Pearson

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Pearson

File:Pearson plc logo.svg

Basic information
Founded	1998
Legal Structure	Subsidiary
Industry	Education, Technology, Software, Artificial Intelligence, Information Technology
Also known as
Official website	https://www.pearson.com/

Pearson (formerly Pearson Education) is the for-profit global education business arm of the Pearson plc conglomerate. Pearson provides textbooks, homework system platforms, educational content, assessment tools, exam proctoring and digital platforms to schools, universities and professional certifications worldwide.

Consumer-impact summary

Ownership Rights:

Pearson phased out ownership of print textbooks and replaced them with digital textbooks and subscription services. CEO John Fallon stated in a BBC interview, the move is made in "hopes the move will make more students buy its e-textbooks which are updated continually" and that the next generation of consumers, "they expect to rent not own." Purchase of print textbooks has been replaced by a monthly subscription service.

User Freedom:

Their use of DRM and attempts at preventing piracy degrades the user experience for legitimate users, restricting copying and pasting from eBooks, only loading a single page at a time, restricting printing. Due to their partnerships with universities, many students are left with no choice but to buy access to books on their platform without any alternatives.

Lack of Transparency, Student/ Test Candidate Non-Disclosure Agreements:

Pearson Vue's exam policy requires test candidates to read and accept the terms of the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) or any other terms and conditions presented to them prior to the start of the exam, contributing to lack of transparency.

Market Control:

Pearson is the largest company in higher education with influence over test administration, teacher licensing, educational software, eBooks, grading, guidelines. The company has a history of undisclosed lobbying and applying non-profit funds towards their for-profit business.

Incidents

This is a list of all consumer-protection incidents this company is involved in. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the Pearson category.

New York Statewide Exams Failure (2012)

Main article: link to the main CR Wiki article

Pearson obtained a $32 million contract to administer New York academic tests plus a $1 million contract to maintain testing services with the New York State Education Department and in 2012, a statewide systemic failure involving numerous test errors, printing errors, security breaches and lack of transparency affecting test administration and test scores of hundreds of thousands of students. Thousands of students were denied from graduating due to the Pearson failure on test scoring. The students were assigned further summer school attendance. The Department spokesperson's response was the victimized students would "benefit from the extra instruction in summer school."

Securities and Exchange Settlement and Investor Omissions (2018)

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced a $1 million settlement against Pearson for omissions and misleading investors about a 2018 data breach involving a data breach related to its AIMSweb1.0 web-based student performance tracking software that resulted the administrator login credientials of 13,000 schools, district and university customer accounts, along with millions of student usernames and passwords stolen. Pearson did not disclose this breach to investors until it was contacted by the media.

Products

This is a list of the company's product lines with articles on this wiki.

• Example product line one (release date): Short summary of the product's incidents.
• Example product line two (release date):

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See also

Link to relevant theme articles or companies with similar incidents.

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References

https://www.wiredacademic.com/2011/10/pearson-draws-criticism-from-new-york-to-texas-justified-or-unjustified/

https://www.pearson.com/content/dam/one-dot-com/one-dot-com/global/Files/get-the-facts/corporate-myth-fact-030116.pdf

https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/1glwk0/pearson_seems_to_control_everything_in_education/

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/may/05/pearson-shareholders-reject-pay-revolt-john-fallon