Pearson is a funder of Jeb Bush's Education Foundation.
12/21/14, "King of Common Core Pearson Closes Charitable Foundation Amid Legal Troubles," Breitbart, Dr. Susan Berry
"Publishing giant Pearson Inc. is set to rake in billions of dollars in profits related to the implementation of the Common Core standards, but the corporation is now dealing with legal problems exposing some of its suspicious methods that have led to its status as the King of Common Core.
The Pearson Charitable Foundation states it is closing following “a decision by Pearson plc to integrate all of its corporate responsibility activities and functions into its business as a way to maximize social impact and to no longer fund the Foundation as the primary vehicle for its philanthropic and community activities.”
The truth is, however, that corporate Pearson is closing down its charitable foundation following problems with the law that have exposed some of its methods in acquiring business.
As...reported in December 2013, the Pearson Foundation agreed to a $7.7 million settlement with the state of New York [dated 12/12/13] after accusations by the state’s attorney general that the foundation helped develop Common Core-aligned courses for Pearson, Inc., its corporate parent.
The settlement describes the nature of the conflicts:
"Pearson and the Foundation have a close working relationship. The Foundation’s staff has consisted of Pearson employees; the Foundation’s board was comprised entirely of Pearson executives until 2012; select Foundation programs have been conducted with the advice and participation of senior Pearson executives; and the Foundation continues to rely heavily upon Pearson Inc. for administrative support…
From 2008 through 2011, the Foundation provided grants to an independent organization of school officials in the U.S. for a jointly sponsored International Summit program, a series of conferences on education that were held abroad and attended by state school officials. The Foundation and Pearson also worked with the organization to plan and organize the International Summits, to identify speakers and presenters and in some cases to recommend school officials from participating countries. Since Pearson offers products and services throughout the U.S. and in many other countries, the school officials who were invited were from jurisdictions where Pearson actively did business and sought to do business. The travel and lodging of state school officials from the U.S. were paid for by the organization of school officials, with the use of Foundation grant funds. The Foundation independently sponsored the travel and lodging of guest speakers, presenters, and summit delegates, including school officials, from foreign countries. In some cases, the non-U.S. delegates who were invited to attend the International Summits were nominated by Pearson personnel."
In October, Breitbart News also reported a scandal in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) in which Superintendent John Deasy, former employee of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, resigned after pushing a $1.3 billion iPad buy for every child in his district from joint sellers Apple and Pearson, the latter of which had designed a companion iPad curriculum. The program was a huge failure and led to further scrutiny of Deasy’s close personal ties with Apple and Pearson.
The Los Angeles Times further noted earlier this month that the FBI was conducting a criminal investigation into the failed LAUSD iPad program and had seized 20 boxes of records related to the matter. A federal grand jury is reportedly studying the situation.
According to Alan Singer at the Huffington Post, a Washington Post interview with Marc Harris, former chief of the public corruption and government fraud unit at the Los Angeles office of the U.S. Attorney, said that such irregularities in the bidding process would be considered a federal crime if federal funds were involved or the case was a matter of fraud against taxpayers by public servants.
Singer indicates that email records point to improper contacts between Deasy and an assistant superintendent, with Apple and Pearson executives before the bidding process opened. In addition, it is believed that Pearson officials may have actually fashioned the final proposal.
He continues:
"The LAUSD request for proposals was not issued until six months later in March 2013. However, there are a series of emails between Pearson CEO Marjorie Scardino and LAUSD officials starting in May 2012 and September 11, 2012; Sherry King of the Pearson Foundation emailed John Deasy, Superintendent of Los Angeles schools, setting up a lunch meeting at a restaurant in Santa Monica that included Judy Codding, a Pearson Education corporate field representative. According [to] School Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines, who replaced John Deasy, who resigned under pressure in October, the bidding process for the iPad contract had been plagued by “innuendoes” and “rumors.”"
In a thorough overview of the nature of the tight relationship between Pearson and the Gates Foundation – the primary source of private funding of the Common Core education initiative, Nancy Thorner of Lake Bluff, Illinois wrote in a letter to the editor of the Madison-St. Clair Record, “[T]he Gates Foundation joined forces with the Pearson Foundation, a British multi-national conglomerate, representing the largest private business maneuvering for U.S. education dollars. Pearson executives saw the potential to secure lucrative contracts in testing, textbooks and software worth tens of millions of dollars.”
Thorner continues with a description of the Gates-Pearson partnership in the creation of digital instruction resources for teachers that would demonstrate how to teach the new Common Core standards. Additionally, she notes how the Gates-Pearson association has provided support to the Education Development Center (EDC), Inc. in Waltham, Massachusetts, a company that designs teacher evaluation programs, a major component of the Common Core standards.
EDC is funded not only by the Gates Foundation and Pearson Education, but has also received federal funding and donations from UNESCO and the World Health Organization. Its board of trustees includes Anne Bryant of the National School Boards Association and Judy Codding, Managing Director of the Pearson Common Core Initiative.
Pearson VUE, the corporation’s assessment services wing, has also acquired Exam Design, a company that develops examination software.
From training teachers in how to instruct in the Common Core methods, to student textbook and digital learning materials aligned with the standards, to evaluation of teachers, to student assessments, Pearson’s partnership with the Gates Foundation has led to its place as the King of Common Core.
The increasing unpopularity of the education reform, however, will likely lead to further scrutiny of Pearson’s already questionable practices."
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12/13/13, "Pearson pays $7.7 million in Common Core settlement," Washington Post, Lyndsey Layton
"Pearson Charitable Foundation, the nonprofit arm of educational publishing giant Pearson Inc., has agreed to pay a $7.7 million settlement to New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman after he determined that the foundation had created Common Core products to generate “tens of millions of dollars” for its corporate sister.
“The law on this is clear: non-profit foundations cannot misuse charitable assets to benefit their affiliated for-profit corporations,” Schneiderman said in a statement Thursday.
The investigation by the attorney general examined Pearson’s efforts since 2010 to develop a line of classroom materials and tests built around the Common Core, new K-12 academic standards in reading and math that have been fully adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia."...
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5/4/14, "Education Giant Pearson Wins 'Unprecedented' Common Core Test Contract," Breitbart, Dr. Susan Berry
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10/18/14, "LA Schools Superintendent gets Pension Spike, then Resigns," Breitbart, Chriss Street
"Mr. Deasy’s tenure as Superintendent has been incredibly controversial. He championed a $1 billion-dollar expenditure on iPads from Apple Computer and Common Core curriculum from Pearson Publications. But when the program failed miserably and was suspended, Deasy received criticism over his close personal ties to both corporations due to his work at the Gates Foundation pushing Common Core."...
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12/2/14, "FBI seizes LAUSD records related to troubled iPad program," LA Times,
"The subpoena demanded that the district produce a wide array of documents related to deals with Apple, maker of the iPad, and curriculuum provider Pearson, the companies that won a lucrative, multiyear contract."...
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12/15/14, "Pearson Education Can Run, But It Cannot Hide," Huffington Post, Alan Singer
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11/25/14, "Reaping tens of millions from Common Core: The Gates/Pearson Partnership," Madison-St. Clair Record, Letter to the Editor
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Nine US federal agencies give taxpayer money to EDC:
- "NASA
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Agency for International Development
- U.S. Department of Education
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
- U.S. Department of Justice
- U.S. Department of Labor
- U.S. Department of State
- U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
International
- Bernard van Leer Foundation
- Department for International Development
- Pan American Health Organization
- UNESCO
- The World Bank Group
- World Health Organization"
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==============================
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12/18/14, "WSJ: Jeb Bush Should Just Change ‘Polarizing Common Core’ Name," Breitbart, Dr. Susan Berry
"The Wall Street Journal editorial board took a turn at Jonathan Gruber’s strategy in getting Obamacare passed. The board advised Jeb Bush that if he wants to win the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, he should simply change the “polarizing” name of the (Common Core) standards he continues to champion, suggesting that conservatives won’t know the difference.
The board wrote (on 12/16) that Mr. Bush need not repudiate his support for national education standards, though he should disavow President Obama’s use of the federal purse to coerce states to impose them. The polls showed that nearly as many Republicans as Democrats support high standards as long as the polarizing “Common Core” name is removed. GOP Governors Bobby Jindal (Louisiana) and Mike Pence (Indiana) have already dumped the label and kept similar standards....
.
Such a condescending view of conservatives seems in line with Gruber’s calling American taxpayers “stupid.” The WSJ
editorial board demonstrated that it is out of touch with the
conservative base of the Republican Party, so much so that it believes
Gov. Mike Pence (R) of Indiana is in the clear because he simply
“rebranded” the Common Core standards with another name.
As Breitbart News observed
in April when Pence approved the new Hoosier standards – strikingly
similar to Common Core – Erin Tuttle, co-organizer of Hoosiers Against
Common Core, reflected the uproar of parents against the controversial
standards when she said, “For all Pence’s claims of federalism, his
signature legislation removing Indiana from the Common Core required the
new standards to ‘comply with federal standards to receive a
flexibility waiver.’”
Conveniently for Common Core proponents,
the only standards that “comply with federal standards to receive a
flexibility waiver” are the Common Core standards.
“[Pence’s] Hoosier process was predicated
on satisfying the federal government, thus resulting in a rebrand of
the Common Core,” Tuttle added. “This was all about delivering a
predetermined result, a set of standards with almost perfect alignment
to the Common Core to satisfy the US Department of Education.”
Regarding Bush, the editors at the National Review noted
the similar lack of conservatism in his approach to education policy.
“His support for raising educational standards is laudable,” they said,
“but his idea that a push for nationally uniform standards is the right
way to achieve this goal is misguided.”
Bush is celebrating the 15th anniversary of his Gates-funded Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE). Other donors to FEE include News Corp, which owns the WSJ,
Bloomberg Philanthropies, mega textbook publisher Pearson, and
publishers Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, K12, and Scholastic.
Additionally,
former New York City schools Chancellor Joel Klein, now CEO of Amplify,
a digital learning company that is a subsidiary of News Corp, is on
FEE’s board of directors.
Bush’s relationships with textbook and
digital learning companies that will profit from the Common Core
standards must not be overlooked.
As Pulse: North Carolina Watch pointed out,
“The country’s virtual education market happens to be dominated by two
companies, K12, Inc…and Connections Academy, a subsidiary of Pearson,
an educational publishing company also traded on Wall Street. … Both
companies employed lobbyists in North Carolina last year.”
These companies with which Bush has formed relationships are, in fact, being closely scrutinized themselves.
Pearson Education, for example, is closing its charitable foundation after a series of legal problems.
As Breitbart News reported in December
of 2013, the Pearson Foundation agreed to a $7.7 million settlement
with the state of New York after accusations by the state’s attorney
general that the foundation helped develop Common Core-aligned courses
for Pearson, Inc., its corporate parent.
In October, Breitbart News also reported a
scandal in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) in which
Superintendent John Deasy, former employee of the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, resigned after pushing a $1.3 billion iPad buy for every
child in his district from Apple and Pearson Publications. The program
was a huge failure and led to further scrutiny of Deasy’s close personal
ties with Apple and Pearson.
The Los Angeles Times further
reported earlier this month that the FBI was also conducting a criminal
investigation into the failed LAUSD iPad program and had seized 20
boxes of records related to the matter. A federal grand jury is
reportedly studying the situation.
Additionally, both Alan Singer at the Huffington Post and Mercedes Schneider noted that Pearson, which was awarded the assessment contract by the PARCC interstate consortium in what was
described as a contract of “unprecedented scale,” is losing states that
were once signed on to PARCC for their assessments. Schneider reported
that only ten states will be using PARCC tests this school year.
As for K12, Bloomberg reported
last month that the largest operator of online public schools in the
United States “was heralded as the next revolution in schooling,” with
backing from billionaire Michael Milken and praise from Bush. The
company, however, has not delivered and has been “plagued by subpar test
scores,” loss of management contracts, and has been “threatened with
school shutdowns in five states this year.”
Bloomberg also observed that the National
Collegiate Athletic Association has decided that students can no longer
count credits from 24 of the K12 virtual high schools toward
scholarships.
Conservative author Michelle Malkin wrote that
Bush’s agenda is the one he shares with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
one that serves as champion for “mass legalization of cheap, illegal
alien workers” and a “top-down, privacy-undermining, local
autonomy-sabotaging Common Core racket.”
“Jeb’s problem isn’t just Common Core.
It’s that he has no core,” Malkin says. “Instead of retreating from the
costly federalized scheme that has alienated teachers, administrators,
and parents of all backgrounds, Bush has doubled down with his Fed Ed
control freak allies and corporate donors.”"
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12/16/14, "Jeb Bush and the Right," Wall St. Journal Editorial Board
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