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Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Houghton-Mifflin exec: Common Core is all about the money - New York Business Journal

Houghton-Mifflin exec: Common Core is all about the money - New York Business Journal:

Houghton-Mifflin exec: Common Core is all about the money



An undercover video posted by New York City-based Project Veritas, the same organization that investigated the now defunct ACORN, shows an executive at one of the nation's largest school booksellers describing how common core education standards are a scheme for publishers to make bank.

"It's all about the money. What are you, crazy? It's all about the money," says Dianne Barrow, an executive at Boston-based Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. She goes on to say she 'hates kids' and that she's "in it to sell books."

According to the video posted below, Project Veritas recorded possibly damaging footage claiming that 'common core' — the tougher, national curriculum standards designed to prepare students for college — is a scam.



"'You don't think that the educational publishing companies are in it for education, do you? No, they're in it for the money," Barrow says in the hidden video. Bianca Olson with the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt confirmed that Barrow 'has been terminated' following the video's release.

One New York City teacher let out her frustration on the group's hidden camera.

'It's bulls**t and the thing is, what they do is they create some new f***ing system, that f***ing sucks to sell more books and then we have to learn something new with the students.'

The video debuts roughly a month after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo unveiled plans of a task force to review the curriculum and oversee a total overhaul, saying that there were big mistakes in its implementation and that some of the early childhood standards are inappropriate.Houghton-Mifflin exec: Common Core is all about the money - New York Business Journal: