Pearson President Responds to My WP Common Core Dilemma Excerpt
In my book, Common Core Dilemma–Who Owns Schools?, I have a chapter on London-based mega-company, Pearson. On September 23, 2015, Washington Post education writer Valerie Strauss featured an excerpt from that chapter. Readers are able to view Strauss’ post on her blog, “The Answer Sheet,” by clicking here.
On October 08, 2015, the president of Pearson North America, Don Kilburn, responded to Strauss’ post. Here is what he wrote:
The Answer Sheet blog recently shared an excerpt from a book that claimed to understand Pearson’s motivations for being involved in education. We weren’t given the opportunity to respond directly to the points raised in that piece, many of which are rather presumptuous. [Note: Actually, I did invite Pearson to write as long a response as desired but the offer was declined.] So without responding to every point we believe is inaccurate, I’d like to take an opportunity to explain what Pearson is, and what we stand for.Yes, we are a for-profit company. We currently do about $5 billion worth of business annually in the U.S., out of an estimated $1 trillion that is spent on education each year. Pearson is just one of many companies (for-profit and non-profit) serving public K-12 and higher education institutions across the country. Hundreds of education technology start-ups as well as Fortune 500 companies like Apple, Facebook and Google compete for a share of this business as well.In this competitive environment, Pearson is held accountable for how we perform as a company by educators, students, schools and higher education institutions, as well as our shareholders and our employees. We are a company of nearly 40,000 – 15,000 of whom are former teachers, and many more, like me, are U.S. parents. All of us are focused on making a difference in the lives of learners.At Pearson, because we are parents and community members, we welcome scrutiny. We’re seeking to be transparent in our work. This means engaging with students, parents, teachers, and professors to learn more from them.We don’t shy away from public debate around education policy, which we agree is necessary. Earlier in the year, we posted the full transcript of ourPearson President Responds to My WP Common Core Dilemma Excerpt | deutsch29: