MIssouri DESE Posts Story Suggesting Nicastro Unilaterally Made Decision On Contoversial Consultant

@MOEducation, the Twitter feed for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) posted a link today to a story by a Kansas City group called "Do The Right Thing For Kids:"

The post was full of the usual, "if caring about children is wrong, I don't wanna be right" fluff of Nicastro defenders that steadfastly avoids the actual issues at the heart of the controversy, but what was especially strange is that it included the following passage:

So according to this account, Nicastro "hire[d], in her judgment, the best consultant." That's funny, because I thought that the consultant was supposed to be determined by the scores of four separate evaluators who graded the different proposals according to different criteria like "cost" and "personnel".  The State Board President Peter Herschend said the process was "open and competitive." Of course, there are many reasons for questioning whether that evaluation process was rigged from the start, but I'm a little surprised that DESE would tweet out a story that openly states Nicastro made the decision herself given that they were claiming it was a fair process determined by a scoring system.  You would think they would at least offer some correction or note stating that the story incorrectly described the process.

Unless, of course, Nicastro really did unilaterally make the decision.