Is it? I ask because it's chief promoter, Pearson, seems to be. The Times reports that not only is Pearson shedding 10% of its workforce (4,000 jobs, world-wide), but that it is also paying dividends by taking on more debt. It shed 3,000 jobs in 2013. Most of the 4,000 may well be in the USA where criticism of the company in relation to text books and testing is increasingly vocal – see, in particular, this blog by Alan Singer in the Huffington Post.
Looking back, I've written quite a bit over the last few years about Pearson, particularly about it's role in PISA, and about what seems a strange marriage between it and the global education / learning / competencies tendency. How such a "progressive", right-on bunch of activists can be in cahoots with what Singer calls "a giant octopus" – and an über-globalised one at that – still has me scratching my head.
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