Money for nothing

Kudos to The Spokesman-Review editorial board for the July 13th “Impractical mandates are cheating our students.”

Published data from the state’s (WASL) contracts show that the initial amount awarded to Riverside Publishing Co. covering the period of Sept. 24, 2001, to Oct. 10, 2005, was $61,673,910.

A second contract for the WASL was awarded on April 15, 2004, to Oct. 31, 2008, to Pearson Educational Measurement for $70,800,000.

That makes a total of $132,473,910 just for the tests. There are no indirect charges in that figure. The initial contract to Riverside Publishing for trial runs was approximately $40,000,000. Thus, the true cost is probably about $172,473,910. Ring up $34.7 million from the 2006 Supplemental Budget for WASL remediation. Add to that, the loss to instructional time to administer the awful WASL and it hits a staggering $100 million in indirect costs!

Multiply that latter figure for six years to get the total of “WASLing.” If our elected policymakers had saved that amount, then we could easily have a balanced state budget.

Nebraska and now Montana are not going to waste money on NCLB madness. Let’s get 48 other states to join them.

Donald C. Orlich

Pullman