03:47 PM EST on Wednesday, February 15, 2006

The Kentucky Education Department wants to give a $72 million contract to a company it fired for incompetence nine years ago.

The contract to manage Kentucky’s Student Testing Program is new and controversial. 

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In the mid 1990s, there were all sorts of problems with CATS, Kentucky’s Student Testing Program, mainly with the company hired to manage the CATS test.  Advanced Systems produced an unreliable test and messed up the scoring, nearly killing the assessment portion of Kentucky’s education reforms.

So, the state fired Advanced Systems.

But the company is back, with a new name, Measured Progress Inc., and a proposed big new contract with an old client, the state of Kentucky.

Under the proposed contract, Kentucky would pay Measured Progress 72-million dollars over the next seven years.

The state education department considered three other companies for the testing contract, recommending Measured Progress as by far the best.  The powerful chairman of the House Budget Committee chewed out Kentucky’s Education Commissioner, Gene Wilhoit. He warned Wilhoit that a new round of screw-ups by the testing contractor could cost Wilhoit his job.

A legislative committee and the state finance cabinet must approve the 72-million dollar contract with Measured Progress.

That’s usually routine, but state lawmakers want assurances that the same people who blew Kentucky’s CATS testing before, won’t be creating and scoring Kentucky’s tests again.

Web story produced by K. Alison Brotzge