Jason Stanford, an independent political journalist in Texas, calls for an investigation of Pearson in Texas.
Stanford noticed that New York’s State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman extracted a settlement of $7.7 million from Pearson because of the co-mingled activities of its charitable foundation and its for-profit activities.
He believes that is similar problems would be found in Texas. Pearson has a five-year contract for $32 million in New York, but a $462 million contract for the same period in Texas.
He writes:
“This kind of hand-in-glove relationship between Pearson’s foundation and for-profit interests exists in Texas. In 2009 and in 2010, the Pearson Foundation gave two endowments totaling $400,000 to the University of Texas College of Education, home to the Pearson Center for Applied Psychometric Research where they do “cutting edge statistical and psychometric research and evaluation services to further educational improvements … and to inform educators, researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders in the education process.” And since 2000, these policymakers have given Pearson contracts totaling $1.2 billion.
“There’s a “you get what you pay for” quality to academic research that dovetails with the corporate interests that fund it, creating the appearance of a conflict of interest. If the former had anything to do with the latter, the Pearson Foundation may have broken the law and is why the Texas Attorney General needs to take a close look at Pearson.
“According to local custom, Texas has elected leaders openly hostile to regulating polluters, assault weapons, and exploding fertilizer plants—in short, everything except a woman’s uterus. And there’s ample evidence that state officials have put the lazy in laissez faire when it comes to providing effective oversight of Pearson’s massive contract.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Below, readers will find another great article by Jason – He knows how to follow the money and the political connections that are now harming all children enrolled in public schools from coast to coast. Parents must stop Pearson, common core, inBloom, Murdoch, Klein, Duncan, King, Rhee, etc. It’s important to know that Pearson and Kress now fear TAMSA.
Even Texas politicians have had enough of Sandy Kress by Jason Stanford
http://www.disdblog.com/2013/04/11/even-texas-politicians-have-had-enough-of-sandy-kress-by-jason-stanford/
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While we’re at it, can we please check out Pearson in Tennessee?
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The elementary schools of Texas, especially Austin ISD, are now called “Work Camps for Pearson”. There is no teaching, only testing, and non stop mind numbing test drill. The corrosive school politics of corruption and greed have led to a new low of secret child abuse behind “closed doors”, with weekly practice STAAR tests lasting 3 to 4 consecutive hours in grades 2 – 5 of most minority schools. The deception and racism that accompanies this abuse of power and greed is unprecedented. Children should be protected by “child labor laws”, since they are now factory workers for Pearson without benefit of a union.
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I do not know how much the new Pearson Scott Foresman Common Core Reading Street series cost, but I know that it was not cheap and that all of the K-5th grade classes in the Archdiocese that I teach in got it for their grade level this school year. We had been using Pearson Scott Foresman Reading Street series for the past five years. Except for maybe eight stories in the basal and different levelized texts to go with those new stories, everything is the same. Well, the workbooks were put together into one gigantic workbook, but it’s the same exercises mostly; even the same grammatical errors! What a waste of money!
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Money, money, money and now a group is advertising Craig’s List to hire teachers. What’s next? See: http://eagnews.org/company-seeking-common-core-lesson-and-test-writers-on-craigslist/
Time to investigate all companies bringing in billions while we watch educational systems implode.
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It appears that in many states there is collusion between state education departments and Pearson. More importantly the New York Board of Regents has stripped the NY state education dept. of their jobs. They are no longer producing curriculum ,no longer developing tests, not setting norms. The Board of Regents Research Foundation has hired 27 “fellows” who have been assigned these jobs. They are very young and I’m told very stupid. They report to M. Tisch, she began this with The Gates Foundation. It feels as thought we have a “shadow government” at work. In my life I have never seen such underhanded collusion between big business and State Government, particularly in my state, New York. In reference to this article it is time to bring down a lot of people who are not responsive to their constituency. Education is not only a public matter it is a state responsibility, not the Federal Government.
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Everything is bigger in Texas, from the hundreds of millions that corrupt politicians are willing to spend on “bullying” children, to the level of mental illness of those same politicians. Their obsession with testing and punitive performance enhancing methods is driven by Greed, Pride, & Paranoia. The mental health of those making school policy in Texas and carrying it out goes beyond what is considered “normal”. The psychological damage caused by their cruelty has been pointed out to them over and over, but still they use denial or “kill the messenger” tactics to maintain their swagger which only gets bigger. It is time to expose these Texas politicians by exposing their disorder:
Narcissistic Personality Disorder. This is a typical profile of a Texas School Politician:
Like most “bullies”, the politicians who are making school policy are arrogant, callous, immature, sadistic and deviant. They are self absorbed and obsessed with power and control. They obviously grew up with domineering over controlling parents or teachers who modeled bullying behavior from an early age. The males became Puer aeternus from Narcissistic parents: a “bullying” father and a “smother” mother. They were “Trophy Children” with a sense of “entitlement”. They learned to perform well to please their parents out of fear of rejection and as their only way of getting recognition or acceptance. Their parents lacked nurturing skills, since their own emotions were too repressed to make emotional attachments to their children. Their intellectual development advanced normally and they became well educated, but their emotional development was regressed in early childhood. Emotionally they are still children in grown up bodies, and they will continue to perpetuate the same cruelty to others that was hard wired in their own personality in childhood. Narcissistic parents and teachers create narcissistic children.
These Narcissistic politicians lack a strong sense of self or identity, except through money and power. Their work and their material possessions are their only identity. Their spouses and children are considered material possessions, to be controlled and managed. Most of them are workaholics or alcoholics, or other addictions (sometimes drugs, sex, sports), and their family life is very dysfunctional and void of emotional attachments. Unconsciously, they feel weak, powerless, and isolated, since shame and helplessness became hardwired into their personality from an early age. Consciously, they see themselves as powerful and superior, and think they know best what others need. Most likely their family life is very dysfunctional because of their emotional detachment, work addiction, and need to control others. However, keeping up appearances is primary, and to outsiders they look like a perfect family. Because they are narcissistic, they do not recognize the impact their behavior has on others. They have no empathy or guilt. They will continue to perpetuate the same cruelty on others that was done to them in childhood. They are often bipolar and have issues with impulsive aggression and rage toward family members who do not listen to their orders. They create a fantasy life of superiority through delusional thinking and denial, and the comforts of their possessions, addictions, and power.
The school administrators who carry out their orders and perpetuate the abuse are either deviant and take pleasure in punishing children, are too self absorbed and in denial to recognize the impact of their behavior, or see themselves as helpless victims and powerless to change anything. They obviously grew up with domineering parents or teachers and learned to perform to please them and to repress their own emotions. Many of the female teachers have Cinderella Complex from Narcissistic mothers. They learned to be submissive and obedient to abusive authority. Most Texas school administrators and teachers were conditioned to be obedient to bullying, and to never question authority. They will do as they are told without question. Many of the deviant principals who suffered chronic cruelty as children get pleasure from using their power to punish and control helpless vulnerable children. It makes them feel less impotent, and more powerful. They are modeling bullying behavior for teachers and children. They will use their absolute power to create that environment in their school. They do not fear oversight since their abuse is protected in a system of bullying children and teachers.
Elementary school teachers are functioning in an environment of chronic stress from fear, and are being used and manipulated to perpetuate the abuse to children. Research shows that bystanders to chronic “bullying” suffer psychological abuse as well as the victims.
Teachers will respond to this bullying in one of three ways: Fight, Flight, or Freeze.
If they freeze, they will become desensitized and callous as a natural survival means of coping, and therefore they will not recognize how their bullying behavior impacts children. They will be more focused on their own survival and performance from fear. If they take FLIGHT, they will leave the profession because their morality, ethics, and conscience will not allow them to participate in scapegoating or bullying children. If they FIGHT, they will refuse to do what is expected and may get fired, but at lease they
will have preserved their human dignity and spirit. The question for teachers is:
“Is teaching in a dysfunctional system that abuses children worth sacrificing your personal values, professional ethics, morality and mental health.”
If you are a true Texan, you will not fear standing up to these bullies. Teachers and parents need to send a “shot heard round the world” in response to this Texas epidemic of spending millions of taxpayer money to abuse children. Parents and Teachers in each Texas school should unite and send a “group letter” to the principal stating that you are “Opting Out”. If it is majority, there can be no retaliation. That is the only option that will stop the abuse and prevent an ecological nightmare of mental illness for children in Texas. Principals who are still functioning as “normal” will welcome and support this stand off. TEXAS FIGHT!
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This article was sent to the Austin ISD following the 2nd suicide of a student within a month:
http://empathyeducates.org/youth-suicide-look-what-we-have-done-to-our-young/
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This is one time that Texas should not take
Pride in their macho heritage, but use
that macho to rescue the thousands of young children
who are helpless victims of a “sick” school system.
How do we turn these perverted “villains” running the Texas system
into “superheroes”? We can’t. They have to be exposed and kicked
out of the Capitol. Texas best hope for the children
is to elect a woman for governor who is not part of the ” good ole boy” system there now!
“Mommies” of Texas, we need to elect a
woman governor?
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