NC school chief defends $928,000 after-hours contract and blames DIT for emergency
State Superintendent Mark Johnson is blaming the state Department of Information Technology’s “inaction” for creating the situation that caused him to approve a $928,570 “emergency purchase” of a controversial reading program last week.
DIT had questioned the after-hours purchase and given Johnson until Tuesday to provide “sufficient justification” or risk having the contract with Istation suspended or canceled. In his response, Johnson said he had to act last week because schools needed to have a program in place the following morning to test students under the Read To Achieve law.
“So that there is no lack of clarity, if NCDPI cannot contract with the vendor now, after nearly six months of review by NCDIT, the continuation of this vital program for State of North Carolina’s teachers, students, and families will cease,” Johnson wrote.
Johnson and other state education leaders have been sparring legally for months over how to administer Read to Achieve to elementary school students. Since 2013, students have read out loud to their teachers, who used Amplify Education’s mClass program to assess their skills. But in June, Johnson awarded a three-year, $8.3 million Read To Achieve testing contract to a different company, Istation, which tests students on a computer program.
Legal challenges followed, with Amplify filing an appeal and DIT issuing a stay in August blocking the new contract while it reviewed the case. State elementary schools were left without a program to test students after a judge declined last Tuesday to lift the stay.
DIT sought ‘adequate justification’
Johnson told State Board of Education members last week that he had to act to give clarity to school districts who are conducting Read To Achieve assessments right now.
In a memo Friday, Patti Bowers, chief procurement officer at DIT, said DPI “has not provided adequate justification for an emergency purchase.”
“If every contract signed after business hours constituted an emergency, the term would be rendered meaningless,” Bowers wrote.
In his response, Johnson pointed to how Read To Achieve requires students to be tested in the middle of the school year. Johnson said he had to act after-hours last Tuesday because schools, which were testing Wednesday morning, couldn’t wait.
“Local superintendents, literacy directors, principals, and teachers across the state were immediately concerned and needed guidance from NCDPI on next steps before the next morning,” Johnson wrote.
Johnson criticizes DIT
Throughout his response, Johnson criticizes DIT for not having resolved the issue sooner. He says DIT “sat on this review for six months” and that the agency’s “inaction” meant “there was no reading diagnostic in place and educators were justifiably demanding a solution.”
“This emergency was created when NCDIT blocked use of the one, statewide reading diagnostic tool a week before the start of the school year in August 2019,” Johnson wrote. “The vendor graciously offered to do the work for free for the remainder of 2019, but that agreement expired. Extending the no-cost agreement was not an option NCDPI had. “
DIT is hearing Amplify’s appeal this week. Istation cited Bowers’ memo Monday in an unsuccessful request for DIT to turn the case over to a state administrative law judge.
In the motion, Istation calls Bowers’ memo “hostile” toward Johnson and showing “bias” against the superintendent. Istation noted how DIT reports to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, a “political rival” of both the Republican superintendent and Senate leader Phil Berger, the main supporter of the Read To Achieve legislation.
This story was originally published January 14, 2020 at 2:52 PM with the headline "NC school chief defends $928,000 after-hours contract and blames DIT for emergency."
