• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, April 11, 2011

With Washington, D.C. teachers planning a rally outside the headquarters of The Washington Post to protest unfair bias in its education reporting, the company's flagship newspaper published a long piece about the increasingly central importance of the Kaplan Inc. education division to the company's financial well-being. While the article does not specifically mention the teachers' allegations, the timing suggests the article is intended to counter criticism that charges the newspaper has not been open about its relationship with the for-profit education testing service. (Kaplan was acquired by the Washington Post Co. in 1984.)

The lengthy WaPo article recounts both the triumphs and troubles of the Kaplan division, which is now the single biggest source of revenue for the Washington Post Co. The rise has been accelerated by the rapid decline of print newspapers as an advertising medium.

In 2010, the education division contributed $2.9 billion or 62% of a total $4.7 billion in revenues for the company, compared with $680 million (14.5%) from the newspaper division. Over the last five years, the education division's revenues have increased 107% from $1.4 billion (39.4% of a total $3.55 billion) in 2005, while newspaper revenues declined 29% from $957 million (27% of the total) over the same period.

Bottom line: WaPo's education division has quickly become the mainstay of the company's revenues and profitability.

But its rapid growth has hardly been without its issues, as detailed in the newspaper's article. Most recently, these include ethical (and possible legal) objections to various practices, including advising students to take out government and private loans they couldn't afford to pay for Kaplan test prep. In the wake of the credit collapse that began in 2008, Congress has moved to tighten restrictions on how government student loans can be spent, specifically targeting private, for-profit test prep services like Kaplan.

While the WaPo article was open about the company's run-ins with Congress and federal regulators -- and the significant impact this will have on the company's fiscal health -- it made no mention of the main allegation from the Washington Teachers' Union.

They claim its relationship as a corporate sibling of Kaplan has unfairly biased WaPo reporting on local education issues, especially the hot-button issue of education reform. The WTU accuses the newspaper of unduly favoring reforms that involve heavy reliance on standardized testing, since it will benefit its corporate sibling financially.

According to The Washington Examiner, test scores currently make up half the evaluation for D.C. public school teachers, which in turn affects their salaries.

In a separate statement rebutting the teachers' allegations published by the Examiner, a WaPo spokesperson said: "The Washington Post is entirely separate and independent from Kaplan. We believe our coverage of D.C. Public Schools speaks for itself." It's worth noting that WaPo probably earned public teachers' ire with its editorial board's outspoken support of the controversial former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee.