I just read a comment posted by a reader, who pointed out that Pearson has an official policy about the use of social media.
Here is a portion:
How we use social media
Here you’ll find details of how we use social media such as Facebook and Twitter and the kind of response you can expect from us.
We have an active presence on social media and encourage students to use it too. It’s a great way to find information and share ideas, particularly when you’re revising for exams……
We also:
review Tweets about our brands (e.g. ‘Edexcel’ and ‘BTEC’) that don’t directly tag our profiles
monitor social media platforms such as Google+ and other online forums
We may not reply directly to these types of posts, but we monitor them to make sure that any of you with questions are getting the answers you need.
Monitoring activity on social media allows us to continuously improve the service we offer by keeping us up-to-date with what you’re saying about us online. In the past, this has helped us to identify problems with our website, driving improvements to our student pages.
Discussing us or our assessments online
Sharing ideas with others online can be really beneficial when you’re studying or revising. However, there are limits to the amount of information you can share, and you need to be careful not to break the rules. If you’re in doubt about what you can and can’t discuss, it’s always best to check with your teacher.
Sharing too much information with others is an example of ‘malpractice’. Other examples include:
copying someone else’s work or allowing your work to be copied
allowing others to help produce your work or helping others with theirs
being in possession of confidential material in advance of an exam
taking unauthorised items into an exam, such as a mobile phone or extra notes
passing on rumours of exam content
discussing the content of an exam before the paper has been completed in other parts of the world
threatening or harassing staff at an awarding organisation.
We have an obligation to investigate any case where there is the suggestion that you’ve acted improperly. If you are found to have broken the rules, you could face one of the following penalties:
a warning
the loss of marks for a section, component or unit
disqualification from a unit, all units or qualifications
a ban from sitting exams for a set period of time.
We understand that sometimes you are going to talk about us and our assessments with your friends. During stressful periods, some comments may not be very flattering. However, we’d like to ask you to act responsibly when discussing us or your exams and coursework online.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Every test you take,
Every click you make,
We’ll be watching you…
YES! It’s more than SIC.
This is how Pearson monitors social media.
http://www.tracx.com/case_studies/pearson/
Pearson is no longer even mentioned on this site!
Pearson had it removed. But you can still read it from Google cache.
The cashed page for the Tracx system which is being used to monitor students social media is here http://goo.gl/6og6lS
This all has the feel of “Animal Farm.” Keep an eye on those rules, Diane. Wouldn’t be surprised to see some “subtle” changes in the very near future.
“Four legs good, two legs bad.”
What would Orwell have said about digital tentacles?
Haha, this is a joke, right? It’s like the policy-makers at Pearson never had a teenage kid. Just TRY and stop them from sharing information.
You know, penalizing students’ results for “social media infractions” just proves that the purpose of these tests is not to inform student and teacher of learning on the part of the student–the purpose of these tests is to control and punish.
As the Brits like to say, “What RUBBISH!”
Well if a students gets to sit out an exam…darn, what bad luck for them (-;
They must be monitoring this column like nuts if they are looking for key words and phrases. And if they win this ed battle, some of us will be on their VERY long list of people who wrote negative things about them, before, during and after the tests.
I won’t worry about them “coming after me” until I run out of ammunition.
When students voluntarily take an AP test or the SAT, the testing company can certainly ask students to limit their comments about test questions. Students have agreed to these terms. But on tests mandated by outside entities?? They have no obligation to help maintain test security! They don’t work for Pearson! Speak freely, kiddos!
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/03/pearson-prove-parcc-stinks.html
Malpractice is the term of art for violations of Pearson’s student survellience system. Educational malpractice seems to be the premise of Pearson’s business. Pearson is engaged in bullying students. No state department of education or district or higher education institution should enter into contracts with this firm. They want to protect a brand that is about as trustworthy as Enron.
They need an attitude adjustment. They have no authority. They are a contractor. But then, we have private prisons.
Yes.
“O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!” [Walter Scott]
Start with an eduproduct that coughs up inherently imprecise numbers & stats, by its very nature measures very little, and rakes in ever growing mountains of $tudent $ucce$$. Predictable result: the adults “sucking the oxygen out of the room in a lot of schools” [thank you, Arne Duncan!] go to ever more extreme lengths to protect their bank accounts and reputations and egos from the ‘assault’ of logic, facts and decency.
What a shameful bunch—if they could be said to have a sense of shame to begin with.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
KTA,
Will have to correct your statement “by its very nature measures very little” to “by its very nature measures NOTHING”.
And quite correctly “its very nature”, its epistemological and ontological underpinnings are false, invalid, pure bunk, etc. . . as proven by N. Wilson. (won’t post my usual so as to not “Chile” this post.
Señor Swacker: my reply is too long for here, so look below.
😎
Laura,
You beat me to the punch on the “malpractice” line. Had it “controlled C’d” and was ready to “control V” it and comment similarly to what you have written.
A ban from sitting exams for a set period of time?
Wow, don’t throw me in the briar patch, B’rer Fox!
Hey, they are just trying to improve their service – it says so right here:
“Monitoring activity on social media allows us to continuously improve the service we offer by keeping us up-to-date with what you’re saying about us online. In the past, this has helped us to identify problems with our website, driving improvements to our student pages.”
Just think of the retail value of the data it obtains simultaneously!
Hey, anyone else pick up on the split infinitive in the first sentence?
Ooo, Ooo, what do I have to do to get this penalty: “a ban from sitting exams for a set period of time”? I’m on it!
Thank you for this additional Pearson insight.
I am now even more disturbed.
I don’t understand how Pearson’s policy about students not talking about the test could possibly be enforced. They are minors – from 9 to 17 years old. We’ve all come out of tests and compared answers to questions – throughout our school careers. Why would this be any different to these students? I know that Pearson claims ownership of the content, but once millions of students have had access to it, it’s pretty much out there in public, without even taking photos of questions. And the students are not using it in the manner of a copyright violation, they are just discussing it. Where is the line between protection of a product (PARCC) and freedom of speech? The student has no contract with Pearson to keep the contents a secret. It’s very nice of Pearson to post this on their website, and to even have the district agree to it, but I’m not sure how the students are legally obligated not to discuss test content.
We all have taken exams where the policy was to require that students not share test questions or answers after taking the test. In the past, it was easy to ignore since there was little way to monitor what students did after the test was over. Now that everyone uses social media it sits out there for the world to see and Pearson starts acting like the thought police. I don’t think behavior is any different than it has ever been but the tools we have available now make it much easier to share info and to spy.
In addition, these tests are very controversial and there is a lot of growing and vocal resistance throughout the country against them. This will also tempt children to share their experience of taking the tests with their friends through social media,
And like someone else said, if children and teens find out what Pearson is doing, then many will rebel and share through social media to show Pearson they can’t be silenced.
This is nothing compared to what Pearson will do with the test and other student data.
Pearson is out to make money off our kids, plain and simple.
Pearson and today’s British government have about as much respect for the privacy of their subjects (and subjects is what they still think we Americans are) as the King of England had back in 1776.
“The British are Coming”
The British are Coming
They’re PARCCing in schools
The Pearson’s are drumming
We’re acting like fools
We beat them in battle
But now we surrender
They treat us like chattel
For corporate provender
SDP,
Thanks for the new “word of the day”–provender. Had to look that one up.
Provender definition, dry food, as hay or oats, for livestock or other domestic animals; fodder.
It was a new word for me, too. I found it when looking for a rhyme for surrender that meant food.
This goofy rhyming stuff is very good for vocab building, but hard work.
My respect for Dr. Seuss grows with each passing day.
I can see why most modern poets chucked rhyming long ago.
Can I repost some of your poems?
“a ban from sitting exams for a set period of time”
Oh — so Pearson DOES have a way for students to “opt-out” of the PARCC!.
“The Pearson Perverts”
The Pearson Perverts watch our kids
On social sites, with text and vids
They watch them like a peeping tom
And also watch the kiddies’ mom
We should ban or limit secrecy requirements on teachers, administrators, parents, and students, and the ability of corporations and government to bully people who disclose important information to the public.
The use of corporate providers for public services is destroying what
transparency we have, because the sorts of intellectual property protections
about disclosure are being brought in as part of standard corporate practice.
But what’s appropriate for private businesses is not right for public schools.
And often these behaviors are about limiting liability and PR than anthying else.
The idea of the bill would be to do the following:
1. Prohibit or limit when and what providers and the government can demand of
public employees to be kept secret.
2. Prohibit or limit what providers and the government can demand of the
public to be kept secret.
3. Provide exceptions to 1 and 2.
4. Provide severe penalties for violations of 1–3.
Pearson Portfolio Punt, before 4th down, please. Economic leverage brought down apartheid, is making a dent in climate change, why not ed. resistance, with specific demands consistent ideologically with the regulation of public utilities? Anti-trust #1!
Pearson says there “are limits on what [the student] can share” — as a lawyer, I say how are there limits? These kids haven’t entered a contract with Pearson. In fact they’re too young to legally enter any contract. Their parents haven’t signed a contract with Pearson. So how can Pearson prohibit a student from discussing content before its completed in “other parts of the world.” Pearson needs to explain why it believes it can take away points from a child’s score for a child doing something perfectly legal.
They will go after the teacher.
Seems like millions of us need to start tweeting frequently,so Pearson spies have some job security. We can use our imaginations when we tweet! 😉
If Pearson is using information gleaned from tweets, FB and blog posts, etc. to improve their products (oh how that phrase turns to bile in my mouth), then they should pay for each bit or byte of that information.
I think we are in the process of making them pay right now 🙂
Really, yes, if Pearson is totally serious that it monitors to improve its products (*cough, cough*) then the students are acting as unpaid consultants.
I am tempted to create a Twitter account just to tweet #verybadwords about the company.
A big corporation like Pearson is a mindless predatory entity with a single purpose, profit. So don’t be surprised that it seeks control in unethical ways.
Most teachers know what is going on, but they have been gagged and threatened. Parents and public, we need you to stand up and yell bloody murder.
There exists a power imbalance whereby students signing a release to take a Pearson exam do not exercise free, mature choice in the situation.
Pearson has made itself like Big Brother– another reason to dump all of this testing.
For all of the talk about PARCC being “state led,” in the end it is just one more Pearson “brand.”
Wait a minute. The alleged incident occurred AFTER school. And what part of the “Common Core” does Pearson neither test nor obviously even know about?
Look at the standards for writing and speaking and listening under grade 9 ELA. They explicitly state that students are expected to do just what the New Jersey students did!
The whole reason for this “test security” is that they don’t want to spend lots of money on their test question bank and so want to be able to reuse questions…. and they can’t keep them valid according to their own rules of test development (providing unfamiliar content and questions) if people are talking about them ahead of time. This is all about saving them money by making their questions reusable “resources.” At the expense of talkative kids and frayed educators who have spent a lifetime serving those students and who now are finding themselves in a Hobson’s choice if they want to remain in that work. By the way, Tracx pulled down their brag sheet…. I wonder if it dawned on them that perhaps currently being linked to Pearson isn’t the best marketing moment for future client interest.
M, It’s more likely that P asked T to delete the client Case Study.
Also likely that future P contracts w. subcontractors will have clause restricting use of their name as client.
Reblogged this on msvigeljsmith.
I didn’t see any “do not disclose” verbiage in the scripted directions I had to read to my students before they entered the PARCC Math and ELA PBA sessions. Where does Pearson communicate this to the children, and their parents, taking the PARCC? I, of course, had to sign a “disclose and die” form and keep track of how many pieces of scratch paper I handed out and collected each test session. I do know that there will be a survey after the Math and ELA EOY sessions – it’s in my scripted directions. (I’m an overachiever and I read ahead.) Can the kids talk/communicate about the survey, or is that off-limits too?
“Sharing too much information with others is an example of ‘malpractice’ ” so we are being threatened now????
Señor Swacker: I am shocked and amazed, sir, that you claim that standardized tests, high-stakes, low-stakes, stakes on which steaks are well done, don’t measure anything.
There’s plenty of self-styled “education reformers” whose bank accounts can be measured very precisely by how well they can mandate the buying and selling of these testing eduproducts. And any day now I am sure that Sanders and Hanushek and Chetty and a whole bevy of edu-economists will ‘prove’ that “grit” and “determination”—on a scale of “rigor” with the same mathematically-sound reliability and trustworthiness—can be measured as well using computerized maladaptive items.
What would happen to VAM if no standardized test scores? How can teacher bashers label, sort and punish/fire teachers who are not tested on students they haven’t taught [but assigned scores of students taught by other teachers] if not for those preciously precise figures?
Don’t standardized tests measure, for example, the patience to endure the unendurable of public school staff, students, parents and their associated communities? Especially as those schools are starved of resources, with swelling class sizes and narrowed curriculum and pointless boredom and such. I am sure that any day now we will be told within a thousandth of a decimal point how much utterly useless playtime and recess has been saved for test prep so little tykes can be on their way to a nirvana-like state of college-and-career readiness.
Take jungle gyms. Who would risk one of their own “most precious assets” [Michelle Rhee] on those dangerous bars when they could be hardening themselves indoors for hours on end for all the academic hunger games they need to survive?
O ye of little faith. Next thing you know you’ll be telling me that when someone puts a number on something that doesn’t mean that you’re actually measuring a quality with a quantity.
Need I say more? Words mean something, so just to let you know—
Keep writing. I’ll keep reading.
😎
I can clearly remember the ripples of giggling when my students read Animal Farm. Not so funny now, huh?
I refuse to believe that the same bunch of colonists who whipped these British butts on two memorable occasions will stand still for this level of intrusion into our (and our children’s) exercise of free speech.
If a student is caught, it will be the teacher that pays.
“However,” Pearson proclaims, ” there are limits to the amount of information you can share, and you need to be careful not to break the rules. If you’re in doubt about what you can and can’t discuss, it’s always best to check with your teacher.”
So, to Pearson and its corporate masters, freedom of expression that is protected by the U.S. Bill of Rights doesn’t apply to them because, after all, they are a UK corporation and their rules supersede the U.S. 1st amendment and its protections for U.S. citizens.
And this is the problem with the TPP trade agreement and it’s counter part for the EU. Corporations are given rights that supersede those of sovereign states who are expected to conform to what’s best for corporations.
it is heartening to read the outrage to spying on and oppressing young people and their teachers. ha. nsa must be receiving info on all of this in some form too…..
I am enrolled in a Digital Media class right now with our ITRT and this discussion here happens right during the week we were discussing the negative or positive impact of social media. Wow, talk about timing! For all it is worth, I have 7 sped students: 4 first graders and 3 second graders. At this point I am glad not to allow online time for these kids. I have two older PCs loaded with Starfall and Math software. That is enough should they desire alone time for individual learning. The Internet won’t teach them. People will. They already lack communication and socialization skills. I am not going to make it worse.
So…. Is this legalese disclaimer read to every minor child before taking the Pearson/PARCC assessment? If it is not read to them, HOW is every minor child supposed to know about it?????
I learned that in business “the customer is always right”. And that a business that doesn’t treat its customers nicely (let alone fairly) will not be in business long. As Captain Picard would say: Make it so.
My gut reaction?… Acting like giant bullies dressed in suits!
“Monitoring activity on social media allows us to continuously improve the service we offer by keeping us up-to-date with what you’re saying about us online. In the past, this has helped us to identify problems with our website, driving improvements to our student pages.” This is complete BS. This is spying on people! Also- students should not discuss until people in other parts of the world have taken??!! How is a student supposed to know when people in “other parts of the world” have taken it? Pearson doesn’t care one bit about students. It just wants to protect its profit.
We need to become “friends” on fb with Pearson and leave as many comments as possible to let them know how we feel about their test. But, remember to be respectful!
New name for Pearson: HACKERSON
Pearson is acting like a pharmaceutical company protecting their research investment in a new product. But if you look at the history, this viewpoint is flat out wrong. Pearson and McGraw Hill had seats at the Common Core development table. They had a jump on the competition to develop and market ed materials aligned to the standards which they are making a ton of money on (Pearson’s earning are up 3% this year). They used $330 million federal dollars to develop test items, not their own research money. SBAC and PARCC got teachers around the country to review those items for free. Pearson and McGraw Hill are receiving more public money from states who contracted with them to administer the tests. They used students as free labor for two years to beta test their product and provide feedback via their answers. And after all that public money, they think they have the right to tell teachers not to look at the screens and tell everyone that they can’t even TALK about what is on their test, so that they can protect their private product??
When NIH funds research, the results of that research must be made publicly available. It stands to reason that USDoED funded tests items should also be made publicly available and in the SBAC MOU it even states that non-member states should also have access to test bank items because they were publicly funded. I haven’t looked at the PARCC MOU but assume it has similar language for the same reason. For Pearson to cloud them in such secrecy is unprecedented and should not be tolerated by the citizens who paid for them.
If anything, Pearson should be offering the test for free because of all the money they will make in support material sales, teacher evaluation products, professional development training and unit or formative assessments. The test should be considered a loss leader for them.