Education giant Pearson lays off 208 Texas employees, mostly in Austin

[TexasTowelie]

AUSTIN -- Long the largest provider of testing services in Texas, education giant Pearson confirmed Thursday that it will lay off more than 200 Texas employees after the state chose another vendor for the majority of its new standardized testing contract.

On Thursday, 270 employees in the School and North America teams at Pearson were notified their positions were being eliminated. The bulk of the 208 Texas layoffs are in Austin as the company consolidates its four Austin locations into one.

In May, the Texas Education Agency announced Pearson Education would no longer be the exclusive standardized testing vendor, a position the British mega-company had held for more than three decades. The state agency awarded a four-year $280 million contract to New Jersey-based Educational Testing Services to develop, administer and score its standardized tests. Pearson, the state’s sole testing contractor since 1980, was awarded a $60 million contract for testing services for students who are learning English or have severe cognitive disabilities, among other things.

“The loss of that contract means that we need to scale back some of our workforce,” said Laura Howe, Pearson spokeswoman, by email. “While we have a long, proud history of serving students, parents, and educators in Texas, this is never an easy decision.”

Read more: http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/education-giant-pearson-lays-off-208-texas-employe/nmz7S/?ref=cbTopWidget

[ananda]

1. Pearson was awful.

I don't know whether ETS will be any better.

While the services are bad all right, the real
problem is the testing itself, the dumbing down
of education to teach the test, and the revised
curriculum that makes a farce of history and
science.

[DhhD]

2. The US Senate just voted to remove many of the tests that No Child Left Behind mandated.

Final voting is in the near future, as the Senate and House have to reconcile. No Child Left Behind, as well, may be gone when the voting is completed. Seems like many House members are in the testing business as investors and/or stockholders, in testing companies.

On edit: Senator Cruz voted to keep testing and No Child Left Behind; Senator Cornyn voted to get rid of it.