Education Company Pearson Spies on Students' Social Media Accounts

[Panich52]

AFL-CIO blog
http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Political-Action-Legislation/Education-Company-Pearson-Spies-on-Students-Social-Media-Accounts?can_id=2746d093cbcf83e0d1a8326d2b097c77&source=email-young-workers-zombies-and-spies&referrer=john-goltz&email_referrer=young-workers-zombies-and-spies

While Pearson doesn't publish George Orwell's "1984," it sure seems like the education publishing and testing giant is using the classic novel as a blueprint for running its testing programs these days. Ostensibly to prevent cheating, Pearson has been spying on the social media accounts of students and reporting activity they find as questionable to local school administrators, according to recent news stories. The story broke when the superintendent of a New Jersey school emailed her colleagues after discovering the monitoring.

The AFT has since reacted with shock and is calling upon Pearson to end the practice. AFT and Daily Kos are sponsoring a petition that calls on Pearson to end the process and be more open and accountable to parents, students and educators.

AFT President Randi Weingarten expressed outrage in an email:

"How is Pearson monitoring students? What information about students does Pearson have, where did it get it and what will it keep? ...

Weingarten also noted that the spying was part of a pattern at Pearson:

"This isn’t the first time Pearson has been caught engaging in unscrupulous behavior. Last year, we spoke up when we learned that Pearson’s contract in New York put a gag order on educators who proctored the tests, and earlier this year Politico exposed how Pearson has squeezed profits out of our schools, from Florida to Texas to California....

The allegations against Pearson, said Weingarten, "comes back to the obsession with high-stakes tests. The results from these tests will be used to punish teachers and schools—and may even be used to hold kids back—all while Pearson rakes in millions to create and score the tests and spy on our students."

[Jackpine Radical]

1. I hate Pearson.

They now hold the rights to the MMPI in all its descendant forms. They took this classic, well-researched personality measure, turned it into a psychometric nightmare, & are now starting to force psychologists to use their online scoring & interpretation services at outrageous prices, and with no good answers on what they're doing to maintain patient data security.

I dumped the MMPI & refuse to touch anything Pearson puts out because they are, in my humble opinion, unscrupulous, greedy corporate bastards.

[blkmusclmachine]

2. ,

,

[hunter]

3. This is one of the corporations I would like to see government put out of business...

... by setting up an "Open Source" model of text and testing material development, paying well qualified active teachers and university affiliated specialists extra to manage the development process, and releasing these materials free, worldwide under Creative Commons or similar licenses.