Every corporate blog is part of the firm’s marketing operations.  That doesn’t mean they aren't worth reading.  As with press releases, content analysis of posts often yields useful information on a provider’s values, priorities, fears and strategy. (See here as well.)

Your editor has followed Carnegie Learning since its birth in 1998. Because they have built program evaluation into their products and services, your editor is something of a fan, and they are a client of our $1500 a year K-12Leads service. Nevertheless, their blog was unknown until today.

Any educator considering the purchase of Carnegie's services should be reassured by their postings. By “reassured,” your editor means something more than what program managers in the Pentagon call “the warm and fuzzies.” Rather, the firm expresses a set of values that are most likely more than propaganda. In stating these values, Carnegie is asking prospective clients to hold the firm to a much higher standard than the market really demands today, and one that most providers can't meet. 

It is highly doubtful that the communications departments of many firms would clear this statement of Carnegie’s Marketing VP Mary Murrin, or that many marketing VP's would make it.

[T]hree executives of Carnegie Learning were on Capitol Hill to meet with staff for eight Congressional Offices integral to the House Education and Labor Committee; Senate Caucus on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Education; and the Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP). Among our agenda items was to recommend that the U. S. Department of Education continue to set the bar high when evaluating educational solutions and that criteria used to determine the definition of research-based curricula remain rigorous.

We are concerned by recent discussions among some education publishers that the Department of Ed loosen the definition of scientifically based research. The existence of a definitive source for qualifying and validating research-based curricula is critical to practitioners in the field, and we believe that diluting sound scientifically based research practice encourages school districts to spend money carelessly on unproven curricula.  The truth is that while many curricula vendors claim to offer "research-based" programs, careless claims and false credentials abound. Under pressure, schools have neither the time nor the hard data to understand which curricula are truly proven in practical applications.  Despite declining test scores, vendors would rather sell – and in many cases, teachers would rather teach – tired old solutions, instead of investing in better approaches based on new research and proven, quantifiable results.

This quote falls in to the "if you've got it, flaunt it" category. It is also the kind of statement that helps consumers distinguish members of k-12's "old" and "new" industries.