Pros at Being First in Line at the Public Trough

Like sharks getting the scent of new education standards blood, the suppliers of services to the education “industry” are volunteering to “help” the schools spend their taxpayer money on their own products and offerings. A recent article in Education Week "Conflict of Interest Arises as Concern in Standards Push," explores the problem.

Kathleen A. Hinchman, the president of the Oak Creek, Wis.-based professional association and the author of a letter pointing out the concern of standards writers acting in their own self interest, said the National Governors Association and the Council of the Chief State School Officers, the two organizations in charge of the common-standards endeavor, should provide a public document that identifies ties that the writers have to companies or organizations that might benefit financially from products aligned with the standards.

“Ms. Hinchman, a literacy professor at Syracuse University, in New York, said her organization wants to ensure that the creation and use of common standards is not plagued with the kinds of conflict-of-interest problems that arose with the federal Reading First program, which was funded with $1 billion per year at its peak.

At least one federal official made a significant financial profit from a reading program that he wrote and promoted while he was an adviser to states about the federal program, according to a 2007 Senate report. Another Reading First contractor and researcher received a large boost in income during the program’s tenure when she was also advising states on which assessments and texts to select to meet its requirements, that same report said. ("Senate Report Cites ‘Reading First’ Conflicts," May 16, 2007.)

Some of those who made money off the venture were affiliated with universities rather than businesses and wrote curriculum materials, developed tests, or consulted.
In the common-standards effort, Ms. Hinchman said a writer might favor one standard over another because it could more easily be turned into an instructional material or an assessment tool that he or she, or those they are connected with, could profit by.

‘It makes a lot of sense to indicate the relationships between people who are designing education policy and their various roles in government and business,’ said Patricia H. Hinchey, an associate professor of education at Pennsylvania State University.

With the connections spelled out, she explained, someone could say, ‘You supported X rather than Y, and oddly, X lends itself to a business agenda. Why is that?’ Ms. Hinchey is also a research fellow with the Education and Public Interest Center at the University of Colorado."

Concern is also expressed that Apple’s Karen Cator, who chaired the Partnership for 21st Century Skills Board, will become head of the U. S. Department of Education’s Office of Education Technology. A question being asked is will Cator use her new office to promote P21’s discredited ideas? I’d say you could bet on it. You can also bet that Apple will be the recommended choice for education applications.

Sunshine is the ultimate antiseptic. Insiders are already pushing back hard against more disclosure of potential conflicts of interest which confirms the problem as well as anything could. Let the sunshine in.