The for-profit force behind corporate education reform in the United States—a company in the UK called Pearson.
In fifteen years, Pearson has come to wield, “enormous influence over American education. It writes the textbooks and tests that drive instruction in public schools across the nation. Its software grades student essays, tracks student behavior and diagnoses—and treats—attention deficit disorder.
No Profit Left Behind, Stephanie Simon’s blockbuster POLITICO investigation of the publishing giant, Pearson, is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how things work in American education these days. Simon warns, “Pearson’s dominance does not always serve U.S. students or taxpayers well.”
This is a major investigation: “POLITICO examined hundreds of pages of contracts, business plans and email exchanges, as well as tax filings, lobbying reports and marketing materials, in the first comprehensive look at Pearson’s business practices in the United States. The investigation found that public officials often commit to buying from Pearson because it’s familiar, even when there’s little proof its products and services are effective.”
From North Carolina’s bid-free purchase of a student data system that failed so catastrophically that North Carolina “had to pay Pearson millions extra to fix it,” to the Los Angeles iPad disaster that brought down school superintendent John…
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Crazy Normal - the Classroom Exposé 
Rosie
July 28, 2015 at 14:15
Wow, Pearson is behind the 2nd biggest con crime of the century. The 1st was the 2007 Global Financial Crises that cost tens of millions of people their jobs and Trillions of dollars in losses around the world.
Lloyd Lofthouse
July 29, 2015 at 06:56
In the United States about 9 million jobs were lost. In China, 20 million and I’ve read that more than 60 trillion dollars were lost all so a handful of white men could walk away with a few hundred million in profits that they kept and not one of them has gone to court or to prison.
Now, the oligarchs own the White House, Congress and several state governors and legislatures. It has been billed as the Civil Rights movement of our time—-by the 0.1% for the 0.1% and they are almost all old, rich white men. The other 99.9% are getting the shaft.