Defies Measurement: a panel discussing the film at the Network For Public Education Conference taking place in Chicago April 24-26

shine on productions - Defies Measurement:

Defies Measurement
a documentary

Defies Measurement strengthens the discussion about public education by taking a much-needed, fresh, hard look at why it is so important to address the social and emotional needs of every student, and what happens when the wrong people make decisions for schools. The purpose of this film is to inform and inspire discussion. In an effort to share Defies Measurement with as many people as possible, we have decided to make the downloadable version of the film FREE to anyone who wishes to screen it and share with others. Watch DEFIES MEASUREMENT

Watch the trailer Plan a screening Like us on Facebook Buy a t-shirt

Defies Measurement News

1) Director, Shannon Puckett will be on a panel discussing the film at the Network For Public Education Conference taking place in Chicago April 24-26

The Network For Public Education | 2015 National Conference – Chicago

The Network For Public Education | 2015 National Conference – Chicago:

2015 National Conference – Chicago

The Countdown to Chicago Has Begun!

If you haven’t registered for the 2nd Annual NPE Conference in Chicago, there is still time! You can register for the conference on our Eventbrite page, and take advantage of discounted hotel rates at the site of this year’s conference, the Drake Hotel, by following this link. 

These rates expire on March 22nd! 

Make your reservation today, and take advantage of this opportunity to stay at the Drake Hotel with the nation’s most celebrated public school activists.

The theme of this year’s conference is:

The Network For Public Education | 2015 National Conference – Chicago:

“Public Education: Our Kids, Our Schools, Our Communities”

In addition to a powerhouse line-up of featured speakers, including Yong Zhao, Diane Ravitch, Lily Eskelson Garcia, Randi Weingarten and Chicago’s own Karen Lewis and Jitu Brown, we’ve put together more than forty dynamic and informative panels. There is no other conference that provides the opportunity to be inspired by over 100 of the nation’s leading education activists, and share in their passion for public education. The lineup of panels and panelists is guaranteed to make your weekend with our family of NPE friends and allies one to remember.

They include:

Student Panel – Tanaisa Brown, Kristin Towkaniuk, Hannah Nguyen & others. 

If you’re coming to this conference you care about our students and probably have your own ideas on how to help. This is your chance to hear directly from some of our nation’s leading student leaders. Tanaisa, Kristin & Hannah will talk about what life is like for students today, how they feel about all of these so-called reforms, and what they’re doing to take back their schools.

BATs and Social Justice - Dr. Denisha Jones, Aixa Rodriguez and Kristin Vogel 

Looking to grow your understanding on the connection between race, inequity in education funding and what’s happening in your classrooms? Then join these three prominent voices from the Badass Teachers Association who are committed to social justice and equity in the schools and communities in which we work and live. The conversation starts here.

Perils of Ed Tech - Leonie Haimson, Rachael Strickland and Cynthia Liu

Want to know what’s happening in the world of student privacy? Three leading national activists will bring you up to speed. Between these three women, they have lead the movement to stop inBloom, built a national Student Privacy Coalition, and exposed the iPad scandal in LA Unified School District leading to the downfall of LAUSD Superintendent Deasy. Their workshop will focus on ways to strengthen federal protections, outline strategies for successful coalitions that lobby state & federal officials, and discuss how to expose the fraud and waste inherent in these systems.

Defending the Early Years - Nancy Carlsson-Paige and Geralyn Bywater McLaughlin

Concerned about what’s happening to our youngest children? Join leading national experts as they discuss their work pushing back against the current ed reform climate where academic skills and tests are replacing experiential, play-based learning. This interactive workshop will bring you into full participation by sharing experiences of what has worked and what has not as the group develops concrete actions steps for moving forward to Defend the Early Years.

More Than A Score - Jesse Hagopian

Black Student Lives Matter: The achievement gap is often used by corporate reformers to justify their policies. Are you looking for a way to respond to them that is both respectful of the experiences of communities of color, but does not accept high stakes testing is the way to close the achievement gap? Then join teacher and author Jesse Hogapian as he explores this topic. Jesse will share his experience in leading the successful MAP boycott in Seattle, discuss examples of gaining support from civil rights groups, and talk about how we can all help build a multicultural, anti-racist movement to support all students.

In the coming days and weeks we will continue to highlight additional panels and panelists, but don’t wait to register for the conference and reserve your hotel room. There are a limited number of rooms reserved for the conference, and the discounted rate will soon expire, so take the time now to confirm your plans. We look forward to seeing you in Chicago!

The Network For Public Education | 2015 National Conference – Chicago:

The Network For Public Education | 2015 National Conference – Chicago:

The Network For Public Education | 2015 National Conference – Chicago

 http://bit.ly/1H49wJr

Competing Visions: President Obama, House Budget Com, Senate Budget Com Release Budget Proposals for 2016

Competing Visions: President Obama, House Budget Committee, Senate Budget Committee, and Congressional Progressive Caucus Release Budget Proposals for 2016:

Competing Visions: President Obama, House Budget Committee, Senate Budget Committee, and Congressional Progressive Caucus Release Budget Proposals for 2016

March 19, 2015 - Download PDF Version

National Priorities Project examines how new budget proposals stack up against Americans' priorities.

By Jasmine Tucker

Competing Visions: President Obama, House Budget Committee, Senate Budget Committee, and Congressional Progressive Caucus Release Budget Proposals for 2016:

Don’t Close Schools, Fix Schools! «Education Talk New Orleans Education Talk New Orleans

Don’t Close Schools, Fix Schools! «Education Talk New Orleans Education Talk New Orleans:

Don’t Close Schools, Fix Schools!

 For many years parents and special education advocates have alerted the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) of special education violations in the charter system in New Orleans. Years before the creation of the Recovery School District (RSD), I did the same with the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB). In my experience as an advocate, the problems we saw with OPSB schools and special education, pale in comparison to what we see now with this new landscape of public education in New Orleans. Worse yet, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) and the LDOE believes that an adequate solution to thespecial education violations at Lagniappe Academies, is to close the school. These same entities did not exact that punishment on other schools in New Orleans that also violated special education laws. The Southern Poverty Law Center detailed numerous violations over a period of several years in multiple schools, in their federal complaint and subsequent federal lawsuit. Yet, not one school in New Orleans over the last 4 years was closed due to special education violations. Nor is closing schools an element in the Consent Decree to correct those violations. When I think back to my own children’s schools, even on my maddest day at McMain High School, when the principal refused to provide an accommodation that my son needed, I never saw closing the school as the solution to that violation. It is illogical to me to close a school to fix a special education violation.   I do not support closing schools, as a form of accountability, not even the closure of charter schools. There are better solutions that punish the violators, and do not destabilize the education of children. I support corrective action plans to correct the problems so that children can get special education services they need. I support revoking charter contracts and returning schools to the elected school board as an option that shows that the department of education is tough on special education violations. It should be the decision of the elected school board whether or not to seek a new charter operator or run the school as a direct operated school. The department of education has had it’s chance at operating public education as a business, and when charter schools fail to uphold the law, it’s time for their participation in the experiment to end in a responsible way that protects children.   When the state department of education failed to provide adequate monitoring and oversight of Lagniappe Academy and other charter schools in New Orleans for years, it set the stage for the alleged egregious violations at Lagniappe Academies. The  (LDOE) Louisiana Department of Education does not have the staff or the funding to look deeply into every charter school to uncover special education violations that are not exposed by parent complaints or whistleblowers, but it should if it wants to continue to recommend charter schools as a solution to our troubled public education system. Clearly such a wide open, market based system of independent, privately managed charter schools with expanded autonomy, deserves a robust system of monitoring and oversight. The Louisiana Legislature, The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Louisiana Department of Education share equally in the blame with the Lagniappe Academies Charter Board and administration for the violations discovered after being tipped off by 2 former Lagniappe Academies employees. In a system built on the idea of choice, there is a responsibility to protect the choice Don’t Close Schools, Fix Schools! «Education Talk New Orleans Education Talk New Orleans:

Why is an activist who has fought charter schools fighting to keep a charter school open?: Jarvis DeBerry

"The last thing I want to do is be seen as fighting for a charter school," Karran Harper Royal said Monday morning. "Trust me."

There may be no more consistent voice against the charter school movement in New Orleans than Harper Royal. And there probably isn't anybody who has spoken as loudly or as frequently on behalf of students with special needs.

So I was stunned - absolutely confused and befuddled - when the Louisiana Department of Education announced it would shut down Lagniappe Academies for not educating its special needs students and the city's best known anti-charter, pro-special-education crusader criticized the move.

At a March 11 board meeting of the Lagniappe Academies governing board, Harper Royal told board members that they should consider seeking a temporary restraining order to keep the school open beyond this school year. And she sought me out on Twitter Saturday to say that the state is punishing Lagniappe's children for the sins of Lagniappe's adults.

Still, Lagniappe is a charter school. And not just that, but a charter that, according to the report, often operated with no regard for the education of its students with special needs. Does Harper Royal not believe the state's allegations are true?

Oh, she believes them. She made that clear during our Monday conversation. "I think this stuff absolutely happens," she said, referring to the report's findings that some special needs students weren't being taught at all.

To the naked eye, it might look like I'm not tough on these special-ed violations." -- Karran Harper Royal

"To the naked eye," she said, "it might look like I'm not tough on these special-ed violations," but what she'd prefer is the state not further disrupt and displace families whose educational experience in New Orleans has been characterized by disruption and displacement.

Harper Royal spun her laptop around to show me a spreadsheet she's created. By her count, since 2009, 24 schools in New Orleans have been closed, forcing 4,393 students to seek an education elsewhere. If Lagniappe and Miller-McCoy Academy are closed at the end of this year, the count will be 26 schools and 4,938 students, she said.

"That's totally unacceptable to me," she said, "that we would displace that many children."

One of the arguments for charter schools is the relative ease at which they can be shut down for underperforming. A school that's not cutting it can have its charter revoked and be erased out of existence. But our conversation revealed that Harper Royal doesn't see that as a feature of charter schools but as a bug.

She sees it as inherently problematic to shut down a school and, thus, destabilize a child's education, problematic to tell parents they're free to choose a school and then shut down that school soon after they do.

The Department of Education, which Harper Royal says should have been evaluating if and how charters are teaching students with special needs, has "a responsibility to protect the choice that the parent has made." Last summer, she talked to some of the people standing in criminally long lines to choose a school for their children to attend this year. At the end of that exhausting process, some of those parents chose Lagniappe. Now those parents have been tossed right back into another school selection process.

Instead of putting parents through that again, she argued, the state should have sought a new charter operator for Lagniappe.

Harper Royal believes that the refusal to properly educate students with special needs is endemic in New Orleans, that it was a problem when the Orleans Parish School Board ran all the schools and that it has only become worse since so many schools have 

Why is an activist who has fought charter schools fighting to keep a charter school open?: Jarvis DeBerry | NOLA.com http://bit.ly/1FLEBA2

Student Privacy Debate Dominates Assembly Panel’s Meeting on PARCC Tests - NJ Spotlight

Student Privacy Debate Dominates Assembly Panel’s Meeting on PARCC Tests - NJ Spotlight:

STUDENT PRIVACY DEBATE DOMINATES ASSEMBLY PANEL’S MEETING ON PARCC TESTS

JOHN MOONEY | MARCH 20, 2015

Lawmakers, education officials at loggerheads over monitoring of student postings on social media

Audience members listen to debate over student privacy and PARCC during yesterday's Assembly education committee meeting.

Student privacy issues have suddenly moved to the forefront of the debate over the state’s controversial new PARCC tests, as state legislators yesterday grappled with how to protect students and their personal information.

The Assembly education committee meeting wasn’t expected to be an extraordinary one. The committee’s agenda included two PARCC-related bills that were expected to pass easily -- one setting a statewide policy for families refusing to have their children take the tests, and the second creating a task force to study the effectiveness of PARCC. Both passed unanimously and move next to the full Assembly, where passage is also likely before more-uncertain prospects in the Senate.

RELATED LINKS

PARCC Checks of Twitter Feeds Shed Light on Test Security

State DOE Memo on Social Media Monitoring

But the meeting took an unexpected turn when two typically low-profile officials in the state Department of Education testified, at the committee’s request, about the roiling controversy over the test security practices by Pearson, the testing giant administering the PARCC test in New Jersey and 10 other states.

For close to an hour, the department’s chief counsel and its investigations director defended the practices as legal and appropriate, and said security measures being taken are necessary to maintain the integrity of the exam.

At issue specifically is the practice by Pearson, through subcontractor Caveon Test Security, of scanning social media for possible messages by students divulging the contents of the exams.

"We want to ensure that no student is given an unfair competitive advantage by being tipped off to assessment content in advance of taking the assessments," said Patricia Morgan, the department’s chief legal and external affairs officer.

News of the practice came out last week when the Watchung Hills Regional High School District superintendent told colleagues about receiving a late-night call from the department regarding one of her students, who had posted comments on Twitter about the PARCC test after taking it.

Widespread criticism, even beyond NJ

Revelations about the monitoring -- which officials yesterday disclosed had prompted up to a dozen such alerts this year – were met with outrage not just from critics inside the state, but from the likes of American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten and even talk-show host Montel Williams.

Legal or not, legislators yesterday were incredulous about the practice, with state Assemblyman Patrick Deignan (D-Middlesex) calling it an unacceptable. He said he understood the reasoning, but said the remedy far exceeded the threat.

He cited an example of an elementary school student saying something about the test on social media being suddenly called into the principal’s office over a tweet that was tracked by a “third party we have no control over.”

“The response is disproportionate to the concern,” he said. “To have a fifth-grader called into the principal for a tweet, it’s chilling.”

Others were even more critical, questioning where the state has the powers to carry out such investigations of individual students. State Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-Essex) said local districts are responsible for monitoring their students, not the state.

“Where is your authority?” he asked Morgan several times.

The department was clearly left on the defensive, even as Morgan explained that Student Privacy Debate Dominates Assembly Panel’s Meeting on PARCC Tests - NJ Spotlight:

Between PARCC and a Hard Place - Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association:

Between PARCC and a Hard Place

Originally posted on Buckeye BATs Blog Board  https://buckeyebats.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/between-parcc-and-a-hard-place/

Torn. Emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually torn. At present, this is my frame of mind. The conscience wrestling is exhausting and draining me at every moment. It does not stop. An endless loop of guilt, pain, and frustration haunts me both night and day.

The braver, bolder me begs to shout from the rooftops that I will not go gently into that good night. I will not surrender my knowledge, my experiences, or my beliefs because the feds or the state say I must. I will not knowingly inflict harm on those entrusted to my care. I will not fail them, nor will I fail the faith they place in me. I have earned their faith in me and I will put my all on the line to stand up for them. I will not administer PARCC.

Then, what? Not easily done, but shifting of proctors could and would occur. My students, ultimately, will take the sacred tests. Even if I refuse to give the tests, they will be subjected to the very harm to which I object. And the cycle starts all over again.

The meeker, more timid me still clings to the belief that I can soften the harsh blows my students will endure. I can be present to give reassuring nods, thumbs up, smiles, and try to remind them of humanity behind the madness controlling our schools. I can help them to relax with a corny joke or by reminding them to use deep, cleansing yoga breaths. I cannot abandon them in what I foresee to be their greatest moment of need.

I can only relate to how dismal the testing experience has been up until this point. But this year promises to bring a whole new horror to our school district. In sixth grade alone, mandated tests will increase from four hours to thirteen hours and twenty minutes. I do not want my students to face this at all, but if they must, I need to be there for them and with them. And the cycle starts all over again.

As the testing window nears, the pressure builds. A million questions race through my mind. Am I enabling abusive testing policies? Am I abandoning those who I swore to protect? Am I able to provide the antidote to their testing ills? Am I able to be content with either decision? Am I able to follow the rules and my heart? Can they overlap at all? These are but a few of the questions that scream in my mind both consciously and subconsciously. A non-stop swirl of torture.

While I am not sure which me will win, I continue to wrestle with the consequences of either path I choose. When I dreamed of being a teacher, I imagined such trivial problems compared to those I actually encounter as a veteran of the profession. I never could have imagined the dilemma I now face. I never could have imagined a vision of education for our country defined in termsBadass Teachers Association:

Schools Matter: Alliance corporate charters, teacher organizing, and moral imperatives

Schools Matter: Alliance corporate charters, teacher organizing, and moral imperatives:

Alliance corporate charters, teacher organizing, and moral imperatives

First published on solidaridad on March 19, 2015

---

"The shady nature of Alliance's real estate dealings, their dismal SAT scores and CSU remediation rates, and their refusal to educate every child are all compelling… [a]llowing these private entities to cherry pick students and avoid educating the most vulnerable and needy students is immoral. Taking a strong stand as a community against that kind of discrimination sends a strong message to these corporate schools that we demand equity for all our students." — Robert D. Skeels

The announcement that the nascent Alliance Educators United joined with United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) in order to empower their force of professional educators to advocate for their students is exciting news indeed. That this is occurring at Alliance Corporate Charters is noteworthy. We are witnessing authentic organizing in the belly of the beast — given how Alliance was formed by Republican venture capitalist Richard "Dick" Riordan and his cabal of profit-hungry businessmen as a means of trying to discredit public education. Alliance's top-down, business-rather-than-pedagogy informed methodologies have failed miserably. For example, in 2013: five of the seventy-five lowest SAT performers in LAUSD were Alliance schools. Add to their educational leadership vacuum administrators fixated on personal financial gain, rather than school community building, and you have Alliance's recipe for disaster. This is why they have had major teacher turn-over issues. Alliance's educators have been poorly treated, and they were fearful to advocate for their students against Alliance's business-banker management culture.

Unionized educators will go a long way towards addressing some of Alliance's more egregious practices.

There's another dimension to this story. In 2010 UTLA drafted their UTLA Proposed Charter School Policy document outlining a set of social justice principles that the union stated it "expects that all charter schools adhere to". These well reasoned expectations are very much like the demands put forth by the Honorable Jackie Goldberg founded Transparency, Equity, and Accountability in Charter Schools (TEAch) organization. Everyone should join TEACh, even families with children enrolled in privately managed charter schools.

Want to encourage both UTLA and Alliance Educators United to keep the UTLA Proposed Charter School Policy in mind for all their future organizing, and hope that they will transform many of those principles into concrete demands that Alliance begin to treat their students right. I'm including the UTLA Press Release, the UTLA Proposed Charter School Policy, and TEAch's mission statement below. I hope these serve to ignite a conversation about how we can force the lucrative charter school industry to finally place student need above corporate greed!

---

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MARCH 14, 2015
 

CONTACT:

Josh Kamensky, 323-205-6634
josh@smogtownstrategies.com
Kim Turner, 213-305-9316
kturner@utla.net


ALLIANCE CHARTER SCHOOL EDUCATORS ANNOUNCE FORMATION OF UNION
TEACHERS, COUNSELORS AT LA’S LARGEST CHARTER SCHOOL CHAIN SEEK A VOICE TO ADVOCATE FOR STUDENTS

Teachers and counselors at Alliance College-Ready Public Schools announced Friday that in order to achieve the highest quality learning environment for their students and working environment for themselves at their fast-growing charter school organization, they are organizing a union at their schools.

Educators maintain that having a respected voice in all decisions impacting teaching and learning is critical to ensuring a strong foundation of student-focused, teacher-led collaboration. “I believe that using the teacher’s voice in policymaking for our schools is the surest way to develop the best environment for our students and to create a legacy of greatness for the Alliance,” said history teacher Elana Goldbaum.

Alliance College-Ready Public Schools began operations in 2004 with the opening of Alliance Gertz-Ressler High School in the Pico-Union neighborhood. Today, with 550 teachers and counselors serving 11,000 students at 26 schools, it is the largest charter operator authorized by the Los Angeles Unified School District. The organization’s Board of Directors includes some of Los Angeles’s most active civic figures, including former mayor Richard Riordan and former ambassador and investment banker Frank Baxter.

“By giving teachers a voice in the decision making at Alliance, we can ensure that we are allocating resources appropriately and serving our kids in the best way possible,” said teacher Xochil Johansen of Stern Math and Science School. Added teacher Aaron Livingston, “Organizing the union will help the Alliance keep good teachers from leaving.”

Many Alliance educators note that retaining and recruiting talented staff is vital for student success and the well-being of the school Schools Matter: Alliance corporate charters, teacher organizing, and moral imperatives:

From Crenshaw to Hartsville: Race, Poverty, and Education Reform | the becoming radical

From Crenshaw to Hartsville: Race, Poverty, and Education Reform | the becoming radical:

FROM CRENSHAW TO HARTSVILLE: RACE, POVERTY, AND EDUCATION REFORM

In order to avoid the existential hell known as I-85 where morning commuters creep along bug-like in a daily Kafkan nightmare, I take winding backroads through the Upstate of South Carolina to my university.

Recently, I noticed a real estate sign advertising a new neighborhood with an added bright yellow sign above signaling, “RIVERSIDE SCHOOLS.”

Children in this housing development will attend, eventually, Riverside High, which is ranked 13th lowest of 237 SC high schools in the 2014 Poverty Index, has Excellent/Excellent ratings on the 2014 SC report card, and tests only 51/341 students on subsidized meals and 25/341 with limited English proficiency:

Among four other comparable high schools in the state, they all are rated Excellent:

Having placed student teachers at Riverside High, and knowing faculty there, I can attest that this is a wonderful school, and students are both supported and challenged.

The real estate sign struck me especially since I had viewed two new educational documentaries: Crenshaw, a film by activist Lena Jackson on the Los Angeles school, and 180 Days: Hartsville, focusing on two schools—Thornwell School for the Arts and West Hartsville Elementary School—along the infamous I-95 Corridor of Shame in my home state of SC.

While nearly 2500 miles apart and politically/culturally worlds apart, Los Angeles and Hartsville reflect powerful narratives about the intersections of race, poverty, and education reform. As well, they offer nuance to those intersections since Creshaw High is high-poverty, majority-minority in an urban setting while Hartsville’s elementary schools are high-poverty, majority-minorty in the rural South.

Before discussing each documentary separately, let me highlight what they share as entry points into reconsidering race, poverty, and education reform:

• Public schools both serve and reflect the communities within which they sit.
• Race and poverty significantly impact academic achievement, and thus, when schools, teachers, and students are labeled, ranked, and judged by test scores, high-poverty and majority-minority schools are disproportionately identified as “failing.”
• Political leadership often expresses support for education and public schools, but implements policies that appear tone deaf to the communities they represent.
• Education reform advocates ignore the failure of popular policies.
• Demands of effort and not embracing excuses dominate political and educational rhetoric (despite ample evidence that effort is trumped by racism/classism).
• Parents, students, and teachers are often passionate about education, regardless of economic status or race.

Crenshaw: Disenfranchising through Take Over Strategies

Crenshaw is, as David B. Cohen explains, a “cautionary tale” about school take overs narrowly and education reform From Crenshaw to Hartsville: Race, Poverty, and Education Reform | the becoming radical:

Bad Apples: One Company's Stranglehold on the American Education System | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:

Bad Apples: One Company's Stranglehold on the American Education System

'The story of Pearson’s rise is very much a story about America’s obsession with education reform over the past few decades.'

"Pearson has aggressive lobbyists, top-notch marketing and a highly skilled sales team," Politico reports. (Photo: Christoffer Glosli/flickr/cc)

Pearson Education, the British-owned, for-profit education publishing and high-stakes testing service, rakes in tens of millions in profits at all levels of the American education system—"even when its results don't measure up," a Politico investigation has revealed.

The exposé published Tuesday illustrates some of the many problems with outsourcing aspects of public education to private corporations.

And, Robert Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest, told Common Dreams, it provides further evidence that the for-profit testing model benefits corporations and not students.

"Testing is about politics and business—not education," he said, pointing out that the reporting merely adds to a "litany of errors" already documented against the company.

"The story of Pearson’s rise is very much a story about America’s obsession with education reform over the past few decades," writes journalist Stephanie Simon, who scoured hundreds of pages of contracts, business plans and email exchanges, as well as tax filings, lobbying reports, and marketing materials, to offer the first comprehensive look at Pearson's business practices in the United States.

The Pearson empire is wide-ranging, as Politico describes it.

The education behemoth writes textbooks, workbooks, and standardized tests "that drive instruction in public schools across the nation," says Simon. It has developed myriad educational technology products, including software that grades student essays, tracks student behavior, and diagnoses—and allegedly "treats"—attention deficit disorder. At the other end of the pipeline, the company administers teacher licensing exams and coaches teachers once they're in the classroom.

Beyond that, Pearson operates a network of three dozen online public schools and co-owns the for-profit company that now administers the GED. In addition, it sells interactive tutorials for college courses on subjects from algebra to philosophy and builds online degree programs for higher education clients including George Washington University, Arizona State University, and Texas A&M.

At ASU, for instance, Pearson is in charge of marketing and supporting online degree programs in exchange for more than half of student tuition revenue.

Plus, Simon adds, "[a] top executive boasted in 2012 that Pearson is the largest custodian of student data anywhere" thanks to its data-tracking programs.

In other words, she writes: "Pearson wields enormous influence over American education."

Michael Apple, a professor of education policy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Politico: "Pearson has been the most creative and the most aggressive at [taking over] all those things we used to take as part of the public sector's responsibility."

Abby Rapaport wrote for the Texas Observer in 2011, "Pearson is part of a larger education-reform effort that seeks to improve public education through free-market principles. Often that means non-traditional educational approaches like charter schools and online learning. The movement includes a lot of earnest folks, eager to improve public schools and do what’s best for kids. But their efforts have earned a fortune for companies like Pearson."

Indeed, Simon's reporting "found that public contracts and public subsidies—including at least $98.5 million in tax credits from six states—have flowed to Pearson even when the company can’t show its products and services are producing academic gains."

In California, for example:

Pearson sold the Los Angeles Unified School District an online curriculum that it described as revolutionary—but that had not yet been completed, much less tested across a large district, before the LAUSD agreed to spend an estimated $135 million on it. Teachers dislike the Pearson lessons and rarely use them, an independent evaluation found.

Similar debacles, all with slightly different price tags and details—unmet testing targets Bad Apples: One Company's Stranglehold on the American Education System | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community: