As reported in the Baltimore Sun, Baltimore County school officials have ended a multimillion-dollar contract with edCount LLC after criticizing the company for missing deadlines, not giving the project adequate staffing, and refusing to communicate with key employees.

As described,

The edCount contract arose out of a commitment made by Maryland — and most states — to use the Common Core education standards. The state school board required local districts to have a curriculum in place to match the standards by fall 2013. . .

For elementary language arts, [Baltimore County Superintendent Dallas] Dance decided that Baltimore County’s school system would hire a company to write the curriculum. He told teachers they would have a “world-class” curriculum in their hands by June 2013, enough time to plan lessons for the fall. . . Four contractors responded, and two — Pearson and edCount — received the highest ratings from a county panel of teachers and administrators. School district documents show that Pearson received a slightly higher rating, but edCount said it could do the work for about half the cost: $5.4 million vs. Pearson’s estimate of $10 million.