I have never given a day of blogging over to one person, but I am doing so today. Peter Greene has carefully dissected an 88-page document, written by Michael Barber and Peter Hill, that reveals the corporate mind of Pearson.
In this post, he distills the lessons to be gleaned from Pearson’s dystopian vision of the future. Pearson is so important in American education that it behooves all of us to watch its plans and priorities with care. It owns large segments of the curriculum, textbook, and assessment industry, as well as the EdTPA for new teacher evaluation and a major virtual charter chain called Connections Academy. It is a mighty educational Octopus.
Here is a summary:
Lesson 1: Students will be plugged in
Lesson 2: Teachers will not be teachers
Lesson 3: Personalized learning won’t be
Lesson 4: Character may be important, but humanity, not so much
Lesson 5: Software will be magical
Lesson 6: Important people are listening to these guys
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is a fine post, especially because Peter Greene has such a smooth manner in stating the profound. But the message is not new. It seems that whenever Pearson meets or offers a document of any depth, Pearson’s intent to assume all of education is obvious. It is present in the language in their earnings calls; it is present in their willingness to offer a shady grafting in of Louisiana into PARCC by handing over some PARCC questions to another test developer (call it a Pearson-justified investment in the long term). It is even evident in Pearson’s practice of purchasing education companies to become subsidiaries of Pearson. Peter Greene is right– Pearson wants it all.
The ultimate value in Greene’s post is that he offers the public yet another chance to catch on. That’s what good teachers do: They repeat what is important as they wait for students to have their staggered eureka moments.
It is so hard to actually fight them on the ground. Now that people like Diane have come forward to validate our early warnings about Pearson, corporate interests have new strategies and methods for enforcing accountability and compliance. Our own allies don’t recognize or confront the dangers, and I’m so alone again in standing up.
Mercedes, can you help me expose New Voice Strategies and its Viva Idea Exchange opinion molding service? They’re ghost-writing a “New Accountability” position paper for the NEA, endorsing Pearson’s current strategic plan. It is calling for expanded and internalized oversight of day-to-day teacher compliance in all subjects, and even calling for methods to compel parent compliance. Former MTA president Paul Toner has assumed the presidency, and has also joined the transition team of Massachusetts governor-elect Charlie Baker.
http://newvoicestrategies.org/
chemtchr
I didn’t realize that they allowed laptops into the MA gulag.
Here’s a sample of their work:
Arizona Charter Teachers’ Guide to Common Core Implementation: advice from the Classroom
A Collaborative report of the Viva Charter Teachers’ Idea Exchange
Prepared for Arizona Superintendent John huppenthal and State board president Jaime Molera
Click to access viva_azreport_finalr_for_web.pdf
The action recommendations largely consist of demands for the purchase of products and services offered by Pearson. Please, read them.
So a group of Arizona charter teachers are going to help the 8 to 14 year old children of MA to improve their reading, writing, and math skills. Their advice based on their “agile” approach to CC implementation is to purchase Pearson test prep materials. Plans like this must make the Mob jealous. Don’t be surprised if you see Pearson investing in garbage disposal, concrete, and casinos.
Why are you involved as a high school chemistry teacher?
deutsch29: good teachers teaching and students learning with their “staggered eureka moments.”
First-rate formulation.
And this bears repeating too: the homogenized test-driven shell of what is a genuine education is only for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN. It has not, is not, and will not be the fate of the children of the leaders and enablers of the self-styled “education reform” movement.
No. For THEIR OWN CHILDREN: Lakeside School [Bill Gates], Delbarton School [Chris Christie], U of Chicago Lab Schools [Rahm Emanuel], Harpeth Hall [Michelle Rhee-Johnson], Sidwell Friends [Barack Obama], and the beat goes on…
The mindset of those that can shamelessly hold and advocate for such double standards? CCSS and its conjoined high-stakes standardized testing twin. This blog. “Common Core for Commoners, Not My School!”
[start posting]
This is an unintentionally hilarious story about Common Core in Tennessee. Dr. Candace McQueen has been dean of Lipscomb College’s school of education and also the state’s’s chief cheerleader for Common Core. However, she was named headmistress of private Lipscomb Academy, and guess what? She will not have the school adopt the Common Core! Go figure.
[end posting]
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/03/23/common-core-for-commoners-not-my-school/
“Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, Is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, Utters another.” [Homer]
Nailed to the wall by a very old and very dead and very Greek guy.
And in its own way, some of the best informational text there is.
😎
P.S. Many thanks to deutsch29 and others that help ferret out those “letting the cat out of the bag” tidbits the thought leaders of the “new civil rights movement of our time” think no one else but their peers and funders and enforcers know about.
Happy Holidays!
Is there one prominent educational thought leader who dares to put their own child through this nonsense?
>>Nailed to the wall by a very old and very dead and very Greek guy.
And in its own way, some of the best informational text there is.<<
Oh, yes indeed!
Have you considered doing a TED talk?
students learning with their “staggered eureka moments.”—a keeper.
It’s true. Pearson is nothing if not direct and consistent. They keep telling us what they intend to do, and they have allowed little or no mission creep. And yet somehow people don’t quite get it, even though much of Pearson’s language and vision turns up in the mouths of politicians and educrats. It’s some kind of weird stealth shield that let’s them keep working right in plain sight. It’s up to those of us who can see it to keep ringing the alarm bell until more folks wake up.
Peter,
The only piece missing from the Pearson narrative, which neither of us has, is how much Pearson spends on lobbyists, in D.C. and in state capitols.
I think there are well-intentioned people in “personalized learning” but I really wish they would protect their idea from people who WILL use it to cut costs on staffing.
Good intentions are not enough. If you ARE well-intentioned and promoting ed tech or “personalized learning” thru technology you are going to have to come out strongly and insist that ed tech NOT be used as a cheap replacement for teachers in middle and lower class schools, because unless you do that, it WILL be used that way.
They will use it to enable huge classes with one teacher and a bunch of 15 dollar an hour “aides”. Yes, they will. They’re doing it NOW. It’s cheaper than hiring sufficient teachers. Our faithless state legislators will grab that cost-cutting mechanism with both hands. Those Rocketship classes with 100 students? That was the wake-up call.
The one and only question is whether the well-intentioned people will strongly and effectively oppose using ed tech as a replacement for expensive and demanding human beings. If they don’t effectively oppose that use, no one will care that they had “good intentions”.
Ed tech will be like the well-intentioned charter promoters who say “I never intended for charters to replace public schools- I saw them as innovative options to compliment public schools!” Well, maybe you should have SAID SOMETHING. Now it’s too late.
I don’t think things work that way. You can say whatever you want about how you want your research or product to be used, but once it’s out there, it will be adapted as user sees fit, tricked out with eye-candied shinola to disguise misuse. The fight is better off not even referencing the agenda a policy purports to be intending, but on its actual results. That message has to pounded home with the public.
Thank you for taking this vital step. It is a wonderful decision.
Pearson has invaded my school, with a proprietary Professional Development program that assigns us all to a place in its hierarchies. We are assembled week in and week out, in groups large and small. “Teacher Leaders” are “tasked” to particularize the corporate ideology, and teachers are required to actively support it, and supply our own favorable applications. Non-innovative thought and speech is reported to the administration, and people are called in for official discipline meetings. Teachers must upload evidence of compliance to our cloud-based evaluation grid.
Pearson itself is building the accountability structures to demand and enforce total Orwellian embrace of the mindset.
chemtchr –
I think I’ve found a way to amplify your concerns about Toner’s VIVA. Could you shoot me an email? clanghoff@verizon.net.
“Preparing for a Renaissance in Assessment.”
I love this language, too. They don’t just create test product and sell it! They’re revolutionaries! They have Big Ideas!
All corporate PR releases use language like this, but adults are usually savvy enough not to swallow these silly marketing…words as “truth”. Apparently lawmakers are not.
Lesson 1: Students will be plugged in
This is a pipedream of the ignorant, the naïve, or any adult that has never met a child
Lesson 2: Teachers will not be teachers
See above
Lesson 3: Personalized learning won’t be
Exactly what parents do NOT want for their kids, hence a losing proposition
Lesson 4: Character may be important, but humanity, not so much
Stepford Kids will never be a movie either
Lesson 5: Software will be magical
Educational software will be ordinary and uninspiring – and still unable to compete with Minecraft, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, or Madden 21
Lesson 6: Important people are listening to these guys
“listening to” = hypnotized by
Pearson’s future is way more than just products. In fact, Pearson wants out of the product market. Their long term play is be the school via Connections Academy or something like it, and if they can’t sell you on that they will be your consulting company and help you run your school. Because of course they know way more than you do about that. After all, Sir Michael Barber comes from McKinsey and Company.
No, I think I just sent this. It was sent to me a couple days ago.