LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- After calling off this year’s K-PREP examinations in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Kentucky Department of Education may save millions of dollars from its contract with Pearson Education.
Though the state expects to pay more than $300,000 to Pearson for printing and binding test packets, the materials were never actually sent to Kentucky, said Toni Konz Tatman, interim communications director for KDE.
On top of saved shipping expenses, Kentucky won’t need to pay Pearson to grade and tabulate results for the state’s standardized tests.
Tatman said the state could save between $3 million and $4 million in all, though she noted that the state will likely have to cover costs to destroy this year’s testing materials that can’t be used as Kentucky transitions to new academic standards that will be tested entirely online starting in the 2020-21 school year.
“When all is said and done, we actually may come out ahead,” she said. “… We won’t really know until the dust settles, until they bill us for everything.”
KDE has a one-year, $14 million contract with Pearson to administer various tests, including K-PREP exams. Kevin Brown, the state’s interim education commissioner, canceled this year’s standardized tests on March 24 after receiving a waiver from the U.S. Department of Education to do so in light of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Tatman said the state has paid $5.2 million on the Pearson contract through September. Pearson bills KDE quarterly, she said.
Indiana also canceled standardized testing, but state officials there are still trying to determine the impacts of that decision, Indiana Department of Education spokesman Adam Baker said.
“As you can imagine, our first step was working to have mandated assessments forgiven for the year,” Baker said when asked about the fiscal impact of canceling standardized tests and whether any materials can be reused. “That has been accomplished, so now we can move in the direction of next steps.”
School districts throughout Kentucky and Indiana have suspended traditional classes and transitioned to distance learning programs as part of both states’ strategies to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
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