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Senate panel presses Education Department over $9.43 million Pearson test purchase; agency outlines $5,000 translation mitigation
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Summary
A Senate special commission scrutinized the Department of Educations $9.43 million purchase of psychological tests from a Pearson representative, finding key materials unusable without translation and training; the department described a mitigation plan and was ordered to deliver authorization and cost documents within five business days.
The Senates Special Commission for Legislative Monitoring of the Special Education Program pressed the Puerto Rico Department of Education on Sept. 11 over the departments purchase of a 15-instrument psychological test battery listed in contract 2023-AF-0430 for $9,430,704.30 and for which administration has been paused because of linguistic and cultural inadequacies.
Committee members and department officials focused on why tests containing English-language instructions or correction materials were acquired for schools that operate primarily in Spanish, and on what remediation would cost. Undersecretary Bevely Morro Vega told the commission the department has received a letter of authorization from Pearson to translate specific items and that the immediate mitigation and validation exercises were estimated at about $5,000. Morro said the department will also provide training for psychologists before any administration begins: "La totalidad de ese ejercicio de traduccif3n y validacif3n les va a salir en cinco mil df3lares," she stated for the record.
The commission recited the contract total into the record and asked whether the vendor — Betances Professional Services and Equidmen, the local representative for Pearson named in the procurement — or the department bore responsibility for the unusable materials. Witnesses said some correction tables and administration instructions were supplied in English and that, at the time of procurement, review committees examined the materials but did not identify the language-instruction problem as an absolute impediment to purchase.
Senate questioning was sharp. The chair characterized the outcome as a serious institutional failure: "Pues hay un problema muy serio de negligencia institucional," the chair said, pressing officials to explain how a $9.4 million acquisition could be signed without identifying that teachers or administratorsforms were in English. Agency staff replied that procurement rubrics and working-group processes had gaps and that the department is initiating a mitigation plan involving local experts to translate and validate the items for Puerto Ricos student population.
Department officials also described alternatives to maximize the use of existing materials while mitigation proceeds: voluntary Saturday evaluation sessions, staging evaluations at selected school-based center locations, and bolstering school psychologist training. The department reported 751 psychologists recruited of an estimated 845 positions (an 88.9% recruitment rate) and said 94 vacancies remain.
The commission ordered the department to provide, within five business days, the Pearson authorization letter for translation and any documentation that substantiates the $5,000 estimate or other cost breakdowns mentioned in the mitigation plan. The department acknowledged the Q-global online scoring/correction platform (referred to in testimony as QGlobal/QG Global) as a separate technological alternative that would involve additional, currently unspecified costs.
The hearing record shows the issue remains a remediation matter, not a finalized procurement sanction. The commission said it will review the documents when submitted and may call additional witnesses depending on what those files reveal.
