How Rupert Murdoch Could Get His Hands On Your Kid's Information--And It's Legal

Earlier this week, Rupert Murdoch’s testimony before a committee of the UK Parliament riveted audiences and sent ripples of outrage, disbelief and revulsion to viewers worldwide. Now, in yet another dramatic twist, the multifaceted scandal has managed to make its way across the Atlantic, rearing its head in the New York State Education Department with former New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein.

The background story involves the award of a $27 million no-bid contract by the New York State Education Department to Wireless Generation, an education technology company purchased by Murdoch’s News Corp. in November 2010. The allotted $27 million will enable Wireless Generation to produce a statewide data system that gathers both the academic and personal information of students throughout the state in order to track their academic progress. The contract comes from a chunk of New York State’s $700 million Race to the Top grants, a product of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), signed into law by President Obama in February 2009. Race to the Top, according to the Department of Education, is “a competitive grant program designed to encourage and reward States that are creating the conditions for education innovation and reform.”

Murdoch’s acquisition of Wireless Generation came shortly after News Corp. hired Joel Klein, the controversial former schools chancellor, as executive vice-president and CEO of News Corp’s Education Division.

Klein, notorious for his harsh demeanor and polarizing rhetoric, implemented numerous reforms during his reign as chancellor from 2002 to 2010, including emphasizing data-driven initiatives, and closing schools and opening charter schools in their place. Now, in News Corp’s Education Division, he aims to create tools and strategies he believes will transform the field of education.

Klein’s goals run consistent with those of Murdoch’s Wireless Generation, a New York-based company that develops software and tools that track student test scores and modernizes assessment data available to administrators and teachers. According to News Corp, “The Company is a key partner to New York City's Department of Education on its Achievement Reporting and Innovation System (ARIS) as well as on the City's School of One initiative, named by TIME Magazine as one of the Best Inventions of 2009.”

While Murdoch and News Corp may hail the ARIS system one of Wireless Generation’s innovative and successful initiatives, many educators found the program to be faulty and ineffective. In an interview with Democracy Now! on July 19, Leonie Haimson, the executive director of Class Size Matters, said that the ARIS system “cost us already $80 million and is widely believed and discussed openly as an inferior product. There are many other data systems that are much better, and principals and teachers have said that this is a very inferior product, it’s not useful, and it was a really big waste of money…Why was this contract awarded Wireless Generation, when in New York City the data system is so widely regarded as being a failure?”  

Ever the business and marketing mogul, Murdoch has zeroed in on the burgeoning field of for-profit education technology, a market worth billions of dollars a year just in the United States.

"When it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the U.S. alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs that extend the reach of great teaching," said Murdoch in a November 22, 2010 press release.

Critics of Wireless Generation contest that the state education department should overhaul the no-bid contract, and find issue with the company’s ability to access to data about city students, including age, name, ethnicity, and test scores. The contract, if approved under the state review process, would give the company access to such information on students across the state, in order to track down student test scores. Even though using private information for the company’s own purposes is illegal, the prospect of a Murdoch-owned enterprise perched atop a wealth of private student information was deeply concerning to many parents, especially in lieu of the recent privacy violations allegedly committed at Murdoch’s News of The World.