New York’s comptroller has spiked a $27 million contract with an education software firm owned by Rupert Murdoch because of the media mogul’s phone hacking scandal in Great Britain.
The New York Daily News reports that state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli last week rejected a state Education Department contract with Wireless Generation, a News Corp. affiliate.
Wireless Generation was to get $27 million of the state’s $700 million in federal Race to the Top money to develop software that would track students’ test scores.
News Corp.’s British tabloid News of the World was shut down last month amid the phone hacking and police bribery scandal. Besides the scandal, DiNapoli’s office also said there was an incomplete record about the company’s qualifications.
Jonathan Burman, an education department spokesman, told the Daily News that DiNapoli bowed to pressure from teachers’ unions.
Some New York educators and parents had expressed dismay that Wireless Generation—which provides mobile and web software, data systems, and professional services that enable teachers to use data to assess student progress and deliver more personalized instruction—would have access to and handle sensitive student information.
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