Thursday, August 05, 2010

Will Pearson Eat Us All?

Over at Core Knowledge, beneath a little discussion of the nature of Finland's standards between Diana Senechal and me -- best conclusion, Finland doesn't have "standards" in the sense we use it now in the US -- "A Student of History" throws in:

Is anyone else concerned that yesterday’s announcement that Pearson is acquiring Americas Choice for $80 million coupled with Americas Choice having received the franchise to develop the high school assessments for Common Core means we have a de facto national curriculum now

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/08/prweb4346464.htm

Will the Pearson math textbooks and the Americas Choice ELA products be the national curriculum under Common Core?

Can anyone come up with a better explanation for this acquisition and the timing?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

The Finns refer to it as the national curriculum but on this side of the pond it feels much more like standards.

http://www.oph.fi/english/education/basic_education/curriculum

What I like is the flexibility built into the system... Pasi Sahlberg has done some excellent work on the Finnish model.

http://www.pasisahlberg.com/downloads/Education%20policies%20for%20raising%20learning%20JEP.pdf

Unknown said...

Even as a Canadian I find this frightening. It makes me more and more interested in DIY education resources, publishing and information. Like the Make tell us: "If you can't take it apart, you don't own it." Same thing might go for locating, evaluating and producing educational resources.