School+Privatization

Questions:
 * Who is profiting from public schools? What is the process for for-profit entities gaining public school contracts? What are the fiscal, educational, and political consequences?
 * What role are Pearson and other large corporations playing? Are a handful of corporations monopolizing the public education market?
 * If the public are "shareholders" in public education, what say does the public have in awarding these contracts? What level of transparency exists?

http://heldref-publications.metapress.com/media/hhwx2jyvyq7vpqrgtav0/contributions/f/4/k/t/f4kt03622pm30h40.pdf

Had to find a free version of an article at this website that would have had to pay for from heldref-publictions. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/ref/10.1080/00098650903505472#tabModule
 * Many standardized tests make it possible for many study aids and "boost-your-score" classes and continual publishing of newer versions of textbooks that cater to each states standard and national tests.
 * State specific versions are complete with charts matching state standards to the text's content.
 * Textbook companies also benefit from printing and distributing the test materials.
 * Major publishing company Pearson, describes themselves as "an international media and education company with businesses in education, business information and consumer publishing."
 * Pearson has a multi-year, mult-million dollar contracts with more than 30 state departments of education to provide statewide tests.
 * Test prep giant Kaplan made a $2.3 billion profit last year.
 * All while school districts face budget crises, the testing industry and purveyors of the materials have become financial giants.
 * This crisis has turned many schools into adopting the preparing the students for tests at the expense of higher-level thinking skills and taking away from mandated curriculum.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/08-9
 * Pearson is a London-based mega-corporation that owns the //Financial Times//, Penguin Books, Prentice Hall, Pearson Longman, Madame Tussauds wax museums, stake in investment bank Lazard, Simon & Schuster’s education businesses, National Computer Systems, and also dominates the business of educating American children.
 * The company promotes its many education-related products on a website that features an idyllic, make-believe town. It’s call it Pearsonville and looks like the international conglomerate version of SimCity.
 * Pearson now creates the tools to grade the tests and the software to analyze student performance.
 * For Texas statewide testing, Pearson holds a five-year contract worth nearly $500 million to create and administer exams. If students should fail those tests, Pearson offers a series of remedial-learning products to help them pass.
 * Virtual classes are usually subcontracted to Pearson.
 * For drop out students, Pearson partners with the American Council on Education to offer the GED exam for a profit.
 * Companies such as Pearson operating in Texas and many other states, the U.S. education system has become increasingly privatized. Almost every other aspect of educating children—exams, textbooks, online classes, even teacher certification—is now provided by for-profit companies.
 * Past two decades have seen a push for reform pushing for more standardized testing and accountability and for more alternatives to the traditional classroom..most of which has been supplied by private companies.
 * Despite Pearson’s prevalence in nearly every sector of public education, state officials say they maintain oversight. The Texas Education Agency monitors Pearson’s test development and often works side-by-side with the company.
 * Pearson readily deploying high-powered lobbyists.
 * Pearson pays six lobbyists to advocate for the company’s legislative agenda at the Texas Capitol—often successfully.
 * This legislative session, lawmakers cut an unprecedented $5 billion from public education, including funding for a variety of programs to help struggling students improve their performance on state tests.
 * Uneffected, Pearson’s funding streams remain largely intact.
 * Pearson is part of a larger education-reform effort that seeks to improve public education through free-market principles.

http://www.susanohanian.org/show_nclb_outrages.php?id=3929
 * Pearson expands their current markets through the push for national standards.
 * With an increased profit by 46% at the height of the recession, the push for improvement in schools has only helped line the pockets of companies such as Pearson.
 * Pearson is set up to profit even more from Obama's push for common state standards in math and reading.
 * "The implementation of core standards would reduce the burden Pearson faces in adapting materials to individual state requirements. It could also open up an opportunity for Pearson to win a new contract measuring the progress of that common-standards initiative."
 * Actively uses their tax-free philanthropy funding to finance research, policy papers and other media which intern push government reforms that increase achievement and the need for tools to measure it, which person so happens to sell.
 * Pearson has partnered with Driscoll, the former Massachusetts Commissioner of Education and chairman of the NAGB which overseas "The Nation's Report Card" All about promoting standards to teachers.
 * Most teachers see mobile electronic devices as a major obstacle to student focus within the learning environment, Pearson-promoted studies use foundation money to press the need for "Pockets of Potential: Using Mobile Technologies to Promote Children's Learning."
 * "benchmark assessments."
 * Pearson even offers for-profit services in helping companies strategically apply for Race to the Top funding.
 * What is more concerning is the extent to which we have allowed public education to be effectively controlled by the education improvement industry and the accountability measurement organization.
 * Until the general population is made aware of how school improvement and accountability that serves it are being used to subvert their power over education, it seems likely that policy will continue to be dominated by reform's fundamentally anti-democratic agenda.

http://epx.sagepub.com/content/21/1/7.short - Find this from the library

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=FZ6w-7UkpawC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=privatization+of+American+education&ots=ohc-sunRpC&sig=895WDL6ognlxBiOGy9UGsxiiR6U#v=onepage&q=privatization%20of%20American%20education&f=false - Find this from library

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=uChtKg6h7h0C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=privatization+of+American+education&ots=3TnZnd4u0-&sig=sXlFDz310x_bAFQeZVuXYiEfEss#v=onepage&q=privatization%20of%20American%20education&f=false - Find this from library