Kudos to Howie Fischer for his article in Saturday’s Star, Education software law written by software vendor raises questions. It’s about a bill, HB2485, which would award a no-bid contract to a Utah company, Imagine Learning, to supply software to Arizona school districts for English Language Learners. It’s not officially no-bid, but as Fischer indicates, the language in the bill is so specific to the Imagine Learning product, no other company could compete successfully.
In 2013, I wrote a series of posts on Blog for Arizona about a similar bill sponsored by Al Melvin, SB1239, (the posts are here, here, here and here) as well a column in the Weekly. Fischer mentions Melvin’s bill in his article. I also noted that current Ed Supe, then State Senator John Huppenthal joined Melvin in sponsoring a similar bill, SB1319, in 2010.
I suggest anyone interested in this attempt to hand a multi-million dollar contract to Imagine Learning give Fischer’s article a close read. Let me add some information, some of which overlaps with Fischer’s reporting.
• While the 2010 bill had two sponsors, Huppenthal and Melvin, and Melvin was the sole sponsor of the 2013 bill since Hupp had moved on to be Ed Supe, the current bill has 26 sponsors, evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. Maybe the current sponsors discovered Melvin had it right all along, I don’t know.
• The bill passed the House 34-24, with Democrats and Republicans on both sides of the vote. However, a few of the original sponsors voted against it. I don’t know what made them change their minds. They may not have known the bill was written for a specific company when they sponsored it, or they may not have liked the changes made to the bill before it came to a vote.
• Al Melvin loves Imagine Learning so much, he mentioned it frequently on the campaign trail in 2012. In a debate on Arizona Public Media, Melvin said, “There’s a company up in Utah by the name of Imagine Learning and they’ve had phenomenal success with third graders getting them up to speed in English.”
• Imagine Learning has a contract to supply software to schools in its home state of Utah. According to a Utah writer, the company gave in the neighborhood of $12,000 in campaign contributions to conservative Utah legislators in 2009, including the Chair of the Executive Appropriations Committee and a key member of the Senate Education Committee. I have no knowledge of the company making any campaign contributions in Arizona.
• Imagine Learning isn’t just a member of ALEC, the conservative group that pushes model bills through legislatures around the country. It’s at the second highest funding level along with some of the country’s biggest special interests. The only two companies at the highest funding level are Reynolds (tobacco) and the State Policy Network (SPN), which is a conglomeration of astroturf groups funded by the Koch Brothers, Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Insurance and others.
• Imagine Learning is well loved by conservative “education reformers.” It was awarded the Innovation in Education award at the Parents for Choice in Education symposium held in Salt Lake City in December, 2012. The two featured speakers at the symposium were Matthew Ladner, the former Education Director for the Goldwater Institute, and Ladner’s good friend Jay Greene, the head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, who is a Senior Fellow at the Goldwater Institute.
This article appears in Mar 6-12, 2014.
America loves stories and in particular the circle story. You remember the story that ends where it began. In Arizona it is the story of your tax dollar. The state collects tax dollars from almost everyone (unless you are an exempt business). That tax dollar is divided up and a portion given to education, you know, for the children. The state legislature claims there is a hole in the education bucket and then pays top dollar for education products that are basically untested. In Arizona its name today is HB 2485 but names are a minor detail because it will probably change tomorrow. So a company in Utah like Imagine Learning is awarded millions of Arizona tax dollars for a solution to the hole in the education bucket while the legislature closes more schools.
This company of Imagine Learning receives Arizona tax dollars and is not the least conflicted about past investigations for illegal campaign contributions because now they just contribute to ALEC. ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) as you should know, like Citizens United, does contribute to select, political campaigns, but hey the Supreme Court has ruled they are an average citizen just like you and me. ALEC then takes those tax dollars (after subtracting a small administrative fee) from Imagine Learning (after subtracting a small profit) and contributes to the re-election campaigns of the very legislators who approved spending your tax dollars on education products in the first place.
In the past corrupt politicians would have just taken the “bribe” into their campaign coffers and faced jail, but now like in that story about the hole in the bucket, everyone gets to skip the blame and still reap the rewards (win win). Those initial tax dollars actually assure re-election of the same representatives who approved those purchases in the first place because new candidates for office cannot compete with your tax “contribution” to Imagine Learning, ALEC, and eventually the sitting incumbent (win win win). It is a circle story that keeps going around and produces the craziest laws. We must either love circle stories or are insane because we keep doing the same thing expecting different results.
Educational software is free. Enough GPL licensed software to take the kids from PK to 12, and beyond.
Operating System’s, also free. Free is good. Why would they spend millions on something that can be gotten for free? Government, sheesh.
The article is incorrect. The contract would be fully subject to state procurement laws. But, it has a bigger problem – Arizona’s four hour block has the best reclassification rate in the country and the software can’t show a superior outcome to that. So, it will not likely make it to the finish line.
Where is the evidence that the AZ 4 hr block has the best reclassification rate in the country? That policy is truly dreadful and is the least best way to learn ESL.
The real truth about the 4 hr. block:
“Findings/Results: Analyses reveal that the vast majority of English Language Coordinators think that, as a result of the program, there is an increased focus on English Language Learner (ELL) students’ English language development. Regarding the challenges of the program, ELCs think that the implementation of the 4-hour ELD block has: a) neglected core areas of academic content that are critical for ELL students’ academic success, b) contributed to ELL students’ isolation, c) limited ELL students opportunities for on-time high school graduation, and d) assumed that English language learning can be accomplished within an unrealistic timeframe and under a set of unrealistic conditions.”
http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?Conten…
“Conclusions/Recommendations: Given the data collected, we recommend that school districts explore alternative models of ELD instruction.”