Remember last month, when it was revealed that a testing error erroneously disqualified a few thousand public school students from the city's Gifted and Talented programs? Well, it turns out Pearson, the agency behind the tests, made another scoring screw-up, and now the city might split with them altogether.
After initially downgrading the test percentiles for about 2,700 students, it appears another 305 students got higher scores than they'd been told to begin with, and 146 of those students now qualify for G&T programs. Apparently, Pearson made the scoring error by incorrectly assuming all the students took the test on the same date, which altered the age algorithms. But screwing over nearly 3,000 students isn't something the city's taking lightly, and they're rethinking the $5 million-plus, three-year deal they've made with the company. "This failure to complete the basic quality assurance checks Pearson confirmed that they had completed is deeply disturbing,” city schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said in a statement. “For this reason, the Department of Education is reviewing a variety of options including terminating Pearson’s contract.”
Pearson's already had to turn over $80,000 for parent and student outreach, and refund the city $480,000 for the initial error; the company also heads the state's regents exams, which have seen their own share of errors as well.
