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SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — In a case that could affect school testing in other states, lawyers submitted arguments Tuesday in a legal challenge to New Mexico's contract with a testing company that may halt a much-debated assessment exam in that state.
Santa Fe District Judge Sarah Singleton heard arguments in a case that could overturn a contract awarded to London-based Pearson PLC.
Last year, Pearson was awarded a contact given out by states belonging to a consortium for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers exam, or PARCC.
Thomas McGovern, a lawyer for the Washington-based American Institutes for Research, said New Mexico and the consortium unfairly helped shape bidding requirements crafted especially for Pearson. For example, he said the call for bidding said contractors had to use Pearson's software and suggested that the winning bid would get to test nearly six million students in New Mexico and other states.
New Mexico has a total population of about two million.
The process "made Pearson a shoo-in" and prevented competitive bids, McGovern said. "That's a conflict of interest."
But attorneys for New Mexico say the process was fair and the American Institutes for Research did not submit a bid.
Benjamin Feuchter, an attorney for the state, said the state's Public Education Department used the six million student number "to give a degree of the scope" the winning bidder might have be responsible for if they also won bids from other states in the PARCC consortium. "This is an attack on PED's discretion," Feuchter said.
Singleton told both sides to submit written final arguments by April 10. She said she would issue a ruling at a later date.
The legal challenge in New Mexico comes after a Missouri court recently ruled that the state's membership in a group that creates the curriculum's tests was unlawful. The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed in September that called the consortium an "illegal interstate compact not authorized by the U.S. Congress."
In Mississippi, the Board of Education adopted the PARCC tests on a one-year emergency contract after a state contract review board ruled that the multistate PARCC consortium chose Pearson without the competitive process required under Mississippi state law. The state is trying to award a new testing contract, although Mississippi officials say Pearson could still be chosen.
Mississippi also recently withdrew from the PARCC consortium amid anti-Common Core sentiments.
Last week, hundreds of high school students across New Mexico walked out of schools to protest the PARCC.
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