BY JUDITH GRANT This article continues from Part 1, available here. Market Irrationalities But there are other places to cut costs that could conceivably result in a balanced budget. One is administrative bloat, especially at the executive level. Another is intercollegiate athletics. Recent data shows that in 40 states, sports coaches are the highest paid…
Between 6:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. this morning, the Discovery Channel aired the following three 30-minute infomercials:Sexy in Three Weeks!; The Graduate: Learn about Innovative Grad and Undergrad Degrees; and No More Wrinkles! The middle of those three infomercials has been produced by Tribune Media for Western Governors University. One alternative to conventional, on-site delivery…
Marty Kich has provided a useful supplement to Aaron’s review with respect to standardized testing in Texas by quoting extensively from an account of the role played by British educational conglomerate Pearson. He also quotes from two reports on the process by which Texas selects textbooks, in which ideological factors often play an outsized and…
In the mid-1990s, Pearson, which, to that point, had been a media conglomerate, set out to become the world’s largest publisher of textbooks. Within a decade, it bought up most of the most recognizable imprints—and most of those that it didn’t buy up have been bought up by its major competitor, McGraw-Hill. In the early…
The influence of outside money on education has always been strong–and fighting it is one of the reasons the AAUP came into existence. Rarely, though, do we educators have real power over the source of that money. In the case of Pearson, however, we can have just that. The company makes a good deal of…
Guest blogger Barbara Madeloni of the UMass Amherst School of Education chose to boycott the Teacher Performance Assessment field test via Pearson. As a result, her contract was not renewed. There is a movement for her reinstatement through a petition that can be signed here. The incursion of for profit companies into higher education occurs with willing collaborators. Whether misguided,…