1. I posted extensively a few years ago about when the failed UPSTART bill for free laptops for preschoolers, or "Welfare for Waterford" bill was dishonestly lumped into an omnibus bill of dubious constitutionality. http://utahedu.blogspot.com/2008/10/maybe-worst-bill-in-education-omnibus.html
It passed, and then Waterford Institute received a whole bunch of money after a Request For Proposals was specifically tailored to obtain their sevices. I would love some very solidly documented data on the demographics, locations, and initial Reading Scores of the students receiving these laptops. Then I would like the follow-up scores, and a comparison of the free laptop kids with the other students at their respective schools. Howard Stephenson, the omnibus sponsor, is all about accountability. Is this data available?
2. I posted once last year about how a local software company got a statewide contract (a mysterious statewide contract--I have never been able to track down where, when, and why it was granted) to provide software to help students learn English after making $12,000 in campaign donations to prominent local Republican legislators and the governor.
http://utahedu.blogspot.com/2010/08/local-educational-software-company-gets.html
Is there data available on how many schools used this software for how many students and how much they paid? What about comparable before and after scores? The program looks awesome, but do we know?
3. The Daily Herald printed a glowing profile of Imagine Learning today.
There were a few paragraphs profiling Susan Praetor, the Imagine Learning CEO, and she was a Vice President at Waterford Institute for 11 years. She specifically was the head of the team that developed the Waterford Software being used on the laptops for preschoolers. It's been years, but now she's the CEO who gets a state contract the year after Waterford and after donating $12,000 from her current company to influential politicians.
That is a really weird coincidence.
4. The Beverly Taylor Sorenson arts program was also part of that 2008 omnibus bill, but was one of the about-to-pass bills held hostage for the failed bills. The appropriated money got shaved by 1/3 during the recession, but this specifically designated program survived the hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts. The program seems great, both in terms of effective learning and in enriching school for kids when so much is being sacrificed for literacy and math test scores these days. Beverly Taylor Sorenson seems like a powerful advocate for the arts and an extremely generous philanthropist. I would love for my children to participate in her program integrating arts and other academic subjects. She was also the top political donor in the state in the 2010 election cycle.
The impressive program needs $4 million in new funding for next school year. What do you bet she gets it?
5. Initial conclusion: It doesn't appear bad programs are getting funded because of political contributions.
However, typically, education money from the state is sent to local districts to make spending decisions at the local level according to need. A lot of good programs exist to meet a lot of important needs, and not every company gets the contracts they desire.
It does appear that the key to getting your particular good program singled out for a contract and funded at the state level, before being sent on to districts, is to make significant financial contributions to local politicians and/or hire an influential lobbyist.
What do you think?
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Showing posts with label Waterford Early Reading Program. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Waterford Early Reading Program. Show all posts
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
A numbers mistake about the cost of the Waterford program in SB 2—It’s worse than I thought…and further illustrates why the omnibus bill is misleading
I made a mistake and stated that $1,000,000 was being allocated towards Waterford software and computers in the portion of SB 2 that was formerly HB 200. The actual impact is at least 3 ½ times worse just this year 6 times worse over the next 3 years. The legislature allocated $1,000,000 in one time money and $2,500,000 in ongoing money from the Uniform School Fund to the purchase of this software and implementation of the program. That ongoing funding is for at least 2009 and 2010, and I can’t figure out if the funding is repealed before 2014 or if “ongoing” is an indefinite term. Maybe a smarter person than me can help clarify.
I am sorry about the error. It was an honest mistake. I’m going to explain what I was looking at and thinking. The maze of statutory language mixed in an omnibus bill of over 1000 lines is a little confusing and I have spent some significant time reading and trying to connect the dots. Let this tangled web stand as refutation to Senator Stephenson’s claim it was just a “time-saving tool” “to reduce confusion.”
While typing my post, I had separate tabs up with both the text of HB 200 and SB 2 displayed AND two more tabs with the respective fiscal notes of HB 200 and SB 2. (Those links all go to slightly different places. For the “main menu” of each bill from which you can access the above information, audio/video of the debates, and the timeline of who voted for the bills and when, here is yet another link to HB 200 and SB 2.)
I often use the fiscal notes attached to bills—intended to be clear graphical statements of the cost of each bill without digging through all of the bill’s legalese—to quickly see the financial impact and where the money is coming from. However, I think the fiscal notes of these two bills and my error demonstrate another reason why the omnibus bill was a dishonest method to pass 13 separate bills and make it more difficult for the public to evaluate the work of their representatives. Notice that the fiscal note for HB 200 is clear and to the point--$1 million this year and $2.5 million for the next two years, each from a distinct fund. (Though even that may be a little misleading—the “ongoing” money seems to go beyond 2010.) Now look at the fiscal note for SB 2. It allocates almost $5 billion over 3 years from a combination of 5 different funds. There is no way to distinguish the cost or funding source for any one aspect of this 1185 line bill (40 printed pages according to the Daily Herald’s omnibus support board.) from the summary. The overall total is no doubt important in ensuring the legislature stays on budget, but in this case it hides the cost of the individual programs. This is surely one of the reasons the Utah State Constitution mandates that “no bill shall be passed containing more than one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title.”
So I was looking at the text of the two bills when I inadvertently pulled a mental switcheroo. The HB 200 text has the funding right at the end, lines 204-224. The Waterford section of SB 2 runs from lines 259 to 397. While flipping back and forth, I mistakenly thought that HB 200 had been copied verbatim into SB 2 and somehow got it firmly in my head that the first year funding from HB 200 (lines 215-218) was the overall allocation for the bill as newly constituted in SB 2. I just thought that the legislature had reduced the funding when rolling the bill into the omnibus schmorgasboard. I had missed that the SB 2 version was shorter than the original. Line 397 in SB 2 is the equivalent of line 194 in HB 200—the final 30 lines of HB 200 were missing.
I found that lines 195-224 in the original bill, a confusing bunch of repeal dates and the funding, had been snipped, split, and re-pasted into two separate places at the very end of the omnibus bill, lumped together with the funding for 10 other bills and separated from the language of the original by almost 700 lines of dense statutory code. Again, this wasn’t a problem in the original, stand-alone bill that wasn’t mixed with other proposals.
The $1,000,000 dollar one time money allocation for this year only is tucked into lines 1103 and 1108-1109 of SB 2.
Lines 1057-1078 of SB 2 contain the repeal dates and the ongoing allocation of $2.5 million a year. The repeal dates are where I get confused about how many years the $2.5 million lasts. Remember the bill uses the term “ongoing,” but the original fiscal note only detailed $2.5 million for 2009 and 2010. Lines 1059-1067 of SB 2 contain 7 sections, subsections, or titles and 7 different repeal dates. The complicated numbers on the sections are similar to the numbers on parts of the bill, but don’t look to me to match those in the bill. What are these 7 lines repealing? The funding? The program? The audit? I don’t know. Line 33 of the Highlighted Provisions on the original HB 200 states that the pilot program is repealed on July 1, 2014, but doesn’t clarify what all those repeal dates before 2014 mean. If they repeal other things (interesting bit of reverse earmarking if so), then is the $2.5 million to Waterford mandated until 2014? Here’s the actual lines from SB 2:
This is where I would love someone knowledgeable in the arcane to step in and explain what these repeal dates refer to.
And finally, how does this impact my analysis of how many kids will be served this year—I don’t know. Here are lines 1068-1078:
Item (i), the actual Waterford program, costs $3400 to install on a given computer. My original thought of just dividing the total by that $3400 gives us the same 294 for the first year and 735 households served statewide for the 2008-09 year. I knew it was a rough estimate because of other costs, but it turns out it was much too rough. Item (ii), computers and decent internet service (dial-up will presumably be too slow for the interactive Waterford program) for low income households will be expensive, along with item (iii), the technical support. Further explained by lines 331-337:
Not all low income households will need a computer and internet, but they have to be provided for the ones that do. At least 30% of the participants must come from low income households (Lines 342-349 in SB 2). (The low income households increase costs, but arguably much better meet the goal of targeting low readers who aren’t ready for school than the “diverse” 70% from higher income households.) Let’s make some extremely ballpark estimates. If around 600 households were provided software and about 200 of those were low income, how many would need computers and internet service? What type of computer would be bought and at what bulk discount for the state? How many households will have a suitable computer and just need internet? And how much administrative and technical support will these families less familiar with the technology need? It seems impossible to tell since the selection process is very broad (Lines 312-319, 340-341). I don’t know what technical support staff costs, but from experience with school technology snafus (including some laptops completely failing and erasing a term’s worth of grades just last week at my school), at least a moderate-sized staff would be needed to service laptops being used in all kinds of home settings. Paraprofessionals are relatively cheap to hire, but quality and retention/retraining are constant issues, and again I don’t know exactly how to evaluate how many would be needed. Many of the families would need training and help with the program.
Finally, items (iv) and (v), the audit and “evaluation” of the program can take up to 7.5% of the funding (Lines 373-375). That’s up to $187,500 from the raw $2.5 million, but would be less than that because of some exclusions.
It also makes sense to assume that the one time $1,000,000 in the first year will be used largely to buy the computers and peripherals because those aren’t continuing costs. This would decrease the number of students served the first year, but possibly allow for an increase in the number of students able to be served by the ongoing $2.5 million. So I would estimate that eventually between 600-650 households could be served for the cost of $1 million this year and $2.5 million for at least the next two years after that. It looks like after the other costs, hundreds of thousands of dollars of that money will go to Waterford this year, and between $1.5 million and $2 million each year after that.
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I am sorry about the error. It was an honest mistake. I’m going to explain what I was looking at and thinking. The maze of statutory language mixed in an omnibus bill of over 1000 lines is a little confusing and I have spent some significant time reading and trying to connect the dots. Let this tangled web stand as refutation to Senator Stephenson’s claim it was just a “time-saving tool” “to reduce confusion.”
While typing my post, I had separate tabs up with both the text of HB 200 and SB 2 displayed AND two more tabs with the respective fiscal notes of HB 200 and SB 2. (Those links all go to slightly different places. For the “main menu” of each bill from which you can access the above information, audio/video of the debates, and the timeline of who voted for the bills and when, here is yet another link to HB 200 and SB 2.)
I often use the fiscal notes attached to bills—intended to be clear graphical statements of the cost of each bill without digging through all of the bill’s legalese—to quickly see the financial impact and where the money is coming from. However, I think the fiscal notes of these two bills and my error demonstrate another reason why the omnibus bill was a dishonest method to pass 13 separate bills and make it more difficult for the public to evaluate the work of their representatives. Notice that the fiscal note for HB 200 is clear and to the point--$1 million this year and $2.5 million for the next two years, each from a distinct fund. (Though even that may be a little misleading—the “ongoing” money seems to go beyond 2010.) Now look at the fiscal note for SB 2. It allocates almost $5 billion over 3 years from a combination of 5 different funds. There is no way to distinguish the cost or funding source for any one aspect of this 1185 line bill (40 printed pages according to the Daily Herald’s omnibus support board.) from the summary. The overall total is no doubt important in ensuring the legislature stays on budget, but in this case it hides the cost of the individual programs. This is surely one of the reasons the Utah State Constitution mandates that “no bill shall be passed containing more than one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title.”
So I was looking at the text of the two bills when I inadvertently pulled a mental switcheroo. The HB 200 text has the funding right at the end, lines 204-224. The Waterford section of SB 2 runs from lines 259 to 397. While flipping back and forth, I mistakenly thought that HB 200 had been copied verbatim into SB 2 and somehow got it firmly in my head that the first year funding from HB 200 (lines 215-218) was the overall allocation for the bill as newly constituted in SB 2. I just thought that the legislature had reduced the funding when rolling the bill into the omnibus schmorgasboard. I had missed that the SB 2 version was shorter than the original. Line 397 in SB 2 is the equivalent of line 194 in HB 200—the final 30 lines of HB 200 were missing.
I found that lines 195-224 in the original bill, a confusing bunch of repeal dates and the funding, had been snipped, split, and re-pasted into two separate places at the very end of the omnibus bill, lumped together with the funding for 10 other bills and separated from the language of the original by almost 700 lines of dense statutory code. Again, this wasn’t a problem in the original, stand-alone bill that wasn’t mixed with other proposals.
The $1,000,000 dollar one time money allocation for this year only is tucked into lines 1103 and 1108-1109 of SB 2.
Lines 1057-1078 of SB 2 contain the repeal dates and the ongoing allocation of $2.5 million a year. The repeal dates are where I get confused about how many years the $2.5 million lasts. Remember the bill uses the term “ongoing,” but the original fiscal note only detailed $2.5 million for 2009 and 2010. Lines 1059-1067 of SB 2 contain 7 sections, subsections, or titles and 7 different repeal dates. The complicated numbers on the sections are similar to the numbers on parts of the bill, but don’t look to me to match those in the bill. What are these 7 lines repealing? The funding? The program? The audit? I don’t know. Line 33 of the Highlighted Provisions on the original HB 200 states that the pilot program is repealed on July 1, 2014, but doesn’t clarify what all those repeal dates before 2014 mean. If they repeal other things (interesting bit of reverse earmarking if so), then is the $2.5 million to Waterford mandated until 2014? Here’s the actual lines from SB 2:
1057 Section 26. Section 63-55b-153 is amended to read:
1058 63-55b-153. Repeal dates -- Titles 53, 53A, and 53B.
1059 (1) Section 53-3-210 is repealed February 1, 2007.
1060 (2) Section 53A-1-403.5 is repealed July 1, 2012.
1061 (3) Subsection 53A-1a-511 (7)(c) is repealed July 1, 2007.
1062 (4) Title 53A, Chapter 1a, Part 10, UPSTART, is repealed July 1, 2014.
1063 [(4)] (5) Section 53A-3-702 is repealed July 1, 2008.
1064 [(5)] (6) Section 53A-6-112 is repealed July 1, 2009.
1065 (7) Subsection 53A-13-110 (3) is repealed July 1, 2013.
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1066 [(6)] (8) Section 53A-17a-152 is repealed July 1, 2010.
1067 (9) Section 53A-17a-162 is repealed July 1, 2012.
This is where I would love someone knowledgeable in the arcane to step in and explain what these repeal dates refer to.
And finally, how does this impact my analysis of how many kids will be served this year—I don’t know. Here are lines 1068-1078:
1068 Section 27. Ongoing appropriations.
1069 (1) As an ongoing appropriation subject to future budget constraints, there is
1070 appropriated from the Uniform School Fund for fiscal year 2008-09, as follows:
1071 (a) $2,500,000 to the State Board of Education for UPSTART as provided in Title
1072 53A, Chapter 1a, Part 10, UPSTART, including costs of:
1073 (i) a home-based educational technology program provided by a contractor;
1074 (ii) computers, peripheral equipment, and Internet service for families who cannot
1075 afford the equipment and service;
1076 (iii) administrative and technical support provided by school districts;
1077 (iv) an audit of the contractor's use of funds appropriated for UPSTART; and
1078 (v) an evaluation of the home-based educational technology program;
Item (i), the actual Waterford program, costs $3400 to install on a given computer. My original thought of just dividing the total by that $3400 gives us the same 294 for the first year and 735 households served statewide for the 2008-09 year. I knew it was a rough estimate because of other costs, but it turns out it was much too rough. Item (ii), computers and decent internet service (dial-up will presumably be too slow for the interactive Waterford program) for low income households will be expensive, along with item (iii), the technical support. Further explained by lines 331-337:
331 (3) A school district that participates in UPSTART shall:
332 (a) receive funding for:
333 (i) paraprofessional and technical support staff; and
334 (ii) travel, materials, and meeting costs of the program;
Not all low income households will need a computer and internet, but they have to be provided for the ones that do. At least 30% of the participants must come from low income households (Lines 342-349 in SB 2). (The low income households increase costs, but arguably much better meet the goal of targeting low readers who aren’t ready for school than the “diverse” 70% from higher income households.) Let’s make some extremely ballpark estimates. If around 600 households were provided software and about 200 of those were low income, how many would need computers and internet service? What type of computer would be bought and at what bulk discount for the state? How many households will have a suitable computer and just need internet? And how much administrative and technical support will these families less familiar with the technology need? It seems impossible to tell since the selection process is very broad (Lines 312-319, 340-341). I don’t know what technical support staff costs, but from experience with school technology snafus (including some laptops completely failing and erasing a term’s worth of grades just last week at my school), at least a moderate-sized staff would be needed to service laptops being used in all kinds of home settings. Paraprofessionals are relatively cheap to hire, but quality and retention/retraining are constant issues, and again I don’t know exactly how to evaluate how many would be needed. Many of the families would need training and help with the program.
Finally, items (iv) and (v), the audit and “evaluation” of the program can take up to 7.5% of the funding (Lines 373-375). That’s up to $187,500 from the raw $2.5 million, but would be less than that because of some exclusions.
It also makes sense to assume that the one time $1,000,000 in the first year will be used largely to buy the computers and peripherals because those aren’t continuing costs. This would decrease the number of students served the first year, but possibly allow for an increase in the number of students able to be served by the ongoing $2.5 million. So I would estimate that eventually between 600-650 households could be served for the cost of $1 million this year and $2.5 million for at least the next two years after that. It looks like after the other costs, hundreds of thousands of dollars of that money will go to Waterford this year, and between $1.5 million and $2 million each year after that.
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Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Maybe the worst bill in the education omnibus, HB 200—$3400 software plus laptops for preschoolers
An omnibus bill is a rotten, non-transparent method to pass legislation even if all of the bills contained are good. Not that I believe there commonly are 100% clean omnibus bills. Many of us have been frustrated when omnibus bills are used on the federal level and pork is stuck into a farm bill or an energy bill. Unfortunately, and in keeping with federal tradition, the only reason legislative leadership used the omnibus bill at the end of the legislative session last March was to lump some failed education bills in with eight stronger bills and pass them through with no scrutiny. Senator Stephenson claimed the omnibus was just to reduce confusion among the coordinating clauses in the bills. The point was made during the floor debate that the legislative staff has successfully coordinated hundreds of bills every session for decades. You can check the BS yourself by looking at the amended code sections in the original bill texts and then checking out the arduous cut-and-paste job done into SB 2.
HB 278 and HB 200 were probably the two worst bills passed in this dishonest fashion; both had failed floor votes in previous days precisely because they were illogical uses of education funds. I'll address HB 278 another time.
Let’s look at HB 200, the UPSTART program or “laptops for preschoolers” bill, and three puzzling aspects of its passage. (Lines 258-397 of the Omnibus bill, SB 2) It allocates $1,000,000 for the current school year to purchase instructional reading software for families, hardware and internet service for needy families, and for an audit on the program. The original had the same funding for the first year, but included $2.5 million more per year through 2014. The update included in SB 2 includes an option for the legislature to continue the program with no funding stipulated. (Update: Oops. I looked at the wrong bill and missed the actual costs. The bill allocates $1 million the first year and $2.5 million each year after that.)
1. First rotten aspect. The bill calls for a Request for Proposals (RFP) to find a contractor to provide a contractor with a laundry list of requirements, but the media reports from the very beginning explained the program as involving the Waterford Reading Software. My House representative also repeated to me both during and after the session that the Waterford software would be used in the program’s year trial. Where did that belief come from? Is it legal to already have a winner chosen before a RFP is even conducted? I recall hearing something in a recent session about a bill containing an exact copy of a company’s listed services. Is that what happened here? Why Waterford? Here’s the relevant language from the bill:
There is nothing mentioning Waterford at all. Why would the legislators know the winner of the RFP months before it even took place? (I wish I knew the status of that RFP and whether schools are using the program currently.)
Wow. The language requires the contractor to not only have a product that accurately measures the reading readiness of children who cannot read (Lines 304-306), but stipulates that the company must install the software, solicit families to participate in the program, and motivate them to regularly use the software.
Recalling an earlier post on educational “research,” I searched around on the web for how the Waterford software works. The Waterford Institute is a non-profit organization dedicated to integrating technology into learning. They sell their early reading program through Pearson/Prentice Hall, a corporation dedicated to selling expensive software and textbooks to schools.
Here’s the Pearson order page I first found with impressive claims, rosy promotional literature, and “research” proving the efficacy of the program. Notice that none of the research here has any direct link to the program. They are a bunch of separate studies recommending different actions, and the program just claims to meet all 6 pages worth of objectives. There is no actual evaluation of the Waterford Early Reading Software.
As I searched further, I did find a page with some actual research of the program on the Waterford Site. It was tucked in a page citing the same long laundry list of other reading research they claim validates their program. I skimmed to evaluate the two actual effectiveness studies. The Waterford software receives high praise for its effects on low readers, and the studies appear at least decent, despite a few methodological concerns. (The higher quality study done for an educational journal has a much smaller sample and only lasts 6 months; the study by some advocacy foundation has a much larger number of students and lasts 3 years, but has issues with the testing procedures.) However, both studies specifically address the use of the software in a classroom setting and say that the teacher significantly affected the positive reading gains. There is no data available on using the program at home with pre-school age children and no teacher. The trial here in Utah could contribute to a study of that if someone is documenting the effort.
However, a troubling aspect of the site was the Terms of Use which expressly spell out that our investment is not guaranteed. I’m pasting into two separate paragraphs and the subheadings they fall under:
I can understand not wanting to be liable for hackers or inevitable small glitches, but there is no guarantee EVER that the site will be “accurate or reliable.” Pearson is not liable in any way for any matter relating to the site, even if the school is unable to use the site. Maybe this is “normal” legalese and means nothing, but I know I’d be concerned about signing a personal contract for a product with these provisos.
2. Second fishy aspect. Paul Rolly reported in May that Cap Ferry, former Utah Senate president and current lobbyist extraordinaire, was pushing the Waterford software’s use to the legislators. Another person with some knowledge of the bill called it “A solution looking for a problem.”
3. Third slightly rancid, but key, undisclosed fact about the Waterford Program. Waterford and Pearson charge $3400, plus an installation fee, for EACH computer the Waterford Early Reading Program is installed on.
Last summer, I called the 1-888 number that was the only contact information I could find on the Pearson website. I asked about purchasing the Waterford software and was given the number to a local representative. The site has improved since then and you can find his number directly on the Pearson site now. The rep. was very helpful and explained that the Waterford program was the top-of-the-line intervention for low-achieving readers and told me of some local elementary schools using the program.
We discussed cost, and each computer equipped with Waterford Early Reading would cost $3400 plus an installation fee. Multiple users can then use that computer, but that efficiency is lost when the computer is specifically provided for the home. There is a lesser program, Success Maker, which costs only $1150 per computer and another program, ELLIS, specifically geared to those students learning English as a second language for $1000 per computer. The Waterford software, while supposedly superior, costs three times as much as similar interventions.
At the end of our conversation, I asked the rep. if the state had purchased the software yet, and he got nervous. He said that it wasn’t for sure yet and quickly changed the subject.
If the $1,000,000 allocated to the program this year were completely spent on $3400 fees, we could provide 294 homes with Waterford Software. However, there is the undisclosed installation fee per computer on top of that, up to $75,000 of the million can be spent on auditing and evaluation, and at least some homes will be provided with newly purchased computers and internet service as well. I wonder if 200 homes provided with software would be an accurate estimation of how many will be served by this program this year? (Update: Many fewer homes would get the program the first year, while up to 600+ could be served in following years...probably...if my estimates are close. )
The software had better be good to justify a $3400+ pricetag for each program. I would like to know who originally proposed the idea for the bill to Rep. Last, what information Cap Ferry gave to the legislators, if other programs or reading interventions were discussed, what that research process looked like, what donations if any were given by Waterford employees to campaign funds, and what was said during the original debate of the bill. During the Senate debate of SB 2 on the second to last day of the session, Sen. Stephenson said it was as good as funding Head Start. I want to believe that the bill came about from a sincere search for reading remediation, and not to provide a corporate handout…but I’m awfully suspicious. Regardless, Cap Ferry’s client is no doubt finding his lobbying fees worth the expense.
HB 278 and HB 200 were probably the two worst bills passed in this dishonest fashion; both had failed floor votes in previous days precisely because they were illogical uses of education funds. I'll address HB 278 another time.
Let’s look at HB 200, the UPSTART program or “laptops for preschoolers” bill, and three puzzling aspects of its passage. (Lines 258-397 of the Omnibus bill, SB 2) It allocates $1,000,000 for the current school year to purchase instructional reading software for families, hardware and internet service for needy families, and for an audit on the program. The original had the same funding for the first year, but included $2.5 million more per year through 2014. The update included in SB 2 includes an option for the legislature to continue the program with no funding stipulated. (Update: Oops. I looked at the wrong bill and missed the actual costs. The bill allocates $1 million the first year and $2.5 million each year after that.)
1. First rotten aspect. The bill calls for a Request for Proposals (RFP) to find a contractor to provide a contractor with a laundry list of requirements, but the media reports from the very beginning explained the program as involving the Waterford Reading Software. My House representative also repeated to me both during and after the session that the Waterford software would be used in the program’s year trial. Where did that belief come from? Is it legal to already have a winner chosen before a RFP is even conducted? I recall hearing something in a recent session about a bill containing an exact copy of a company’s listed services. Is that what happened here? Why Waterford? Here’s the relevant language from the bill:
281 (3) The State Board of Education shall contract with an educational technology
________________________________________
282 provider, selected through a request for proposals process, for the delivery of a home-based
283 educational technology program for preschool children that meets the requirements of
284 Subsection (4).
285 (4) A home-based educational technology program for preschool children shall meet the
286 following standards:
287 (a) the contractor shall provide computer-assisted instruction for preschool children on
288 a home computer connected by the Internet to a centralized file storage facility;
289 (b) the contractor shall:
290 (i) provide technical support to families for the installation and operation of the
291 instructional software; and
292 (ii) provide for the installation of computer and Internet access in homes of low income
293 families that cannot afford the equipment and service;
294 (c) the contractor shall have the capability of doing the following through the Internet:
295 (i) communicating with parents;
296 (ii) updating the instructional software;
297 (iii) validating user access;
298 (iv) collecting usage data;
299 (v) storing research data; and
300 (vi) producing reports for parents, schools, and the Legislature;
301 (d) the program shall include the following components:
302 (i) computer-assisted, individualized instruction in reading, mathematics, and science;
303 (ii) a multisensory reading tutoring program; and
304 (iii) a validated computer adaptive reading test that does not require the presence of
305 trained adults to administer and is an accurate indicator of reading readiness of children who
306 cannot read;
307 (e) the contractor shall have the capability to quickly and efficiently modify, improve,
308 and support the product;
309 (f) the contractor shall work in cooperation with school district personnel who will
________________________________________
310 provide administrative and technical support of the program as provided in Section
311 53A-1a-1003 ;
312 (g) the contractor shall solicit families to participate in the program as provided in
313 Section 53A-1a-1004 ; and
314 (h) in implementing the home-based educational technology program, the contractor
315 shall seek the advise and expertise of early childhood education professionals within the Utah
316 System of Higher Education on issues such as:
317 (i) soliciting families to participate in the program;
318 (ii) providing training to families; and
319 (iii) motivating families to regularly use the instructional software.
320 (5) The contract shall provide funding for a home-based educational technology
321 program for preschool children for one year with an option to extend the contract for additional
322 years or to expand the program to a greater number of preschool children, subject to the
323 appropriation of money by the Legislature for UPSTART.
There is nothing mentioning Waterford at all. Why would the legislators know the winner of the RFP months before it even took place? (I wish I knew the status of that RFP and whether schools are using the program currently.)
Wow. The language requires the contractor to not only have a product that accurately measures the reading readiness of children who cannot read (Lines 304-306), but stipulates that the company must install the software, solicit families to participate in the program, and motivate them to regularly use the software.
Recalling an earlier post on educational “research,” I searched around on the web for how the Waterford software works. The Waterford Institute is a non-profit organization dedicated to integrating technology into learning. They sell their early reading program through Pearson/Prentice Hall, a corporation dedicated to selling expensive software and textbooks to schools.
Here’s the Pearson order page I first found with impressive claims, rosy promotional literature, and “research” proving the efficacy of the program. Notice that none of the research here has any direct link to the program. They are a bunch of separate studies recommending different actions, and the program just claims to meet all 6 pages worth of objectives. There is no actual evaluation of the Waterford Early Reading Software.
As I searched further, I did find a page with some actual research of the program on the Waterford Site. It was tucked in a page citing the same long laundry list of other reading research they claim validates their program. I skimmed to evaluate the two actual effectiveness studies. The Waterford software receives high praise for its effects on low readers, and the studies appear at least decent, despite a few methodological concerns. (The higher quality study done for an educational journal has a much smaller sample and only lasts 6 months; the study by some advocacy foundation has a much larger number of students and lasts 3 years, but has issues with the testing procedures.) However, both studies specifically address the use of the software in a classroom setting and say that the teacher significantly affected the positive reading gains. There is no data available on using the program at home with pre-school age children and no teacher. The trial here in Utah could contribute to a study of that if someone is documenting the effort.
However, a troubling aspect of the site was the Terms of Use which expressly spell out that our investment is not guaranteed. I’m pasting into two separate paragraphs and the subheadings they fall under:
Disclaimer of Warranties
YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT:
b) PEARSON MAKES NO WARRANTY THAT (i) THIS SITE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS, (ii) THIS SITE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE, (iii) THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE USE OF THIS SITE WILL BE ACCURATE OR RELIABLE, (iv) THE QUALITY OF ANY PRODUCTS, SERVICES, INFORMATION, OR OTHER MATERIAL PURCHASED OR OBTAINED BY YOU THROUGH THIS SITE WILL MEET YOUR EXPECTATIONS, AND (v) ANY ERRORS OR DEFECTS IN THIS SITE WILL BE CORRECTED.
Limitation of Liability
IN NO EVENT SHALL PEARSON BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, GOODWILL, USE OR DATA, OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES (EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES), RESULTING FROM: (i) THE LOSS OF DATA AND/OR THE USE OR THE INABILITY TO USE THIS SITE; (ii) THE COST OF PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS AND SERVICES RESULTING FROM ANY GOODS, DATA, INFORMATION OR SERVICES PURCHASED OR OBTAINED OR MESSAGES RECEIVED OR TRANSACTIONS ENTERED INTO THROUGH OR FROM THIS SITE; (iii) UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO OR ALTERATION OF YOUR TRANSMISSIONS OR DATA; (iv) STATEMENTS OR CONDUCT OF ANY THIRD PARTY ON THIS SITE; OR (v) ANY OTHER MATTER RELATING TO THIS SITE.
I can understand not wanting to be liable for hackers or inevitable small glitches, but there is no guarantee EVER that the site will be “accurate or reliable.” Pearson is not liable in any way for any matter relating to the site, even if the school is unable to use the site. Maybe this is “normal” legalese and means nothing, but I know I’d be concerned about signing a personal contract for a product with these provisos.
2. Second fishy aspect. Paul Rolly reported in May that Cap Ferry, former Utah Senate president and current lobbyist extraordinaire, was pushing the Waterford software’s use to the legislators. Another person with some knowledge of the bill called it “A solution looking for a problem.”
3. Third slightly rancid, but key, undisclosed fact about the Waterford Program. Waterford and Pearson charge $3400, plus an installation fee, for EACH computer the Waterford Early Reading Program is installed on.
Last summer, I called the 1-888 number that was the only contact information I could find on the Pearson website. I asked about purchasing the Waterford software and was given the number to a local representative. The site has improved since then and you can find his number directly on the Pearson site now. The rep. was very helpful and explained that the Waterford program was the top-of-the-line intervention for low-achieving readers and told me of some local elementary schools using the program.
We discussed cost, and each computer equipped with Waterford Early Reading would cost $3400 plus an installation fee. Multiple users can then use that computer, but that efficiency is lost when the computer is specifically provided for the home. There is a lesser program, Success Maker, which costs only $1150 per computer and another program, ELLIS, specifically geared to those students learning English as a second language for $1000 per computer. The Waterford software, while supposedly superior, costs three times as much as similar interventions.
At the end of our conversation, I asked the rep. if the state had purchased the software yet, and he got nervous. He said that it wasn’t for sure yet and quickly changed the subject.
If the $1,000,000 allocated to the program this year were completely spent on $3400 fees, we could provide 294 homes with Waterford Software. However, there is the undisclosed installation fee per computer on top of that, up to $75,000 of the million can be spent on auditing and evaluation, and at least some homes will be provided with newly purchased computers and internet service as well. I wonder if 200 homes provided with software would be an accurate estimation of how many will be served by this program this year? (Update: Many fewer homes would get the program the first year, while up to 600+ could be served in following years...probably...if my estimates are close. )
The software had better be good to justify a $3400+ pricetag for each program. I would like to know who originally proposed the idea for the bill to Rep. Last, what information Cap Ferry gave to the legislators, if other programs or reading interventions were discussed, what that research process looked like, what donations if any were given by Waterford employees to campaign funds, and what was said during the original debate of the bill. During the Senate debate of SB 2 on the second to last day of the session, Sen. Stephenson said it was as good as funding Head Start. I want to believe that the bill came about from a sincere search for reading remediation, and not to provide a corporate handout…but I’m awfully suspicious. Regardless, Cap Ferry’s client is no doubt finding his lobbying fees worth the expense.
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