• • Incompetent Pearson "Wins" PARCC Contract. Big Surprise.
• • Education Giant Pearson Wins 'Unprecedented' Common Core Test Contract
• • Pearson Foundation Fined Millions for Violating Laws
• • Libyan Investment Authority Acquired 3.01% of Financial Times Owner Pearson Publishing at $324 Million

In his six-minute videoed speech on the necessity of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), billionaire Bill Gates patiently explains that it is not enough for individual states to implement their own standards because "scale is good for free market competition."

Here is the reality of "free market competition" in this time of unprecedented education profiteering: A few education/assessment giants will run American public education (and beyond, as some private and parochial schools sell their freedom for access to state or federal tax dollars).

One of those few is the ubiquitous Pearson.

CCSS was tailor-made for Pearson. It is quite the love story.

Pearson is one-stop CCSS shopping, from curriculum, to assessments, to evaluation of teacher training... and Bill Gates has even paid Pearson's nonprofit to assist with the endeavor.

Gates' assistance is apparently paying off; on May 2, 2014, Pearson "landed a major contract... of unprecedented scale" with another nonprofit (a popular way to set up reformer shop), the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). As EdWeek's Sean Cavanaugh notes:

The global education company Pearson has landed a major contract to administer tests aligned to the common-core standards, a project described as being of "unprecedented scale" in the U.S. testing arena by one official who helped negotiate it. 

The decision to award the contract, announced Friday, was made by a group of states developing tests linked to the common core for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, one of two main consortia of states creating exams to match the standards. 

Pearson is expected to perform a broad range of duties under the contract, including development of test items, delivery of paper-and-pencil and computerized test forms, reporting of results, analysis of scores, and working with states to develop "cut scores," or performance standards for the exams.  [Emphasis added.]

He who controls the cut scores controls American public education. Period.

There's more:

While a number of companies inquired in response to PARCC's request for proposals for the project, ultimately Pearson was the only bidder, said James Mason, who helped negotiate the contract as part of a team of PARCC state leaders.  [Emphasis added.]

Pearson "the only bidder"??

So much for that "free market competition."

Here is an important question:

Who will "assess" Pearson?

Allow me.  Based upon its established history of testing errors, and scoring and reporting mishaps, Pearson deserves an F. However, I suppose if it is "the only bidder," American education just has to "settle," right? I mean, there's no time to think this through, what with our oligarchic-pushed, urgent race for education world domination and baffling standardized test worship, right?

And yet, the cracks in the Pearson pedestal have been pronounced for years.

In September 2013, FairTest Public Education Director Bob Shaeffer compiled a list of Pearson's testing errors, questionable practices, and subsequent fines/lawsuits dating back to 1998.

Shaeffer documented 38 incidents- 24 of which have happened since 2011.

High-stakes testing failures have high-stakes consequences. Here are several highlights from Schaeffer's list:

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Pearson, the largest education company in the world, has won a contract for a Common Core test administration project that has been described by the state leader who negotiated it as one of "unprecedented scale" in the realm of United States testing.

According to Education Week, James Mason, a Mississippi Department of Education state leader for PARCC, one of the Common Core test consortia, helped negotiate the contract, which was announced Friday. Mason described the contract as one of "unprecedented scale," though he could not provide a dollar amount for the contract because the final price tag will depend on the number of students and states who actually participate, as well as other factors.

Though a number of education companies inquired about PARCC's request for proposals for the project, Pearson ultimately was the only bidder, an outcome that should not draw questions about the soundness of their process, PARCC state officials say.

Pearson's duties under the contract will include development of test items, delivery of paper-and-pencil and computerized test forms, reporting of results, analysis of test scores, and consulting with states to develop performance standards for the assessments.

"PARCC states wanted to ensure we got the best assessment at the best price possible," said Christopher A. Koch, superintendent of education in Illinois, another PARCC state, in a statement on PARCC's website. "By working together, we were able to get an innovative and high-quality assessment development and drive down costs for all states."

According to Mason, Pearson has secured a number of subcontractors for the project, including ETS, WestEd, Caveon, and Measured Progress.

"This group of contractors represents a best-in-class collaboration that will help us bring testing to a whole new level," said Mason in the PARCC statement. "The days of multiple-choice-only tests are over."

"These are sophisticated assessments that focus on the path to success beyond high school. They include comprehension, concepts, application, writing, problem solving, critical thinking and reasoning," he added. "We have a strong team supporting us and we will continue to challenge our contractors to push the envelope on rigor and innovation."

According to the contract, the per student assessment price is expected to be about $24.

"Everybody in the industry knew this was coming for years," Mason said of PARCC's Request for Proposal for testing. Giving the process more time "would not have resulted in anything different."

Regarding the announcement, Valerie Strauss at the Washington Post observed that two years ago, the nonprofit group FairTest predicted that while education policy makers promised Common Core reforms would increase competition and innovation, the same education firms that scored the big contracts in the past would still do so in the age of Common Core.

Pearson has had its share of interesting associations and controversy as well.

In 2010, the year most state boards of education were adopting the Common Core standards, Pearson purchased America's Choice, the for-profit subsidiary of progressive Marc Tucker's National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), which had assisted Bill and Hillary Clinton in achieving their education goals during President Clinton's two terms. Later, Tucker served on the feedback team for the Common Core English/Language Arts standards, and two senior fellows from America's Choice, Phil Daro and Sally Hampton, served, respectively, on the math and ELA work groups that drafted the Common Core standards.

Pearson acquired America's Choice for $80 million, and proceeds from the sale created a $3.6 million per year endowment for NCEE. In addition, Daro and Hampton then became senior fellows at Pearson.

 

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New York state's attorney general Eric T. Schneiderman won an agreement from the Pearson Foundation to pay $7.7 million in fines for using its charitable activities to advance its corporation's profit-making arm.

According to the story by Javier Hernandez in the New York Times,

"An inquiry by Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York State attorney general, found that the foundation had helped develop products for its corporate parent, including course materials and software. The investigation also showed that the foundation had helped woo clients to Pearson's business side by paying their way to education conferences that were attended by its employees.

"Under the terms of the agreement to be announced on Friday, the money, aside from $200,000 in legal expenses, will be directed to 100Kin10, a national effort led by a foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, to train more teachers in high-demand areas, including science, technology, engineering and math.

"The fact is that Pearson is a for-profit corporation, and they are prohibited by law from using charitable funds to promote and develop for-profit products," Mr. Schneiderman said in a statement. "I'm pleased that this settlement will direct millions of dollars back to where they belong."

"Officials at Pearson and the foundation defended their work.

"We have always acted with the best intentions and complied with the law," they said, in a joint statement. "However, we recognize there were times when the governance of the foundation and its relationship with Pearson could have been clearer and more transparent."

"The case shed a light on the competitive world of educational testing and technology, which Pearson has come to dominate. As federal and state leaders work to overhaul struggling schools by raising academic standards, educational companies are rushing to secure lucrative contracts in testing, textbooks and software.

"The inquiry by the attorney general focused on Pearson's attempts to develop a suite of products around the Common Core, a new and more rigorous set of academic standards that has been adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia.

"Around 2010, Pearson began financing an effort through its foundation to develop courses based on the Common Core. The attorney general's report said Pearson had hoped to use its charity to win endorsements and donations from a "prominent foundation." That group appears to be the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

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