Statement from Mark Nieker

President/CEO

The Pearson Foundation

In recent weeks, the Pearson Foundation has been the subject of two related articles by the New York Times columnist Michael Winerip--articles that call into question our relationship with the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and suggest the Pearson Foundation sponsored the CCSSO International Education Summits in order to help the commercial enterprise, Pearson, win contracts.

Like many of the Pearson Foundation's friends and colleagues who have since written or called to offer words of support, I was stunned by the New York Times' suggestions that the Pearson Foundation's sponsorship of the International Education Summits had a commercial purpose.

We categorically refute that suggestion, or any implication that our partnership with CCSSO is inappropriate. There is simply no factual basis for the suggestion that the Pearson Foundation's support for the CCSSO International Education Summits is designed to win contracts for Pearson, nor that any contract was won as a result of the Summits. On the contrary, several chief state school officers have told the New York Times that the Summits had no such intent or outcome.

In fact, the Pearson Foundation is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization that aims to make a difference by promoting literacy, learning, and great teaching. We do this by collaborating with leading businesses, not-for-profits, and education experts to share good practice; foster innovation; and find workable solutions to the educational disadvantages facing young people and adults across the globe.

The CCSSO International Education Summits are just one example of our efforts to bring smart people together to share the benefits of their experience with others who can make a difference in a child's life.

This work is very important to everyone at the Pearson Foundation. In recent years, we have focused heavily on opportunities to learn directly from exemplary school systems. We have supported similar exchanges among teachers and education leaders around the world. We also have documented and shared publicly some of the most successful practices of those school systems that improve academic outcomes for their country's students, and offer better support for their local teachers.

We are proud of these initiatives.

We are honored to support CCSSO, its members, and the International Summit series, which represents a long-term commitment to foster a productive dialogue between education leaders from the United States and some of the world's best-performing and most-improving school systems.

Everyone from Education Secretary Arne Duncan on down understands the importance of knowing how American students are doing compared to their peers in other countries, and then learning from school leaders in high-performing nations.

These visits make it possible for our nation's education leaders to engage in an exchange with their international counterparts, share experiences, and come home armed with new strategies and ideas to raise achievement, especially achievement for our most struggling students.

Regrettably, state and local education budgets could never provide the resources necessary for state chiefs and others to travel and collaborate in person with education ministers, reformers and innovators from Finland, Singapore, Brazil, or other nations who are more than willing to share their insights and best practices with us. If it were left to public funds, it simply wouldn't happen, and the opportunity to improve our schools would be lost.

CCSSO plans the summit agendas, invites its members and other education leaders, and issues reports summarizing findings from the Summits. And, as those education officials who have attended the summits have recently attested in public statements, participants from all nations return home with a greater understanding of the challenges facing their students, and with fresh ideas and a reinvigorated will to take them on.

We vigorously contest both columns. And we deeply regret the possibility that they may undermine the good intentions and the good work of the education leaders who took part in these important professional exchanges.

If in the future they are inhibited from meeting with their international counterparts and applying the lessons learned in their own classrooms, then those who will be most harmed will be the students they serve.