Pearson wins contract

Pearson Educational Measurement has won a contract to begin grading SAT tests after March 2005, which may create additional work for the company’s North Lawrence facility.

Pearson, which operates a scoring facility in the I-70 Business Center in North Lawrence, won a contract from the New York-based College Board to score the writing component of the company’s SAT, an assessment test taken by millions of students looking to be admitted to a university.

Pearson spokesman David Hakensen said most of the work would be conducted at Pearson centers in Austin, Texas; Iowa City, Iowa; and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. But Hakensen said because of the volume of tests to score, centers such as the one in Lawrence might be used to handle overflow work.

He said it was too early to speculate whether the new contract would add jobs at the Lawrence center, which employs about 700 seasonal employees from late winter to midsummer. The center primarily scores K-12 assessment tests.

Telecommunications

Sprint earnings exceed analysts’ expectations

Sprint Corp. posted a profit of $7 million during the second quarter of this year, but the performance of both its wireline and wireless operations exceeded some analysts’ expectations.

Sprint FON, the company’s wireline division, reported earnings of 11 cents per share, down from 12 cents per share a year ago.

But when one-time charges were excluded, including the $2 billion sale of the company’s directory publishing company, Sprint FON posted earnings per share of 35 cents. That compared with 31 cents for the same quarter last year and the 33 cents per share predicted by analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call.

Sprint PCS, the company’s wireless division, lost 8 cents per share, better than a loss of 18 cents a share a year ago and better than estimates of an 11 cent per share loss.

Bankruptcy

AT&T accuses MCI of dodging payments

Long-distance giant MCI avoided paying access fees to local phone companies by diverting calls to Canada — including calls placed by the State Department and other government agencies, AT&T Corp. charged Monday.

AT&T said it was alarmed by the practice, which lawyers have said could compromise national security by leaving the calls unprotected from eavesdroppers.

The claims were made by AT&T in a filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York, which is considering efforts by WorldCom Inc. to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. WorldCom, brought down by an $11 billion accounting scandal, is adopting the name of its MCI long-distance division in a bid to clean up its image.