Not a good month for Pearson
The Pearson Corporation is a
multi-billion dollar United Kingdom enterprise which has grown from a
construction company to include newspapers, entertainment enterprises such as
amusement parks, and book publishers among its holdings. In 2000 Pearson spent
$2.5 billion to acquire an American testing company in an effort to increase
its profits through securing contracts to produce standardized tests and test
preparation materials
(http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/pearson-education-115026.html).
It has been given enormous control over K-12 public schools in Ohio by the Ohio
legislature and governor.
Pearson effectively controls what
is taught, who graduates, and even who gets a second chance at a high school
diploma through the General Education Diploma (GED) examination. Recently
Comcast was prevented from acquiring Time Warner because the federal government
determined that Comcast's control of 60% of the market was too great. But that
market share pales compared to the 100% Pearson has been granted by the State
of Ohio.
Since 2013, Pearson tests even
license teachers in Ohio. Because the tests are designed and graded by Pearson,
the company and its employees determine what teachers need to know in all
particular teaching fields-English, science, history. Colleges must address
what Pearson puts on the tests so that their students will be licensed to teach
in Ohio initially and, later, when a teacher seeks professional advancement.
By 2018, Pearson end of
course exams in designated subjects in grades 9 -12--PARCC Tests--will
determine if a student receives an Ohio high school diploma. PARCC
tests-Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and careers-are
to be based on Common Core State Standards (CCSS), developed with primary input
from Pearson.
In January of 2014 Pearson
produced a revised GED exam---a new version of the GED that is to be taken
entirely on-line. The pass rate fell 90 percent because the test now measures
college readiness rather than what was actually learned in high school.
Pearson controls the curriculum
by defining the knowledge and skills a student must master. Pearson assures us
the CCSS will be rigorous; i.e. that at least thirty percent or more of
students taking the tests will fail. An educator such as Dr. Louisa Moats, who
was a contributing writer of CCSS, is just one of many of those critical of the
jump to test and fail (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/child-development-central/201401/when-will-we-ever-learn).
These standards for which Pearson oversaw the development, helped by tax free
money such as an $88 million dollar grant from the Gates Foundation, in turn
require the development and selling of both on-line materials and textbooks to
prepare the teacher to teach to the test. Pearson produces the materials from
which the teachers teach and the tests that tell us if they have performed
satisfactorily. In Ohio they have no competitors. If your school
"fails" then send your child to a Connections Academy, a Pearson
for-profit Charter advertised on their GED webpage.
Teachers, parents, and concerned
citizens have criticized the tests on a number of grounds-the number of tests,
the time the tests take, the appropriateness of the questions, the secrecy
about the test questions, the spying on students' social media, the use of the
tests for punishment, teaching to the test, the ignoring of the arts, the
expense and failure of the technology for administering the tests, and the
tremendous cost to taxpayers. The mania for testing and collecting volumes of
data are destroying our education system and creating a world of big profits
for the Pearson corporation and Big Brother-ism--all approved by our Ohio
Legislature and Governor and supported by Federal legislation-No Child Left
Behind and Race to the Top.
William Phillis
John Oliver on testing and Pearson
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