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

Sun Dec 15 02:30:05 UTC 2013

Comments inline below.

Cable

On Sat, Dec 14, 2013 at 4:24 PM, Jacky Hood
<jacky.hood at opendoorsgroup.org>wrote:

> 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."
>

By "come after" I do not mean: acquire, steal, collect, annex.

I mean: belittle, disparage, smear, deprecate...

I mean: the next time Pearson takes a swing at OER as being low quality,
poor quality - as costing tax payers more money, as being a waste of
time... it may be useful to remind them, in a public forum, that they are
not playing by the tax laws of the United States and their actions appear
to value profit over access to educational resources.

> 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.
>

No - see above for clarification.

>
> 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.
>

No joy - just facts.

>
> 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.
>

I have and continue to reach out to Pearson.  I am in regular contact with
many of their VPs... and I hold them privately and publicly to reasonable
standards of proper behavior that supports broad and affordable access to
learning resources.

These news stories reflect poor behavior on the part of Pearson and the
Pearson Foundation.

>
> 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.
>

I am eager to see such a proposal - and then compare and contrast it with a
publicly funded OER solution.

>
> 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.
>

I completely agree.

Cable

>
> 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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-- 

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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