Coach Bob Sikes has been reading Pearson’s report to investors. 2012 was a really good year.
No mention of Pineapplegate:
” The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), a consortium of 23 states, awarded Pearson and Educational Testing Service (ETS) the contract to develop test items that will be part of the new English and mathematics assessments to be administered from the 2014-2015 school year. The assessments will be based on what students need to be ready for college and careers, and will measure and track their progress along the way.
” We continued to produce strong growth in secure online testing, an important market for the future. We increased online testing volumes by more than 10%, delivering 6.5 million state accountability tests, 4.5 million constructed response items and 21 million spoken tests. We now assess oral proficiency in English, Spanish, French, Dutch, Arabic and Chinese. We also launched the Online Assessment Readiness Tool for the PARCC and the Smarter Balance Assessment Consortium (SBAC) Common Core consortia to help 45 states prepare for the transition to online assessments.
” We won new state contracts in Colorado and Missouri and a new contract with the College Board to deliver ReadiStep, a middle school assessment that measures and tracks college readiness skills. We extended our contract with the College Board to deliver the ACCUPLACER assessment, a computer-adaptive diagnostic, placement and online intervention system that supports 1,300 institutions and 7 million students annually.
” We won five Race To The Top (RTTT) state deals (Kentucky, Florida, Colorado, North Carolina and New York) led by Schoolnet. PowerSchool won three state/province-level contracts (North Carolina, New Brunswick and Northwest Territories). We launched our mobile PowerSchool applications and grew our 3rd party partner ecosystem to over 50 partners. PowerSchool supports more than 12 million students, up more than 20% on 2011 while Schoolnet supports 8.3 million students, up almost 160% on 2011″
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“We won 5 RTTT state deals.” Well now, that just says it all, doesn’t it?
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My, how the mention of Pineapplegate makes me giggle. 🙂
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On line testing is a big growth area.
Hummm.
Puts me in mind of this:
“Pearson, which has a five-year, $468 million contract to create the state’s tests through 2015, uses “item response theory” to devise standardized exams, as other testing companies do. Using IRT, developers select questions based on a model that correlates students’ ability with the probability that they will get a question right….That produces a test that Stroup said is more sensitive to how it ranks students than to measuring what they have learned. ”
Stroup is Walter Stroup, the University of Texas at Austin.
OK?
Could it be that we are not trying to find out how much your kid knows or how much they have learned.
We just need to rank them so we can get a cut score and fail a predetermined % of teachers and students?
Just asking.
I suppose in a race there have to be winners and losers.
PS: source for quote: http://www.texastribune.org/2012/07/30/design-flaw-suspected-texas-standardized-tests/
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In Illinois, a senator who is pushing for earlier age, all-day kindergarten is doing so because, “Those kids are pulling our test scores down.” Well, then, we can help Pear$on even more by selling K test preps & have IL 5-year-olds take their on-line &/or bubble tests! Even MORE $$$ for Pear$on!
Lucky stockholders!
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Pearson knows textbooks are an industry that is about to suffer from “disruption” that the internet and tablets bring. This is its strategy to move with the technology, and the federal government is assisting.
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Did they not also win New Mexico? or did they already have us?
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The Pearson Paradox: I ascribe to the theory that technology is transforming the way we learn and think the same way that the printing press did. Holding that belief, I commend Pearson for investing in curriculum materials and instructional approaches that are different from traditional print materials that teachers stand-and-deliver. I also ascribe to the theory that standardized testing is narrowing the curriculum and reinforcing the outmoded factory model of learning. Holding that belief, I am appalled that Pearson is pandering to the “reformers” by designing tests that reinforce the old-school drill-and-kill methods of teaching.
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wgersen: As to your first comment–please–make no mistake about it–Pear$on is in it for the big bucks, and nothing else. And, as to your comment below, Rex, let’s also consider all those trips & goodies that Pear$on has handed out to various ed. administrators (a.k.a., state superintendents). Isn’t the N.Y. State Attorney General investigating the N.Y. State Supt.’s relationship with Pear$on?
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My question is, “How many state law makers own stock in Pearson?”
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“The assessments will be based on what students need to be ready for college and careers, and will measure and track their progress along the way.”
Have colleges and universities, or businesses, been consulted regarding what students need to know? I would imagine you’d get a wide variety of answers regarding what one needs to know.
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College is not the right fit for everyone. There are people who go into a trade and become successful without college. There are many who can not afford college full time and start college later in life. There are students who are going to feel like failures if they do not do well on standardized tests, and in the long run be turned off to higher education. Students with learning disabilities may fall behind due to testing pressure. Not everyone is planning to be a business major.
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