NYCDOE Getting Rid Of Joel Klein's $95 Million Dollar Computer System Boondoggle

Gee, who couldn't see this coming?

A controversial $95 million computer system that tracks and distributes student scores and other data is headed for the scrap heap, the Daily News has learned.

The Achievement Reporting and Innovation System (ARIS) was implemented by the Education Department in 2007. It’s one of the city’s biggest computer systems, with records on more than 1 million current and former students. But it has been blasted by critics for being clunky and slow.

Former schools Chancellor Joel Klein, who oversaw the creation of ARIS, has also drawn fire for taking millions to maintain the system with his company Amplify.

That’s all coming to a screeching halt by 2015, Education officials told The News.

“The Education Department has decided to end our contract with Amplify as a result of the extremely high cost of the ARIS system, its limited functionality, and the lack of demand from parents and staff,” said agency spokeswoman Devora Kaye.

“The shockingly low usage of ARIS shows that the vast majority of families and Education Department staff don’t find it a valuable tool,” Kaye added. “By developing an internal program we’ll not only save millions of dollars, but better serve parents and school communities.”

NY1 did a couple of reports on ARIS years ago that demonstrated how many teachers and administrators found the system to be mostly useless and a huge waste of money.

I'm sure the Bloomberg DOE knew that, but I would bet Bloomberg kept it around because it was Klein's baby.

Now, a year into the de Blasio administration, the de Blasio NYCDOE is trashing it.

To which I say - good.

Next up on the trash heap?

Another Klein technological boondoggle - iZone, the computerized learning program that costs a bundle to run and does little to educate students or aid educators.

Pass/fail rates for iZone classes are abysmal - as is the cost to run them.

They stick kids who have failed classes in the past in front of computers for "credit recovery" classes.

Many of these kids already have difficulty paying attention in real live classes - that's why they have failed some of their classes in the past.

Who would think sticking them in front of a computer for hours a week and forcing them to slog through online material would work with students who already struggle in school?

Why Joel Klein, that's who!

More and more, we see the vaunted Klein track record fall to scrutiny and the light of day as the failure it was.

Of course, the real idea behind the system was to steal money from children and give it to edu-entrepreneurs:

“Good news they’re junking it,” said Arthur Goldstein, an English teacher at Francis Lewis High School in Queens. “They spent $95 million on that thing and my kids are in trailers. What they did with that money is criminal.”

Indeed.

Joel Klein's School Of One Doesn't Work

So reports the Daily News:

Former NYC Chancellor Joel Klein's highly touted School of One math project dropped by 2 of 3 schools in pilot program
Initiative was hailed by Time magazine as one of the 50 best inventions of 2009, but NYU study shows $9 million effort failed to raise test scores more than old-school math classes.

But the DOE is forging ahead with plans to utilize the program anyway - even though all it is, really, is a glorified test prep program.

The Wireless Generation Contract With The DOE Needs To Be Investigated

Now that an outside consultant hired to bring Internet access to NYCDOE schools has been arrested for stealing $3.6 million and two major DOE vendors, I.B.M. and Verizon, were implicated in the scheme to defraud the city, it is high time somebody takes a closer look at the DOE contract former NYC schools chancellor Joel Klein signed with Wireless Generation, the connection Wireless Generation has to one of the implicated companies, I.B.M., and just how it is that Klein is now working for Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. after Murdoch bought Wireless Generation.

As Gotham Gazette noted today:

The Times is reporting that a former Department of Education consultant has been charged with stealing $3.6 million from the city. Federal prosecutors say Willard Lanham persuaded subcontractors to overbill the city for their work and then kept the difference for himself.

Fernanda Santos writes, “Verizon and I.B.M., the largest of the vendors involved in the projects, played a role in the scheme and profited from it, according to the city’s special commissioner of investigation, Richard J. Condon.” Verizon said it would “return any inappropriate profits.”

Lanham, who reportedly already made $200,000 a year, supposedly used the money to buy fancy cars and Long Island real estate. He has denied any wrongdoing. The crime allegedly occurred between 2002 and 2008.

The projects involved were supposed to provide internet access in city schools. The case — assuming the charges are true — involves a number of issues that continue to prove extremely nettlesome for the Bloomberg administration.

First, of course, is its ongoing problem with tech contracts: most notably, the City Time computerized payroll system and the efforts to upgrade the 911 announced he would conduct audits of two Department of Education tech projects: the Achievement Reporting and Innovation System, popularly known as ARIS, which tracks student performance, and the Innovation Zone or iZone, the department’s initiative to reshape city schools using on line learning and other technology, among other techniques.

In another echo of the Lanham case, the concerns about ARIS also involve IBM. In the latest case, Condon has said, IBM shifted consultant among subs-contractors in an effort to hide Lanham’s scam from the education department.

As for ARIS, the Department of Education hired IBM to develop the system to track student achievement in 2007, spending some $80 million on it. Despite the investment, many schools don’t like it and have opted to buy another system. The city, however, is sticking with ARIS and plans on testing a new version of it, Gotham Schools has reported.

In the meantime, IBM hired a subcontractor, Wireless Generation, to develop the ARIS system. Wireless Generation continue to work on ARIS> Now, though, it is owned by News Corp. News Corp. now employs Joel Klein, who championed ARIS’ development during his tenure as schools chancellor. Klein, of course, also was chancellor during the time that Lanham allegedly was ripping off the city.

Despite Klein’s departure, the department’s penchant for technology remains. Facing spending cutbacks in other areas, this department’s capital budget seeks to boost spending for technology in general — wireless, hardware, cables — and for the iZone, the department’s initiative to reshape city schools using on line learning and other technology, among other techniques

Liu also has launched an audit of the Zone. Some critics have questioned whether, during a time of proposed layoffs and cutbacks, the city should be moving ahead on iZone when, they say, little evidence exists that such tech initiative actually help children learn.

The disclosure today is likely to fuel doubts about any increased tech spending by the department.

Less tech spending, no layoffs, but more purchasing of handcuffs - because the more investigators look into these contracts, the contractors themselves and just how the money is being doled out and what it is being used for, the more crookedness that is being revealed.

No one has seriously looked at Klein and Wireless Generation yet, but just how did the former schools chancellor get to sign all these contracts with Wireless Generation, then get to run the online K-12 for-profit education division of News Corp. after Rupert Murdoch bought the company?

Holy cow, that deal sounds so fishy on the face of it that it begs investigation.

And so does Klein's role in all of this.

Leaving aside the temerity of the DOE and the mayor to promote all this technology spending in the same year that there are going to be teacher lay offs for the first time in 30+ years (that I will deal with tomorrow in another post), the Wireless Generation contract CANNOT be allowed to stand as is without investigation.

The Future Of Public Education

This is EXACTLY what Bill Gates and the corporate ed deformers want to bring to fruition:

MIAMI — On the first day of her senior year at North Miami Beach Senior High School, Naomi Baptiste expected to be greeted by a teacher when she walked into her precalculus class.

“All there were were computers in the class,” said Naomi, who walked into a room of confused students. “We found out that over the summer they signed us up for these courses.”

Naomi is one of over 7,000 students in Miami-Dade County Public Schools enrolled in a program in which core subjects are taken using computers in a classroom with no teacher. A “facilitator” is in the room to make sure students progress. That person also deals with any technical problems.

These virtual classrooms, called e-learning labs, were put in place last August as a result of Florida’s Class Size Reduction Amendment, passed in 2002. The amendment limits the number of students allowed in classrooms, but not in virtual labs.

While most schools held an orientation about the program, some students and parents said they were not informed of the new class structure. Others said they were not given the option to choose whether they wanted this type of instruction, and they voiced concern over the program’s effectiveness.

The online courses are provided by Florida Virtual School, which has been an option in the state’s public schools. The virtual school has provided online classes for home-schooled and traditional students who want to take extra courses. Students log on to a Web site to gain access to lessons, which consist mostly of text with some graphics, and they can call, e-mail or text online instructors for help.

No teachers.

No teacher salaries.

No teacher benefits.

No teacher pensions.

Just a minimum wage computer "facilitator" in the room.

You don't need a school - just an "education center."

And best of all, it's all done on Microsoft products!

Can you imagine the kind of children this kind of system will churn out?

Well, we may not have to wonder for long.

Because this is EXACTLY what we're going to get in urban school districts.

Indeed, this is what Joel Klein wanted to bring about as chancellor and will now help bring about running the for-profit K-12 online education division at Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

This is what excites him!

And Gates too!

And of course it does - it's cheap, it's dehumanized, it's easily controlled and they can make a lot of money off of it.

So what if it's evil?

Klein Cashes In

The road to online education hell is paved with gold - for Joel Klein:

Jan 4 (Reuters) - News Corp (NWSA.O) will pay former New York City Education Chancellor Joel Klein more than $4.5 million if he meets targets set in his new role as chief executive of the media company's new education unit.

Klein starts in his new role this month after a decade overseeing New York City's schools where he was paid around $250,000 a year.

His base salary with News Corp will be eight times that at $2 million plus a cash signing-on bonus of $1 million. He has also been set an annual bonus target of not less than $1.5 million, according to regulatory filings.

From July Klein will also be able to take part in the company's stock option awards scheme.

News Corp Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch tapped Klein to run his company's new education unit in November. The media mogul has become an increasingly vocal advocate of public school system reform.

$4.5 million from Murdoch - who bought the online educrap company that produces Klein's favorite education program, School of One.

You know, the program used by the NYCDOE and now promoted on PBS with a push from Bill Gates.

Nice work if you can get it.

Klein belongs in jail with the CityTime crooks.

So does Gates.

And don't get me started on that GMO shit he's feeding people in Africa.