Pearson has sold two of its premier publications–the Financial Times and The Economist–to focus on education.
“The Financial Times and The Economist were sold to help Pearson’s push into education become “one of the great global growth stories of the next decade,” the company’s chief executive told CNBC.”
“Despite its lengthy ownership of the Financial Times and its stake in the Economist Group (owner of The Economist magazine), Pearson has focused on consolidating its place as the world’s leading education company in recent years. It offers a range of public school exams as well as online and traditional educational resources for schools, universities and professionals.
“We are tying our future to what I think is going to be one of the great global growth stories of the next decade,” John Fallon told CNBC on Friday.
“Parents in countries around the world, rich and poor, the single thing that matters to them most is equipping their kids with the skills and the knowledge to go to university, to learn English as a foreign language, because that’s what’s going to get them a better job and a better start in life and that’s what we’re lining Pearson up to and it’s a huge opportunity for us.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I cannot advocate dumping bubble tests booklets in Boston harbor because that would be pollution but it does strike me that a greener kind of symbolic action must be taken.
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The greener choice is simply to refuse. Opt out!
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Maybe we could put them in a big pile and give everyone pickaxes to pulverize them into recyclable pulp.
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Pearson owns the Economist!!!!
No wonder the Economist had been a tool for the corporate take over of democracy.
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A form of vertical integration.
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Not anymore!
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Depends who they sell their 50% to. Maybe Murdock will buy those shares. There are a lot of RheeFormer oligarchs who own newspapers and TV stations. Pearson has a plethora of choices. Then there is the billionaire who owns Newsweek—all blindly obedient and greed is good Rheeform supporters.
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I recall an article years ago in the Economist blaming teachers and their unions for student failures. I had no idea Pearson owned the magazine when that article was published. It seems Pearson used the Economist as a forum to help set the stage for encroaching on public education. Would it be reasonable to say the article was biased against teachers/unions? What a rag. I even recall Bill Moyers hosting the editor (I think) of the magazine and stated to the editor something like “you get it right” about their articles. I wonder if Bill Moyers would still say that after he hosted Diane Ravitch
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Diane Ravitch was a guest on Moyers & Company
http://billmoyers.com/guest/diane-ravitch/
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Yeah, let all kids go to university. Then we will need robots to feed us, clean the streets, teach in the schools, count out the pills in the pharmacies, and so on.
When I was teaching at a university in the UK I would often ask students “Why did you choose to study XYZ?”. Too many answered that that was what their parents wanted.
If we rebadged all institutions of higher and further education as universities, something which is already under way, and reduced or abandoned entry qualifications then “Problem solved”.
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What happens when too many citizens in a country have college degrees?
The answer is found in the five countries with the most college educated citizens.
1. Russia with 53.5% of its population with college educations.
In Russia, many recent graduates are taking any job they can find. Approximately 30 percent of Russian university graduates under the age of 25 do not have a full-time job. If they do, they’ve had a rough time getting there. Anywhere from 65 to 70 percent of graduates are not able to find work directly after graduation, but require, on average, five-to-six months to find a position. For many university graduates in Russia, a last step in the educational process is to learn the term “latent unemployment.” Latent unemployment is when educational skills are under-utilized: engineers end up working as roofers, or scientists as salespeople. In Russia, highly-trained professionals are often overqualified for the jobs they have.
2. Canada with 52.6%
Based on data from Statistics Canada, one in four millennials with a university degree is employed full-time in a job that doesn’t require that level of education. That number climbs to one in three when looking only at those between 25 and 29. In contrast, it’s about one in five when looking at the entire university-educated population of employable age.
3. Japan with 46.6%
Only 31.2% of college graduates in Japan and 35% in South Korea have found difficulty securing a full-time job upon finishing their education in 2011. This gap between the high number of college graduates and the low number of full-time jobs, however, does not simply mirror the lack of job opportunities. Interestingly, this gap is driven by risk-averse graduates who voluntarily choose to stay unemployed in hopes of securing a stable job in the long run. … The unfortunate graduates who have missed the opportunity now make up a generation called “freeters,”a term that combines the English word “free” and the German “arbeiter,” the part-timed temporary workers or anyone who hops between short-term jobs. However, the penalties that these “freeters” face in the Japanese society such as low pay have only further aggravated the uncertainty of job prospects.
4. Israel with 46.4%
Without jobs in U.S., college grads are finding opportunities in Israel and Why You Should Consider Working in Israel After College. Despite being told a bachelor’s degree would be the ticket to career success, college graduates in the U.S. face an ominous unemployment rate. Depending on your major, unemployment rates range from 4.8 percent to 14.7 percent. But what you may have failed to consider is the slew of job opportunities abroad—namely, in countries like Israel.
But even if there are jobs available in Israel for foreign college graduates, from, for instance, the United States, how many openings will there be in a country with a population of about 8 million?
After all, the U.S. has more students in college than the entire population of Israel. In fall 2015, some 20.2 million students are expected to attend American colleges and universities, constituting an increase of about 4.9 million since fall 2000. During the 2015–16 school year, colleges and universities are expected to award 952,000 associate’s degrees; 1.8 million bachelor’s degrees; 802,000 master’s degrees; and 179,000 doctor’s degrees.
5. United States with 43.1%
More than half of America’s recent college graduates are either unemployed or working in a job that doesn’t require a bachelor’s degree, the Associated Press reported.
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Very Interesting set of data. This country is moving towards service jobs, which do not pay well and do not need a college degree.
Under employment of college graduates more than unemployment is a serious matter.
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Especially when those college graduates have to make payments on that trillion dollars in student debt that comes with high interest rates, and they are only earning poverty wages (if they are working)—-thanks to the endless promotion from the RheeFormers that a college education will lead to the promise land.
For instance, at the local AT&T store in a conversation with one of the workers there, I learned that they all had college degrees—to sign people up for mobile phones or some sort of TV or internet service?
Soon, it will take a college degree to push a broom and mob cleaning floors.
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Raj,
You are correct. As the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows, the majority of new jobs in the next decade will be low-wage service jobs, largely in healthcare.
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Raj,
The lack of enriched jobs, requiring higher education skills, is directly related to (1) the erosion of a middle class/ its demand for goods and services, e.g. middle management jobs in the hospitality industry .
(2) the political right wing’s, tax avoidance schemes, whose intent is to de-professionalize service careers. Jobs like police, teaching (both K-12 and higher ed.), elder care management, etc., at one time,
required dedicated, knowledgeable employees. But, increasingly, those careers face reduced pay, and/or part-time employment, modeling McDonald’s. (3) the concentration of wealth drags down employment opportunities. Heirs of wealth, lack originality and motivation, to create new products. Historically, new businesses have been created, from middle class family assets.
In other words, the U.S. banana republic, designed by the Waltons, Gates and Koch’s, has been achieved.
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I disagree, Lloyd. A university degree is not for job training. It’s for life training. How to determine the satisfaction derived by an individual for studying something of interest / use to them? Not by job statistics, certainly.
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I think going to college is a reward by itself even if it doesn’t lead to a job in the major studied, but a high level of literacy also creates lifelong learners more than just going to a university to get a degree.
For instance, I have a BA in journalism and never worked in that industry. After I graduated and applied for jobs in the media I was shocked at the low pay—so low that I wouldn’t earn enough to pay only the monthly rent for a cheap apartment let alone supporting a car, gasoline and food so I could eat. Rent near the jobs I applied for was twice what I would have earned working in those publications.
But combine the two and we have a home run. A college graduate who has been an avid reader from a young age is much better than someone who isn’t an avid reader who just goes to college thinking it will lead to a better paying job.
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“I disagree, Lloyd. A university degree is not for job training. It’s for life training.”
And why is every single kid encouraged to go to college? Certainly not for life training. The overwhelming narrative, sadly, is that college is about career.
See Einstein’s “Why Socialism?”
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College is free in: Germany, Finland, France, Sweden, Norway, Slovenia, and Brazil.
If the RheeFormers want every child to go to college, then offer it free, but does free mean they will all go?
The first-time graduation rate in Finland is 62.6%. It’s 25.5% in Germany, 41.5% in Norway, and 39.9% in Sweden.
The U.S. rate is 37.3% and most students have to go into debt to go to college.
When REAL choice is involved even when it is free, it still doesn’t reach 100%.
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“When REAL choice is involved even when it is free, it still doesn’t reach 100%.”
Indeed. This is a good argument for improving K-12. We can’t set our hopes on everyone going to college in order to give them what they need for life. Citizenship, critical thinking, creativity, literacy… ideally would be strong before college.
See: Progressive Education.
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It’s an even bigger argument for having a non-profit, transparent, democratically run, out of public schools and public libraries that have not been privatized in any way, non-corporate national early childhood education program that starts as early as age 2 and is designed to foster a love of reading with a goal to create avid readers by the time the child reaches kindergarten—like they did in France 30 years ago and—drum roll—the results:
>>>>>Poverty in France has fallen by 60% over thirty years. Although it affected 15% of the population in 1970, in 2001 only 6.1% (or 3.7 million people) were below the poverty line, and France kept the grubby, greedy, fraudulent and lying hands of the private sector off of that early childhood education program.
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Universities are currently run by people who have done well at universities. It isn’t the students or entrance policies that need to change, it is the universities.
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Pearson will follow the money, and they never met a country they didn’t want to exploit. It’s time to get Diane Ravitch translated into a variety of African and Asian languages.
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The Economist has taken a classically liberal editorial position since it was founded in 1843. I do not think that Pearson had any influence on the publication.
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At least in education, the Economist has been very conservative, or “pro reform,” for years.
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He means “liberal” in the British sense, in other words, corporate libertarian.
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Actually I mean in the sense of the Scottish enlightenment, in the tradition of David Hume and Adam Smith.
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Distinction Sans Difference
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Ramping up the gears of war.
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The thing about being educated is that you are educated. You studied a bunch of stuff you found interesting. My father insisted I take enough classes to qualify to teach in case I had to work. He assumed I would marry and worried that my husband might become incapacitated. (My mother couldn’t have afforded to support us if he couldn’t work, so I know what he was thinking.)
Then it became a money thing. I guess because soldiers came home from WWII and the Korean War needing jobs and because the car industry fell apart in competition with the Japanese.
When all the jobs got sent overseas, I got real with my learning disabled students. I told them to start their own service business and go to college if they felt like it. Many of them already knew what they wanted to be, aside from football pro’s: dental assistants, gardeners. I would tell them about this guy I knew who had wanted to be a bus driver. His parents made him go to college. He majored in business. (You could take business classes on line today.) He graduated. Bought two busses. Hired another driver. And drove the remaining bus. Many of my students parents were entrepreneurs, running multiple services to make money. Go Cart rental, hair extension import, catering, playing in bands. These kids who will not score well enough to be career/college ready are learning how to run businesses that rely on them alone, no employees needed. There are a few who want to be lawyers and veterinarians and pediatricians–more power to them, although I think there is no shortage of lawyers.
And there are the college dropouts. The ones who think they can educate the world. But it is job training they are really concerned about. Not careers and college.
If you are an HG TV addict as I am, you see many Americans looking for housing in affordable countries using their college degree. (Probably not a lot but interesting anyway.)
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What’s HG for those of us that are diagnosed AI?
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Pearson sold those properties for the cash the sells generated, approx $1.7 Billion. Pearson needs that cash to take on emerging markets, Africa, India, South America, etc. At one point in time the North America revenue would fund their growth, but NA revenue has dried up for many reasons. PARCC is slipping, Common Core issues, a very poorly executed re-org of Pearsons NA sales team.
Sure, they say it’s to focus on Education, but all you have to do is read the financial trades. The info is out there. The stock analyst are worried that John Fallon is not driving organic growth, financial slang meaning growing the business the traditional ways, more sales, better products, more market share,etc., instead of by mergers and acquisitions.
Pearson is past the merger and acquisition phase, they are now in the selling phase, and it’s not just non-educational business units. They sold PowerSchool, which according to the press is the number one Student Information System on the planet. Pearson said they sold because it didn’t align with student learning.
Pearson’s austerity measures make Greece look likes childs play. It seems they are doing the same thing you and I would do if we lost our income. Tighten our belts and have a massive garage sale.
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I’m glad there is a Pearson Watcher and reporter. You sound more insightful than the 6 Enron stock watchers, who were dedicated, exclusively, to the assessment of the firm’s performance and potential. All 6, announced shock when the company failed..
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Educational Imperialism —
Those Brits Never Quit …
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The Brits did give up their empire after they went bankrupt fighting World War I and World War II.
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No surprise. Where’s the bucket? This is disgusting.
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