CURMUDGUCATION: Pearson & Irony Overload

CURMUDGUCATION: Pearson & Irony Overload:
Pearson & Irony Overload

Here's an article about a familiar topic in education-- "Why Teachers Are Leaving the Classroom, and the Effort To Get More To Stay." True, the topic has been hit pretty thoroughly, but one more piece on the topic can't hurt and perhaps this particular website reaches a different audience than-- wait. What?

Yes, this article about the teacher shortage is on LearnED, the website covering News About Learning and operated by Pearson. Yes, that Pearson. The All Your Education Business Are Belong To Us Pearson.

So. What does Pearson know about the teacher shortage and how to fix it? Well, strap on your irony impact helmets, boys and girls. This ride is short, but it's designed for maximum psychic whiplash.

The unnamed writer opens with a close-up on Jahana Hayes, National Teacher of the Year, a woman with a story so inspiring that she could give John King a run for his money. Hayes reminds us that while students are the whole point, "recruiting, supporting and retaining culturally competent and diverse educators cannot be overlooked."

Next up-- Dr. Kathy McKnight, Principal Director of Research at Pearson, Center for Educator Learning and Effectiveness (not this one, but this one). She's a co-author of a December, 2014, report from Pearson entitled Creating Sustainable Teacher Career Pathways: A 21st Century Imperative which is seventy-some pages of history and proposals for some alternate universe. Here's one swell pull quote: 

One study concluded that the TFA and Teaching Fellows programs represent two examples of program models for recruiting, selecting, training and supporting teachers that can address teacher shortages in secondary math within high-need schools without decreasing student achievement.

The report also likes the idea of "neo-diffeentiated roles" and differentiated pay and new career ladders, as well as performance-based compensation (aka merit pay).

Here's what strikes me as weird(er) about this report-- by December of 2014, Pearson had already released, with honcho Michael Barber's personal seal of approval right on it, the big report on the CURMUDGUCATION: Pearson & Irony Overload: