Mondo Marketing Make-Over in New York State!: Pearson, Product Placement and the Push Ed Reformers Always Wanted

Our friends at the Lace to the Top blog have posted an intriguing tidbit of information which helps illustrate exactly how saturated and infiltrated is corporate marketing not just within the policies of ed reform but within the products they create as well.

Apparently Pearson recently sent a story to media suggesting it did not mention products associated with its bottom line in the text of the NY State ELA tests. But a little research revealed this wasn't true. Indeed, several products with ties to Pearson get direct mention in the test. Click here to read more about this most-likely lie from Pearson and the actual truths of the matter.

We shouldn't express shock when we see corporate ed reform branding. Branding and brandishing are part of the plan: Brand public schools as places of failure; brandish alternatives to public school once parents see their children and schools "fail" based on the criteria the ed reformers (and not actual teachers) set forth. 

Generally speaking, this branding/brandishing is a long-term strategy. Gates has said it will take a decade to see if the CCSS is "working," though what he means by "working" is debatable. But, some in New York are expediting the process. 

According to Rochester, NY, news station WHEC 10, "as the complaints [regarding Common Core]  have increased, so has enrollment at area private schools."  Indeed, one local private in the area markets itself as the "cure for the common core!" 

Echoing my mention of Gates' 10-year plan, reporter Rebecca LeClair writes, "Right from the start, the education department planned on taking 12 years to fully implement the new standards but many families aren't willing to wait, so they are simply walking away from public education."

Families who have the resources to do so, of course, and who inadvertently act as another built-in profit  for ed reformers, who show success in charters by enrolling a community's least-needy children while ignoring populations needing special attention. Some call this "skimming."

But the entire ed reform machine might best be labeled "scamming," as these New York-based marketing scenarios suggest. The most capable students might not act as product placements for the charters or other public alternatives, but they can act as sorts of placed  products, offering trumped up evidence of alt schooling's superiority over public education and helping the marketing machine of the School Reform Mad Men (and Women). While privates might not be charters exactly, remember voucher talk remains on the outskirts of the corporate ed reform movement. While privates may not have to abide by CCSS, they still get to choose the programs and textbooks and hardware and software companies like Pearson create, support, or by which they are supported.

"I got served by Pearson and Common Core!