, they have PARCC/Pearson “leads” embedded in their ranks paid for by Arizona taxpayers. There is no time to break in another testing group, they will profess. Though I am open to being wrong.

I combine both the PARCC and the Pearson testing groups when referring to them because they are basically intertwined having worked together for the last four years developing the Common Core/PARCC test which used over $170 million of federal money from the Stimulus Act in 2009 to develop the Common Core/PARCC test. Pearson was also awarded a lucrative billion dollar contract to write and deliver the PARCC test this past May.

PARCC is one of two national testing groups created using federal money and is a consortium of a handful of states, the Smarter Balanced consortium of states is the other. The U.S. Department of Education made joining a Common Core testing consortium mandatory for states to even apply or receive money from the $4.3 billion Race to the Top grant.

Arizona was a member of the PARCC consortium for the last four years until Governor Brewer and Superintendent Huppenthal abruptly removed us. More on that later.

Our test procurement laws demand an open bidding process for government contracts to prevent cronyism and seem tailor made to prevent groups like PARCC/Pearson from using collusion with the Dept of Ed and anti-competitive practices to their advantage to gain our testing contract.

Another testing company, the American Institutes for Research, (A.I.R.) recently filed suit against PARCC’s choice of the Pearson testing group as their test administrator citing anti-competitive practices in the bidding process. Sound familiar? They claim that the PARCC group unfairly required any company awarded their testing contract to use Pearson’s test delivery system which it developed with PARCC using federal money. PARCC basically tailored their test contract to fit one company, their pals at Pearson.

In Arizona, Huppenthal’s Department of Education also gave the PARCC/Pearson test group an insider advantage by providing them state test procurement requirements nearly a year before the other bidding companies as was detailed by internal emails obtained by the AZ Daily Independent and reported on in my previous article, “Emails Suggest Collusion Between Dept of Ed and PARCC…”. This article was cited by the A.I.R. when it filed a lawsuit accusing PARCC of giving Pearson an unfair advantage in their test bidding process. Everything local is national with Common Core.

PARCC/Pearson, which is a private testing group, was also given special access to Arizona’s kids and their private data by Huppenthal when he mandated select AZ schools conduct field tests of their assessment this past spring. No other company bidding on our statewide test was granted this access and no other company was given access to a cadre of “state leads” at our Department of Education to work on their assessments as was the case with the PARCC/Pearson testing group.

Superintendent Huppenthal and Governor Brewer recently withdrew our state from the PARCC testing consortium in a lame attempt to make it appear that Pearson/PARCC did not have an unfair competitive advantage over the other bidders on the statewide test. Never mind that they had a very close four year relationship with the PARCC/Pearson as detailed in my previous article, “The Truth Behind AZ’s Sudden Withdrawal from PARCC”.

The minimum test requirements demanded of all testing companies bidding on our statewide test reads like an exact description of the PARCC/Pearson test including the required test format, the need to have conducted a field test, the need for a Braille component, the requirement that the test have a “drag and drop” option, and the entire test creation process down to the committees and their member make up.

No other bidding test company has a chance. The test requirements were written for PARCC/Pearson to get the test contract. The bidding process is rotten to the core.

The Procurement Office and in late June, along with the Dept of Education, had an informational meeting that it “strongly suggested” all bidders on the statewide test attend. Pearson had a strong presence at this informational meeting along with the other bidders, as shown on the official sign-in sheet posted on the Procurement Office’s website, while PARCC sent no one.

The AZ Department of Education may be trying to pull another charade by just having Pearson bid on the statewide test acting as if the PARCC test group has dropped out, even though as stated above, the Pearson/PARCC group is the same entity.

Regardless, PARCC/Pearson should not be considered for the new test as they have both had an unfair advantage over the other bidders. Each bidding company must, in signing their bid for the state test, affirm that the submission of their offer did not involve “collusion or other anti-competitive practices”. PARCC/Pearson cannot affirm this. So if they do sign their bids they are guilty of perjury.

Perhaps Huppenthal, as evidenced in his current campaign ads, is betting on low information voters and citizens to be blissfully ignorant of the test selection process. Like most things in state government we will get what we elect and we ignore the test selection process and its corrupt, anti-competitive selection process at our own, and our kids’, peril.

To view the bidding process at the Procurement Office, click here.

Brad McQueen is a former Common Core insider and current public school teacher in Tucson, Arizona and is the author of the anti-Common Core book “The Cult of Common Core”. Connect with Brad at cultofcommoncore@gmail.com