The NC GOP kicked off April Fools Day in style this year.
LOL, good one #NCGOP ==> Roy Cooper Announces Run for NC Governor… http://t.co/KwiFOMJx8m #ngov #ncpol pic.twitter.com/v6j4xvuX9o
— LL1885 – A.P. Dillon (@LadyLiberty1885) April 1, 2015
There was an accompanying email, which I give a +1 to:
|
|
|
Pearson: Always Earning
Welcome back to Pearson Is Everywhere!
Last time we looked at who was writing the Common Core tests produced by Pearson. Today we’re looking at the massive profits Pearson is making from these tests.
From PRwatch.org: Pearson, ETS, Houghton Mifflin, and McGraw-Hill Lobby Big and Profit Bigger from School Tests
Excerpts:
(Madison, WI)–School testing corporations have spent at least $20 million on lobbying along with wining and dining or even hiring policymakers in pursuit of big revenues from federal and state testing mandates under “No Child Left Behind” measures and the Common Core curriculum, according to a new analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD).
The expanded testing has fueled a testing boom worth nearly $2 billion annually, giving the main corporations getting the testing contracts a huge return on investment for their lobbying while generating a growing backlash from parents across the country.
[…]
Three of the four main testing companies have so far refused to sign the Student Policy Pledge against commercial data mining and, as documented by CMD, Pearson and ETS have a track record of lobbying against privacy protection for kids.
[…]
- Pearson Education: Apart from $8 million spent lobbying from 2009 to 2014, Pearson also underwrote untold sums on luxury trips for school officials. A crackdown by the New York attorney general led to a $7.7 million settlement in 2013, and the shuttering of the “charitable” organization used for the scheme. The company is currently embroiled in a lawsuit in New Mexico for alleged bid rigging when landing an “unprecedented” $1 billion contract for K-12 testing with no other bidders, an allegation the company denied but which warrants greater scrutiny by policymakers.
Snippet from the full PR Watchdog report:
Pearson PLC, based in London, posted revenues of £6.12 billion ($9.43 billion with the current exchange rate) in fiscal year 2013. The same year, CEO John Fallon received a total compensation of £1.7 million ($2.64 million).
While “declines in state assessment contracts,” held back profits in 2012 and 2013, these were more than offset by contracts for federally mandated tests, such as the NAEP, which kept the company from out of the red on the North American market, which accounts for 54% of business.
Since then, the company has expanded its state testing presence dramatically. In the first half of 2014, Pearson administered nine million high-stakes K12 test for a total increase in testing volume by 38% over the same period in 2013.
In the past six months, company shares have seen a dramatic upsurge of 15.5% with a current market capitalization of $17.9 billion. During the same period, the NYSE Composite Index saw a modest 1% increase.
Caveat: Whether increased testing revenue contributed to this is unclear, but it comes in the wake of an “unprecedented” $1 billion deal to administer high-stakes testing for the member states in the PARCC consortium, as well as an expected $500 million dollar contract with Texas. Analysts predict a further “low-single digit boost in the new materials and testing business in 2015.”
Between 2009 and 2014, Pearson spent more than $4.5 million lobbying on Capitol Hill, and a further $3.5 million lobbying state legislatures, primarily in Texas, Florida and California. Vying for a renewed state testing contract worth $500 million, the company spent $580,000 lobbying in Texas last year.
Read the full report from PR Watchdog.
News and Observer Ed blog has an article up quoting Wake County Board member, Jim Martin, on the alleged ‘school to prison pipeline’. The article cites the group “Education Justice Alliance” as taking exception to Martin’s comments.
Excerpt from N&O:
“Certain schools and districts deserve close scrutiny for their harmful practices,” Langberg and Fedders wrote. “Wake County retained its position as the leader in long-term suspensions. It had 10 percent of the state’s public school students but gave out 25 percent of its long-term suspensions.”
Martin came to the district’s defense on Facebook.
“I encourage everyone who cares about this issue to recognize there is not a school-to-prison pipeline,” Martin wrote. “There is a POVERTY-TO-PRISON pipeline. Schools are by no means perfect, but they probably do more to break the poverty-to-prison pipeline than any other organization. No, schools are not yet good enough to completely brake this pipeline. There is plenty more work we need to do. But if schools had a bit more help from the community breaking the cycle of poverty, we could all end any pipeline to prisons.”
For the uninitiated, the main thrust of the ‘school to prison pipeline’ campaign is that minority students are suspended more than white students because school discipline policies allegedly discriminate against minorities.
This perceived discrimination is based on the large number of suspensions or disciplinary cases that involve minority students. It’s a flawed correlation vs causation argument. Somehow, a set of policies is responsible for the actions of certain students?
There’s a punchline to Martin’s comments and the subsequent dismay by the Education Justice Alliance. He and the Wake School Board invited this ‘school to prison pipeline’ of attack in. Keep reading, you’ll see why.
Let’s start with the question: Who is the “Education Justice Alliance”?
EJA is one of the plaintiffs on a lawsuit against multiple sheriff departments with regard to allegations that Wake county schools policies and practices disproportionately discriminate and harm African-American students. This is arguably referring to the “school to prison pipeline”.
See the complaint filing.
The EJA website is registered through “NationBuilder” by Angeline Eschevarria of the left leaning group ‘immigrant and latino’ advocacy group, El Pueblo. El Pueblo is a partner of BlueprintNC and has worked with labor groups and the NC NAACP with great frequency.
EJA is affiliated with the “Youth Organizing Institute” (YOI) and “NC HEAT”.
Read more about NC HEAT and YOI and the groups that back them, such as labor unions.
EJA is a project run by a woman named Rukiya Dillahunt. She’s been featured in the N&O before proposing ‘equality solutions‘ for Wake County Schools.
She and her husband, Ajamu, are long-time activists and are members of a group called ‘Black Workers For Justice’:
“During one protest, veteran BWFJ member Rukiya Dillahunt was chided by a white participant for holding a sign saying “Stop the War on Black America.” The person felt it should say “and white Americans.”
“I put her in check,” said Dillahunt, “by laying out the high Black unemployment rates, mass incarceration, and the ‘school-to-prison pipeline’ we face.”
– Labor Notes.org 9/23/13 by Ajamu Dillahunt
Dillahunt’s husband is employed by the NC Justice Center, which is also one of the groups listed in the lawsuit I first mentioned. NC Justice Center started and helps run the non-profit group BlueprintNC. You may recall that a leaked memo revealed the mission of Blueprint and its partners to “eviscerate, mitigate, litigate, cogitate and agitate” Republican leaders in North Carolina.
The Dillahunts have been influencing the Wake County School Board for some time now. They are also involved in the group “Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African-American Children” which advocated to the Wake School Board to drop zeroes from minority student grades because that action is ‘too punitive‘.
Related:
NC DPI’s ‘stakeholder’ Common Core ‘survey’, where one has to go LINE BY LINE and GRADE BY GRADE giving input on the standards, is still ongoing.
The deadline is April 30th.
#NCDPI Common Core Surveys arguably meant to discourage feedback. http://t.co/sl5IZkuemq #nced pic.twitter.com/eRHMeGi093
— LL1885 – A.P. Dillon (@LadyLiberty1885) March 29, 2015
More from the February Academic Standards Review meeting write-up:
You have to review the standards line by line and either approve of the standard or say it needs revision with a spot for revision suggestions/comments on the standard at hand.
There is no way to save your spot and come back. You have to complete the section in one shot.
No identifiers are present; anyone can take this survey from anywhere – just like the teacher version.
Be prepared to sit a long time if you do the survey, I did just one grade level in the ELA and it took me over 40 minutes and was over 20 pages long. One has to wonder if the protracted time it takes just to do one grade level in one subject is a bug or a feature?
Survey Details and link:
NC public school parents and community members are invited to go online and give their feedback on the standards for English language arts and mathematics instruction for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. The NC Department of Public Instruction has launched the online survey for parents and community members to provide feedback on the standards currently in place for students.The survey is available at http://ncdpireview.weebly.com until April 30.
To read more about the survey, please visit www.ncpublicschools.org and click on the appropriate link under “News.”
Dr. June Atkinson is the NC Superintendent of Schools. She is also the President of the CCSSO — one of three outside, unelected groups that produced the Common Core State Standards.
The CCSSO is heavily invested in the Common Core State Standards, or rather the CCSSO has been invested in by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in grants that total over $91.2 million.
NC tax payers are also invested in the CCSSO. [Read: Citizen’s Information Request Yields 60K In CCSSO Dues]
Dr. Atkinson’s vigorous (and often insulting) defense of Common Core and that she holds positions as both NC Superintendent and as CCSSO President created and argument that Dr. Atkinson is serving two masters and in doing so has a conflict of interest.
NC State statute 138A is the State Government Ethics Act.
§ 138A-2. Purpose.
The purpose of this Chapter is to ensure that elected and appointed State agency officials exercise their authority honestly and fairly, free from impropriety, threats, favoritism, and undue influence. To this end, it is the intent of the General Assembly in this Chapter to ensure that standards of ethical conduct and standards regarding conflicts of interest are clearly established for elected and appointed State agency officials, that the State continually educates these officials on matters of ethical conduct and conflicts of interest, that potential and actual conflicts of interests are identified and resolved, and that violations of standards of ethical conduct and conflicts of interest are investigated and properly addressed. (2006-201, s. 1.)
While being President of the CCSSO doesn’t pay anything, the rest of the board positions pay very well. Former Director Gene Wilhoit was paid $299,321 according to the CCSSO’s 2012 IRS 990 form. In fact, all the staffers made six figure salaries.
Wilhoit left the CCSSO in 2013 for greener pastures. Wilhoit joined Common Core architects Zimba and Pimental at their group”Student Achievement Partners” or SAP.
SAP is well-funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Clearly, the CCSSO leadership positions are springboards to bigger opportunities and bigger money.
Fun Fact: The CCSSO’s 501(c)3 request in North Carolina was denied in 2011, but as of this article, the status appears as “in process” on the Secretary of State website.
Check out the “Federal Tax Det Letter” from Lois Lerner. Yes, that Lois Lerner.
Related:
The Big Ed Complex of ‘education non-profits’ backed by left leaning groups and the NC Chamber of Commerce have been pushing Common Core in North Carolina.
Meet the grassroots group who has developed a plan to revamp the standards in the state.
A grassroots group of education activists in North Carolina has created an alternative to what they call the “failed Common Core standards.”
According to team leader Jerry Egolf of the North Carolina Academic Freedom Alliance, the North Carolina Plan is a set of academic standards that were “chosen from the very best alternatives to Common Core, exceeding those standards by significant measures and having been proven by testing results.”
Egolf informed Breitbart News that he and math standards lead Kathy Young and English Language Arts (ELA) lead Linda Harper developed the Plan over the past five years to meet “critical thinking standards.”
Their research involved reviewing some 3,000 pages of standards to find the “best of the best.” The final product consists of a remodeling of the Minnesota math standards and the 2001 Massachusetts ELA standards.
[…]
LL1885 
You must be logged in to post a comment.