[Open-education] [OER] Pearson Foundation / Pearson: in trouble

Sun Dec 15 00:24:26 UTC 2013

Cable's posting is very disturbing. The opening salvo is "The next time
Pearson comes after your good work, keep this in your back pocket."

Unless I am reading this incorrectly, the implication is that Pearson
Education has in the past and will in the future 'come after' (steal?) the
good work done by each and every member of six OER communities. Does
simply belonging to an OER community mean that a person produces good
work? If Pearson is indeed stealing people's work, then it should be
prosecuted, not simply reminded of a court decision of which it is already
well aware.

Pearson appears to have made mistakes in keeping a wall between its
corporation and its foundation. It has paid dearly for those mistakes:
$7.5M in fines, $15M for the intellectual property, and its employees
forbidden to attend Pearson Foundation Conferences. To find joy in this
situation is lamentable.

I suggest that we reach out to Pearson Education employees and welcome
them at other education conferences. Recently I was privileged to serve on
a panel entitled "The Future of Digital Textbooks" with Jerome Grant,
Executive VP, Digital Products, Pearson Education. The conference was
sponsored by the National Association of College Auxiliary Services, an
organization whose members are taking a major hit due to the shift from
print to digital textbooks.

Mr. Grant, who once served as an Editor-in-Chief for Higher Education
Mathematics and Statistics, said that Pearson would happily give away ALL
of its content if it could receive a per-student fee for tools. Imagine:
instead of 1/3 of the students buying textbooks for hundreds of dollars
and the rest trying to pass their courses with no materials, each student
would pay a single tool fee and have access to all content. This would be
a win-win for all concerned.

Open Doors Group and College Open Textbooks have always and will always
have a philosophy of 'no enemies, no victims'. Everyone who loves
education must work together to increase access to high quality content
and tools.

Regards,
Jacky Hood
Alliances Director
Open Doors Group
http://www.opendoorsgroup.org

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Re: [OER] [Open-education] Pearson Foundation / Pearson: in trouble
From:    "Jacky Hood" <jacky.hood at opendoorsgroup.org>
Date:    Sat, December 14, 2013 1:09 pm
To:      "Educause Openness Constituent Group"
<openness at listserv.educause.edu>
         "OER Advocacy Coalition" <oer-advocacy-coalition at googlegroups.com>
         "OER-DISCUSS at JISCMAIL.AC.UK" <oer-discuss at jiscmail.ac.uk>
         "OER Forum" <oer-forum at lists.esn.org.za>
         "Open Educaton @ OKFN" <open-education at lists.okfn.org>
         "OPENEDSIG at JISCMAIL.AC.UK" <openedsig at jiscmail.ac.uk>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Schadenfreude

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [Open-education] Pearson Foundation / Pearson: in trouble
From:    "Cable Green" <cable at creativecommons.org>
Date:    Sat, December 14, 2013 12:58 pm
To:      "Educause Openness Constituent Group"
<OPENNESS at listserv.educause.edu>
         "OER Advocacy Coalition" <oer-advocacy-coalition at googlegroups.com>
         "OER-DISCUSS at JISCMAIL.AC.UK" <OER-DISCUSS at jiscmail.ac.uk>
         "OER Forum" <oer-forum at lists.esn.org.za>
         "Open Educaton @ OKFN" <open-education at lists.okfn.org>
         "OPENEDSIG at JISCMAIL.AC.UK" <OPENEDSIG at jiscmail.ac.uk>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Open Education Colleagues:

The next time Pearson comes after your good work, keep this in your back
pocket.

   - *Educational Publisherâ€™s Charity, Accused of Seeking Profits, Will Pay
   Millions NYT: *The Pearson Foundation will pay $7.7 million after the
   New York State attorney general found that it had broken state law by
   helping develop products for its corporate parent.
      -
      http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2013/12/12/publishing-giant-pearsons-nonprofit-arm-settles-investigation/

      - *Publishing Giant Pearson's Nonprofit Arm Settles Investigation*
   *WSJ:*
   -
      http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/13/nyregion/educational-publishers-charity-accused-of-seeking-profits-will-pay-millions.html

This part of the story (in the NYTimes article) is especially troubling:

   -
*Around 2010, Pearson began financing an effort through its foundation to
   develop courses based on the Common Core. The attorney generalâ€™s report
   said Pearson had hoped to use its charity to win endorsements and
donations
   from a â€œprominent foundation.â€ That group appears to be the Bill and
   Melinda Gates Foundation. *
   - *â€œPearson Inc. executives believed that branding their courses by
   association with the prominent foundation would enhance Pearsonâ€™s
   reputation with policy makers and the education community,â€ a release
   accompanying the attorney generalâ€™s report said. *
   - * Indeed, in April 2011, the Pearson Foundation and the Gates
   Foundation announced they would work together
   <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/education/28gates.html> to create 24
new
   online reading and math courses aligned with the Common Core. *
   - * Pearson executives believed the courses could later be sold
   commercially, the report said, and predicted potential profits of tens of
   millions of dollars. After Mr. Schneidermanâ€™s office began its
   investigation, the Pearson Foundation sold the courses to Pearson for
$15.1
   million.*

Creative Commons consistently recommends that publicly funded (and
Foundation funded) resources be openly licensed. It's too bad these 24
reading and math courses, funded by two Foundations (and then sold to
Pearson for $15.1M), were not openly licensed and made available to the
millions of teachers and students who desperately need updated learning
resources.

Cable

-- 

Cable Green, PhD
Director of Global Learning
Creative Commons
@cgreen <http://twitter.com/cgreen>
http://creativecommons.org/education
* reuse, revise, remix & redistribute*
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