Company Overseen By Joel Klein Poised To Clean Up With $27M No-Bid State Contract

Celeste Katz:

The money - part of the state's $700 million in Race to the Top winnings - will go to Wireless Generation, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., to develop software to track student test scores, among other things.

Klein took a job at News Corp. overseeing their educational technology business after he left the chancellor job in December.

City rules forbid former workers from contacting the agency that employed them for one year, but the rules would not formally bar contact between Klein and the state.

"It raises all kinds of red flags," said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York.

"It just smacks of an old-boys club, where large amounts of public money are spent based not on 'is this the best product?' but 'I know this guy and I like him and I want to be sure he makes a lot of money.'"

Klein did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at June 13, 2011 1:33 AM
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