Welcome to

Florida taxpayers are forking over 250-million dollars to a test grading company, that’s dropping the ball. Pearson Education is already in hot water for delaying FCAT results for more than a month, and now that those scores have been released… schools are questioning their accuracy. As Whitney Ray tells us, the Department of Education is standing by the results, but they are ordering a third party review.

After a month of delays, Florida’s 67 school districts finally got their students’ FCAT scores. But not only were they late, at least five superintendents say the scores are also wrong.

“All five districts came together and they all had the same results in every district… that the learning gains seemed to be flawed,” said Jackie Pons, Leon County Schools Superintendent.

The superintendents are asking the Florida Department of Education to delay using the scores to grade their schools until an independent review can be conducted. If the scores turn out to be flawed, this will be the second time in as many months Pearson Education, the company hired to grade the tests, has been in hot water.

And they’re profiting from the mistake, the state is paying Pearson 250-million taxpayer dollars to grade the test.

We made repeated requests for an on-camera interview with Education Commissioner Eric Smith to talk about Pearson’s performance and contract; but the Department refused to make Smith available by our deadline.

The department even missed a later deadline to response to questions through email. But former state representative Curtis Richardson, who was in office when the FCAT was created, had plenty to say about the state’s contract with Pearson.

“Schools have so much riding on the outcome of this FCAT and we want to keep the company on board at taxpayers’ expense that’s caused all this. I think it’s a very wrong decision on the part of the commissioner,” said Richardson.

Staring in the 2011 – 2012 school year portions of the test will begin being phased out and the state’s contract with Pearson will expire soon after.