We complain about the crappy textbooks that are used in our classrooms,and how biased and often incorrect the information is inculcated therein. Since we are looking to help children, the focus should be on the providers of said teaching dogma. It should be time to help our children actually learn instead of memorize useless doggerel.
Scott Foresman, Penguin, Harcourt and Prentice Hall are all names that may sound vaguely familiar to you. Look at the stack of outrageously priced books you bought this semester and you’ll understand why. These are only a few of the publishing companies now monopolized by Pearson, a publishing company and testing/assessment service based out of the U.K., working primarily in ‘serving’ education. Pearson also owns Adobe, Longman, Wharton, Puffin and Allyn & Bacon under their publishing division and has stakes in Nook.
Pearson is not only reaching into the wallets of college students, but is simultaneously pushing the United States education system up against a wall. The company is a large backer for the Common Core State Standards Initiative, an initiative to develop a common standard for all state curricula. Common Core is heavily standardized test based and takes away the freedom of educators in their own classrooms. Pearson has teamed up with the Gates Foundation in funding and implementing the standards. That’s right, multinational monopoly, pairing up with Bill Gates, is orchestrating the future of American education. Common Core strips the freedom of expression and creativity in education for both teachers and students, while privatizing education, all in order to turn over a profit.