Dedicated to improving responsiveness and performance of Montgomery County Public Schools
Pages
▼
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Exclusive: Pearson Foundation Responds to NYT articles on Parents' Coalition blog
The Parents' Coalition blog received the comment shown below from Mark Nieker, the President/CEO of The Pearson Foundation.
The Pearson Foundation has recently been the subject of two New York Times (NYT) articles by education reporter Mike Winerip on the funding of international trips for state school superintendents.
An Iowa Gazette article followed up on the NYT investigation and reported on the filing of an ethics complaint regarding participation in one of these trips by an Iowa education official.
In response to the posting of the Iowa Gazette article on this blog, we received the comment below from Mr. Nieker of The Pearson Foundation.
Mr. Nieker's comment links to The Pearson FoundationPress Release responding to the two NYT articles.
Mark Nieker said... This is so disappointing. As the Foundation has said over and over, we categorically refute any suggestion that our relationship with CCSSO is improper, or intended to promote sales for Pearson, the commercial company. Have you seen the positive results of the Summits? See here and here. Check out CCSSO’s reports, review the critical lessons learned during the meetings, and judge for yourself.
No, we haven't seen the positive results of summits or other Pearson Foundation paid for travel. Has our current or PAST superintendent been on any of these trips so that we could benefit?
Let's start with recently resigned Superintendent Jerry Weast. Has Mr. Weast ever been on a trip that was paid for by the Pearson Foundation? Easy question. But will you answer it?
If the trip(s) was(were) beneficial, why haven't we heard about it? Why wasn't there a report to our Board of Education on this (these) trips?
In the interest of transparency, here's how much our school system, MCPS, has been spending on Pearson Education products over the last 3 years:
FY 2010 Pearson Education Inc $1,039,217 Pearson Learning Group 33,984
FY 2011 Pearson Education Inc $ 774,702
Partial FY 2012 Pearson Education Inc $ 250,546
Now tell us how many trips our past superintendent took that were paid for by The Pearson Foundation. Nothing to hide about this, correct?
The Parents' Coalition blog received the comment shown below from Mark Nieker, the President/CEO of The Pearson Foundation.
Mr. Nieker,
ReplyDeleteNo, we haven't seen the positive results of summits or other Pearson Foundation paid for travel. Has our current or PAST superintendent been on any of these trips so that we could benefit?
Let's start with recently resigned Superintendent Jerry Weast. Has Mr. Weast ever been on a trip that was paid for by the Pearson Foundation? Easy question. But will you answer it?
If the trip(s) was(were) beneficial, why haven't we heard about it? Why wasn't there a report to our Board of Education on this (these) trips?
In the interest of transparency, here's how much our school system, MCPS, has been spending on Pearson Education products over the last 3 years:
FY 2010
Pearson Education Inc $1,039,217
Pearson Learning Group 33,984
FY 2011
Pearson Education Inc $ 774,702
Partial FY 2012
Pearson Education Inc $ 250,546
Now tell us how many trips our past superintendent took that were paid for by The Pearson Foundation. Nothing to hide about this, correct?
Thanks.