In my Facebook feed yesterday morning, I found a link from the Badass Teachers Association to this article about Pearson (aptly named "Everybody Hates Pearson"). The article examines Pearson's reinvention of itself from a publishing house to "get all your education needs here" monolith that seeks total domination of all aspects of education in this country and abroad, while also peeking at high-stakes testing and Common Core fall-out. It's worth reading in its entirety. But it was one quote in particular that caught my eye yesterday morning:
Today analysts think Pearson controls some 60% of the North American testing market. “From 30,000 feet, the strategy makes sense,” says Claudio Aspesi, senior research analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. “If you believe in the societal pressure to drive improvement in educational outcomes and there’s not money to put more teachers against students, the next best strategy is to try to use technology.”
Aspesi's comment implies that technology is a viable alternative to teachers because, apparently, technology doesn't require money--or at least it requires less of it. Earlier in the same article, however, we get this bit of information:
The business of assessing students through high school has grown 57% in just the past three years, to $2.5 billion, according to the Software & Information Industry Association.
The graph presented just below in the article shows an increase in the "testing and assessment market" from $1.6 billion in 2010-11 to $2.5 billion in 2012-13. That's an increase of $900 million in two years. If the technology Aspesi refers to is this testing and assessment software (which, from the context in which the article places the quotation, seems to be the case), then it seems a bit of a mistake--a nearly billion-dollar mistake--to claim that technology is an affordable alternative to teachers.
The real issue here, of course, is that assessment and teaching--and assessment and learning--are just not the same thing. Investing in assessment instead of investing in teachers is like investing in sommeliers instead of investing in grapes and grape growers. If you want specific outcomes, it makes very little sense to invest heavily in testing those outcomes if you haven't also--and first--put the time and money into cultivating those outcomes. In education, that means investing in students and teachers. This can't be an either/or situation. Every time we put money into assessment before putting money into teaching, we're short-changing the part of the process that actually matters.
Aspesi's comment stood out to me not just because it seemed so obviously confused, but because I've heard it before: from administrators, from voices on my television. There seem to be a lot of people out there who think that technology is a viable replacement (as opposed to a supplement) for teachers. And a lot of the time, we are told that technology is better because it's "cheaper." But it's not: if it were, these massive profit-seeking entities would seek other markets in which to do business. What technology is--at least from the perspective of administrators and legislators--is easy. It comes pre-packaged, with its own tech support (no doubt for an ongoing fee), and--best of all--it doesn't talk back, doesn't disagree, doesn't engage in contract disputes, doesn't organize against (mis)management. This is, I think, the real appeal for those (largely non-educators) who think working with companies like Pearson is appealing. "Education industry" mononliths don't provide a cheaper way to get things done in the classroom; they provide ease of management. That's an "educational outcome" that has exactly nothing to do with the good of the students.
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