Pearson CEO John Fallon Wants to Win America Over.
Friendly John Fallon, CEO, Pearson
In my book, Common Core Dilemma–Who Owns Schools?, I have a chapter on London-based mega-company, Pearson. The chapter includes details from Pearson’s February 2014 earnings call, which shows Pearson’s plans to rake in the bucks from Common Core and associated testing as Pearson “embeds” itself into American education like a fat tick latches onto the skin of an unsuspecting yard dog.
How’s that for a mental picture?
On September 23, 2015, Washington Post education writer Valerie Strauss featured an excerpt from the Common Core Dilemma chapter on Pearson. Readers are able to view Strauss’ post on her blog, “The Answer Sheet,” by clicking here.
Since the time of its February 2014 earnings call, the rollout of Common Core and its associated assessments has not proceeded as smoothly (and therefore, has not translated as readily into profits) as Pearson thought it would. Such is immediately apparent in the struggling and shrinking of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) consortium, one of two originally-federally-funded testing consortia that was supposed to provide Common Core-aligned tests to potentially 24 states and DC in 2011 (and perhaps more, if other states decided to join PARCC). By the time Pearson was awarded the PARCC contract in May 2014, PARCC still retained 16 states and DC.
In the months after that February 2014 earnings call, Pearson picked up the PARCC contract, then worth an estimated $240 million. It also had testing contracts in Texas (not a Common Core state) and New York.
Pearson just knew the Common Core testing profits were a-coming.
However, by July 2015, PARCC was down to 10 states and DC contracting with Pearson CEO John Fallon Wants to Win America Over. | deutsch29:
