Big Ed. Companies Face K-12 Buying Shift

Ed Week

April 22, 2013

By Amanda M. Fairbanks

When it comes to curriculum procurement, Pearson, the giant education publishing company, can only hope the future resembles Huntsville, Ala.

While in past years Pearson had supplied the elementary math curriculum for the Huntsville city school system, the two entered into a different partnership last summer, when Huntsville became one of the largest school districts in the country to embark on a districtwide digital conversion, according Pearson officials.

Alongside the district’s 1-to-1 computing program, which supplied a laptop to each Huntsville 4th to 12th grader, Pearson replaced every piece of the existing K-12 curriculum with digital content — in a paper-to-digital conversion that spanned 75 days. Besides the laptop initiative, students in grades K-2 use iPads, while 3rd graders use netbooks.

“We’ve been working elbow to elbow with the district ever since,” said Scott Drossos, who heads Pearson’s work with districts looking to make similar 1-to-1 transitions.

According to Mr. Drossos, Pearson — a London-based company whose U.S. headquarters is in New York City — works with 85 percent of the schools in the country “in one way or another.” In Huntsville, a middle-class district of about 24,000 students, Pearson is foremost among a portfolio of service providers helping to facilitate the district’s all-digital conversion.

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