Randi Weingarten, on behalf of the American Federation of Teachers, sent representatives to the Pearson shareholders’ meeting in London and wrote the following letter to the leaders of the world’s biggest testing corporation. By shrouding the tests in secrecy, Pearson denies information to teachers to help diagnose student needs. The tests become useless by having no diagnostic value. Speculation abounds about hidden “Pineapple” questions and other test errors. If the lives of students and teachers and principals hinge on the tests, the tests must be made public after they are administered. Otherwise, teachers will be fired and students will be failed and schools will be closed without seeing the validity of the instruments of punishment. This is wrong.
For Immediate Release
April 25, 2014
Contact:
Marcus Mrowka
202/531-0689
mmrowka@aft.org
Kate Childs Graham
202/615-2424
kchilds@aft.org
AFT’s Weingarten to Pearson: Lift Gag Order on Testing, Meet with Stakeholders
WASHINGTON— In conjunction with the annual Pearson shareholder meeting in London, AFT President Randi Weingarten today released a letter sent to Pearson executives, board members and shareholders calling on the corporation to remove “gag orders” preventing educators from expressing concerns about Pearson-developed tests and to meet with educators, parents and other stakeholders to address their concerns regarding these tests. Pearson is the largest testing company in the world and derives 57 percent of its profits from the U.S.
Representatives from the AFT are at the shareholder meeting this morning to deliver the letter and discuss the concerns of educators, parents, students and shareholders. The AFT also launched an online action allowing educators, parents and others across the world to make the same demands of Pearson executives and board members.
“Principals and teachers in New York who recently administered the Pearson-developed Common Core tests have said they are barred from speaking about the test content and its effects on students,” wrote Weingarten. “This appears to be a result of a Pearson contract term that has been construed as disallowing them from expressing their concerns and views. …On behalf of teachers, parents, students and your shareholders, including our pension plans, I ask you to immediately remove these prohibitions (referred to as “gag orders” in the press) from existing and future contracts.”
Weingarten continued, “These gag orders and the lack of transparency are fueling the growing distrust and backlash among parents, students and educators in the United States about whether the current testing protocols and testing fixation is in the best interests of children. When parents aren’t allowed to know what is on their children’s tests, and when educators have no voice in how assessments are created and are forbidden from raising legitimate concerns about the quality of these assessments or from talking to parents about these concerns, you not only increase distrust of testing but also deny children the rich learning experience they deserve.”
Weingarten’s full letter to Pearson can be found below.
April 24, 2014
John Fallon
Chief Executive
Pearson PLC
80 Strand
London WC2R ORL
UK
john.fallon@pearson.com
Glen Moreno
Chairman
Pearson PLC
80 Strand
London WC2R ORL
UK
Glen.moreno@pearson.com
Dear Mr. Fallon and Mr. Moreno:
I was deeply disturbed to read recently in the New York Times and other newspapers of the issues teachers, principals, parents and students raised about Pearson tests. Principals and teachers in New York who recently administered the Pearson-developed Common Core tests have said they are barred from speaking about the test content and its effects on students. This appears to be a result of a Pearson contract term that has been construed as disallowing them from expressing their concerns and views. Elizabeth Phillips, the principal at Public School 321 in Brooklyn, N.Y., summarized these concerns in a recent New York Times opinion piece. On behalf of teachers, parents, students and your shareholders, including our pension plans, I ask you to immediately remove these prohibitions (referred to as “gag orders” in the press) from existing and future contracts.
These gag orders and the lack of transparency are fueling the growing distrust and backlash among parents, students and educators in the United States about whether the current testing protocols and testing fixation is in the best interests of children. When parents aren’t allowed to know what is on their children’s tests, and when educators have no voice in how assessments are created and are forbidden from raising legitimate concerns about these assessments’ quality or talking to parents about these concerns, you not only increase distrust of testing but also deny children the rich learning experience they deserve.
Continuing these practices may also have severe financial consequences for your corporation. Growing mistrust and concerns by parents, teachers and others over the asserted lack of transparency at InBloom appears to have been a driving factor in the company’s recent decision to end operations.
This is the third consecutive year that Pearson’s standardized tests have led to headline risk and reputational damage to the company. We’re concerned that Pearson is using gag orders to cover up-rather than address-problems with its standardized tests. If Pearson is going to remain competitive in the educational support and testing business, the company must listen to and respond to the concerns of educators like Elizabeth Phillips who report that the company has ignored extensive feedback.
Parents, students and teachers need assessments that accurately measure student performance through questions that are grade-appropriate and aligned with state standards-especially since standardized tests have increasingly life-altering consequences for students and teachers. By including gag orders in contracts, Pearson is silencing the very stakeholders the company needs to engage with. Poll after poll makes clear that parents overwhelmingly trust educators over all others to do what is best for their children; educators’ voices, concerns and input should be included in the creation and application of these assessments.
We intend to bring these concerns to the attention of senior management, the board and other shareholders during your annual meeting on Friday, April 25. We also are asking that you meet as soon as practical with stakeholders to discuss a comprehensive response to their concerns and to this serious threat to the company’s reputation, brand and share price. If you have representatives in the United States who meet with potential customers routinely to sell Pearson products, we believe you also can meet with stakeholders.
We look forward to your reply. Pearson must move quickly to address a serious and emerging threat to its brand, business model and ability to generate long-term value for shareholders.
Sincerelv.
Randi Weingarten
President
Do we need anymore evidence that our kids should not take such tests and that we should not trust the current testing system?
And let me check my contracts 101, but doesn’t a contractual “gag” provision so contrary to the public good, make a case that the provision is null and void? How can Pearson bind a nation of educators to silence in the face of such deep concerns about the welfare of children and the nation’s education?
Shouldn’t the representatives of our educators, or the educators themselves, be challenging these provisions and refusing to be bound by them, instead of asking Pearson, hat in hand, to withdraw them?
The evidence the public needs is the tests. I am no fan of RW, but I tghink this is the proper protocol. Once the Pearson tests can be scrutinized by experts, they will be invalidated. Parents also need to see that Ny teachres are not whiners, complainers, or afraid of legitimate evaluation. Once the tests are de-ligimitized, the CC proponents have nothing left. Their standards cant stand alone.
Welcome to the Resistance Randi.
The signs of a seismic shift are everywhere.
MOMENTUM MATTERS, and we now own it.
NYS Teacher: I am cautiously optimistic [see comments below] but I do believe this is another small sign that the tide is turning, however slowly and painfully.
Amazing, the times we live in, when simply calling for transparency and usefulness might be considered a daring act.
But every little bit helps. And again, it explains why the self-styled “education reformers” like Michelle Rhee and David Coleman won’t get up on a public stage with Diane Ravitch and simply defend/explain their plans and behaviors.
They won’t because they can’t. They themselves have no confidence in the power of their own ideas.
Keep writing. I’ll keep reading.
😎
Shine on you Krazy TA
No. I want my union president to listen to the teachers who fund her position. I want her to get on board with us to stop this privatization machine from destroying our public school system. I don’t want her to plead with Pearson to protect its brand for the benefit of stockholders.
Count me with you. She’s been an enormous disappointment.
I have little confidence that the fake Ed reform oligarchs and their storm troopers will do anything other than a standard corporate response to her complaint and suggestion. I suspect that their business will continue on the same path because they probably have a master plan, an outline, for how they will achieve their draconian goals to destroy public educated and subjugate children and parents all in the name of profits and/or political/religious agendas to gain control of what our children will learn.
“We also are asking that you meet as soon as practical with stakeholders to discuss a comprehensive response to their concerns and to this serious threat to the company’s reputation, brand and share price.”
“Stakeholders,” does this include me? Should I clear my schedule? Randi, Pearson, please let me know. Thx.
The Pearson designed STAAR in Texas is not valid for measuring anything other than a child’s endurance for psychological abuse.
The “reformers” CCSS and Pearson’s covert antics of secrecy and use of propaganda for manipulating the public into believing this punishment is authentic measurement is about equal to the guards at Auschwitz giving the women and children soap on their way into the “showers”.
The only brand Randi needs to protect is ours – trained and certified professional teachers with long experience in public schools across the nation. Not “miracle” workers, but people who have been in it for the long haul. No one else knows both what works and how to implement it with real live girls and boys. Appeasement – we’ll give the tests if only you will tell us what’s in them, pretty please with a cherry on top – will harm us and our students. Look at what appeasement got the NJEA – Facebook $$ for One Charterized Newark.
Christine,
Newark teachers are represented by the AFT.
I don’t know how I got on their mailing list, but the AFT has been sending me e-mails and the messages clearly show the AFT is against Common Core, the fake Ed reformers, and the neo-liberal goals for public education in the US.
Ooops! I knew NTU was AFT, not NJEA. Thanks! : )
Again…I know teachers who are taking pictures of the test with their cell phones to use next year to help guide instruction. If more teacher just started posting these pictures anonymously…we’d have a full blown test revolt on our hands. Then everyone (parents/tax payers) would really see what was going on…little to no learning during testing time!
It’s about ****ing time someone said something. Sad it couldn’t have been our own state education department sticking up for the rights of its teachers and students.
By the way, now that it’s “field testing season” again here in NYS, has anyone else wondered what percentage of last year’s ELA and Math assessments were field tested in order to yield that very impressive 70% failure rate? And what about this year’s tests — esp. the 3rd grade ELA??? Are we supposed to believe that the questions on those assessments went through bona fide beta testing and were found to be acceptable? Would love to sue Pearson and issue a Discovery Order in order to find out…..
Students and teachers are not employees of Pearson. Can they even enter into an agreement with minors not to reveal what is on the test? Does someone know the answer to this?
I was wondering that, too. Does NYSED have the authority to bind my child into a contract that requires my child to engage in an activity that could be construed as slave labor? What what of the fact that field testing displaces substantive teaching/learning time????
If the tests don’t count for teachers ratings, will the union still stand strong for the kids. this would be novel.
Reblogged this on 21st Century Theater.
This is a brave and bold move. Wonderful!
This is really significant. Outstanding news!