Big money in education

The school year's in full swing, and Iowa's teachers are scouring weekly circulars for sales on notebooks, markers - all the supplies they routinely pay for out of their pockets.

They're making wish lists for big-ticket items like classroom calculators and soliciting donations through online sites like donorschoose.org.

Students of every age are going door to door, selling fruit, wrapping paper, magazines - you name it - to fund their school's arts, athletics and activities.

Meanwhile, last week State Department of Education Director Jason Glass was being wined and dined in sunny Rio de Janeiro by the philanthropic arm of one of the world's largest educational services companies.

There's plenty of money in education, all right, enough to make a taxpayer wince. But critics who say teachers should stop complaining about resources have their fingers pointed in the wrong direction.

They should look instead at the explosion of consultants and companies willing to help a school out - for a fee - especially now, as states scramble for billions of federal reform dollars.

Glass was just one of a dozen guests the Pearson Foundation jetted off to Brazil to meet with educators there and attend an international summit.

In a New York Times article this week, Center on Education Policy President Jack Jennings likened it to drug companies' perks for doctors, or lavish lobbyist-funded vacations for legislators.

Pearson reps told the Times the trip was educational, not commercial. Glass wrote on his blog that the trip didn't cost taxpayers a dime.

But there's more money at play here than the cost of a ticket to Rio - millions of dollars worth of tests and materials, a slew of products to help with new Common Core State Standards, alone.

Glass blogged that he had three goals in going: to attend the summit, to learn about Brazilian schools and to discuss reform with other guests (“It's not often you get the chance to float ideas with some of the best education leaders in the country,” he wrote, “but Iowa will get that chance in Petropolis!”). Nothing wrong with that, except that he could have met them pretty easily from his office in Des Moines.

We've got all these free tools now, like listservs and Skype. Just ask any Iowa teacher who has had to cut field trips - you don't have to travel the world to learn about it.

But maybe that's different. Maybe the Brazil trip was a selfless gesture that had nothing to do with Pearson's commercial interests.

And if you believe that, I'd like you to come down and check out my Florida time-share - my treat.

Comments: (319) 339-3154;

jennifer.hemmingsen@sourcemedia.net