Murdoch owning ed data systems companies? What could possibly go wrong?

by David Safier

Here are the three big pieces of this story:

1. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp recently purchased Wireless Generation, an educational data company.
2. Ex-NY City school chancellor Joel Klein is the CEO on New Corp's education division.
3. Wireless Generation has "a $1.5 million no-bid contract for a data system utilized by the New York City schools, and a $27 million no-bid contract to develop assessment-tracking software for the New York state education department."

This is a small part of a long and frightening article on Murdoch's move into educaton in Education Week, which is password protected. The article says this topic is getting coverage in New York media, though I haven't seen it in the NY Times.

The number of concerns here, about Murdoch buying his way into the world of education, are almost endless. Since the company, Wireless Generation, is basically about compiling and analysing test and achievement data, it's part of the promotion of the whole idea that numbers can be used as a direct proxy for student and teacher performance. Murdoch's money and News Corp's media reach gives him an outsized voice in this whole controversy. The idea that Mr. Hack will have his hands on all kinds of data which can be turned against teachers, administrators, schools and school districts he has a political beef with . . . I don't have to go into what's wrong with that.

To be fair (God, I hate it when I do this, but I can't help myself), lots of media companies have education wings. I find it to be a potentially dangerous mix no matter what the media outlet. But when you have a biased, corrupt, power-hungry person like Murdoch controlling this, and a man who can buy credibility with people like Klein and other superintendents he has lured on board with, I'm sure, very generous salaries, his potential to tilt the world of education toward his profit-based, conservative heavy viewpoint is frightening.