The NC Large District Superintendent Consortium (NCLDSC) has a beef with Pearson and Powerschool. In a letter I obtained through a FOIA on the NCLDSC, it would seem Pearson’s Powerschool is not well thought of by the Large District Clique.
From that FOIA, it would seem that this Large District clique is working closely with NC New Schools and BEST NC. Both of which have promoted the Common Core or have ties to the NC Chamber of Commerce’s attempt to drown out parents on the topic– Hire Standards. More on the NCLDSC Clique later, back to Powerschool.
According to the letter, the reps from Pearson have been rude and the NCLDSC is asking for “no charge” for the 2014-15 school year “as a good faith investment in our long-term partnership”.
NC DPI has dropped millions of dollars into Powerschool and it was never intended to support a whole state. It was built with single districts in mind. The single, initial contract for Powerschool was over four millions at $4,303,150. Between personnel, hardware, software, installations, migrations and CEDARS spending — the number goes way higher. I’m still digging through the 4 big boxes of paper DPI sent me to comply with my FOIA for Powerschool. Related: Pearson Powerschool Contract – September 2012
For those of you not up to speed on Powerschool and what a cluster it’s been, get up to speed with some of these articles.
- Pearson Powerschool Software Failure Delays Report Cards. Again.
- Pearson Software Failure Delays Report Cards A Week
- PowerSchool problems continue
The irony of Pearson and Powerschool being tied to the Longitudinal database required by Common Core and the big push by the NCLDSC to lock Common Core in for 7 years in North Carolina should not be missed here.
A thank you goes out to Ann Doss Helms of the Your Schools Blog for linking.
A quick note about part of Philip Price’s response:
There are several incorrect statements included in the write-up around the letter. PowerSchool was designed and is supporting the entire State (the comments state that it was never intended to support the whole state). CEDARS has nothing to do with PowerSchool other than the fact that data will come from PowerSchool to CEDARS. The contract w/Pearson does cover all the costs for implementation.
Incorrect? Oh really?
Powerschool was never designed for a whole state to implement. It was designed and meant for implementation for individual districts — and Mr. Price knows it. NC is the first to ever try to put Powerschool into place on the state level.
It is not really ‘supporting’ a whole state. It’s been riddled with errors and plagued by “glitches” that included the delayed report cards and continues to drop entire chunks of data. One teacher reported to me this week that all of her grades had vanished and a second reported to me she spends more time doing data entry and then RE-ENTERING that data because Powerschool keeps dumping it on her. Elementary parents can’t even get access this year!
CEDARS does have something to do with Powerschool. Powerschool is a Pearson product, as was the system NC used previously. Pearson is also very closely tied in with Common Core, which requires a state longitudinal database system (SLDS). That SLDS is CEDARS. Price himself states “data will come from PowerSchool to CEDARS”. If you think that’s coincidence, I have oceanfront property in Kansas to sell you. By the way, what data does Powerschool send CEDARS? I and another parent have been asking for this information for almost a year now.
On the costs covered by contract: Which contract? So far, I’ve found 3 different ones for various moving parts that make Powerschool possible in the four big boxes of documents I received back in my FOIA on Powerschool.