Pearson Education is a British-owned education publishing and assessment service to schools and corporations, as well for students directly. Pearson owns educational media brands including

Addison–Wesley Addison-Wesley is an American publisher of textbooks and computer literature. It is an imprint of Pearson PLC, a global publishing and education company. In addition to publishing books, Addison-Wesley also distributes its technical titles through ...

, Peachpit,

Prentice Hall Prentice Hall was an American major educational publisher owned by Savvas Learning Company. Prentice Hall publishes print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market, and distributes its technical titles through the Safari B ...

, eCollege,

Longman Longman, also known as Pearson Longman, is a publishing company founded in London, England, in 1724 and is owned by Pearson PLC. Since 1968, Longman has been used primarily as an imprint by Pearson's Schools business. The Longman brand is also ...

, Scott Foresman, and others. Pearson is part of

Pearson plc Pearson plc is a British multinational corporation, multinational publishing and education company headquartered in London, England. It was founded as a construction business in the 1840s but switched to publishing in the 1920s.J. A. Spende ...

, which formerly owned the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

''. It claims to have been formed in 1840, with the current incarnation of the company created when Pearson plc purchased the education division of

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...

(including

and Allyn & Bacon) from

Viacom Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to: * Viacom (1952–2006), a former American media conglomerate * Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom * Viacom18, a joint venture between Par ...

and merged it with its own education division, Addison-Wesley

, to form Pearson Education. Pearson Education was rebranded to Pearson in 2011 and split into an International and a North American division. Although Pearson generates approximately 60 percent of its sales in North America, it operates in more than 70 countries. Pearson International is headquartered in London, and maintains offices across Europe, Asia and South America. Its online chat support is based in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

. Pearson North America is headquartered at

330 Hudson 330 Hudson is a building located at 330 Hudson Street, in the Hudson Square neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Plans for developing the building began in 2011 when landlord Trinity Real Estate signed a 99-year lease agreement with Beacon ...

in New York City,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. It previously was located in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Pearson International is headquartered at 80 Strand, London, UK. Pearson Italia SpA, also known as ''Pearson Paravia Bruno Mondadori'', was created through the purchase of PBM Editori, which was, in turn, a merge of Paravia (based in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

) and Bruno Mondadori (based in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

Imprints

Pearson has a number of

publishing Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

imprints Imprint or imprinting may refer to: Entertainment * ''Imprint'' (TV series), Canadian television series * "Imprint" (''Masters of Horror''), episode of TV show ''Masters of Horror'' * ''Imprint'' (film), a 2007 independent drama/thriller film ...

Logo

Pearson's logo is the unconventional symbol known as the interrobang (‽), a combination of a question mark and an exclamation point, meant to convey "the excitement and fun of learning."

Partnerships

Pearson has partnered with five other higher-education publishers to create CourseSmart, a company developed to sell college textbooks in eTextbook format on a common platform. In 2010, Pearson agreed to a 5-year, $32 million, contract with the New York State Department of Education to design tests for students in grades 4–8. GreyCampus partnered with Pearson for higher-education teaching-learning solutions under the Learningware brand. Que Publishing, a publishing imprint of Pearson-based out of Seattle, partnered with

AARP AARP (formerly called the American Association of Retired Persons) is an interest group in the United States focusing on issues affecting those over the age of fifty. The organization said it had more than 38 million members in 2018. The magazin ...

to develop and add to a series of technology books for seniors. The series, which includes ''My iPad For Seniors,'' and ''My Social Media for Seniors,'' are large-print and colourful.

Errors in tests

In the spring of 2012, tests that Pearson designed for the

NYSED The New York State Education Department (NYSED) is the department of the New York state government responsible for the supervision for all public schools in New York and all standardized testing, as well as the production and administration ...

were found to contain over 30 errors, which caused controversy. One of the most prominent featured a passage about a talking pineapple on the 8th Grade ELA test (revealed to be based on Daniel Pinkwater's ''The Story of the Rabbit and the Eggplant'', with the eggplant changed into a pineapple). After public outcry, the NYSED announced it would not count the questions in scoring. Other errors included a miscalculated question on the 8th Grade Mathematics test regarding

astronomical unit The astronomical unit (symbol: au, or or AU) is a unit of length, roughly the distance from Earth to the Sun and approximately equal to or 8.3 light-minutes. The actual distance from Earth to the Sun varies by about 3% as Earth orbits t ...

s, a 4th grade math question with two correct answers, errors in the 6th grade ELA scoring guide, and over twenty errors on foreign-language math tests. In May 2015, British comedian

John Oliver John William Oliver (born 23 April 1977) is a British-American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. Oliver started his career as a stand-up comedian in the United Kingdom. He came to wider attention ...

analysed problems with Pearson's standardized tests and the company's greater lack of accountability on his

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

series ''

Last Week Tonight A last is a mechanical form shaped like a human foot. It is used by Shoemaking, shoemakers and cordwainers in the manufacture and repair of shoes. Lasts typically come in pairs and have been made from various materials, including hardwoods, cas ...

''.

Technology products

Pearson's products include MyMathLab and

Mastering Platform Mastering may refer to * Mastering (audio), the process of transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device, the master ** Stem mastering, contains the same process as ordinary mastering but the individ ...

PowerSchool

In 2006, Pearson acquired PowerSchool, a student information system, from Apple. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. PowerSchool was a profitable product for Pearson. In 2014, it generated $97 million in revenue and $20 million in operating income. In 2015, Pearson sold PowerSchool to Vista Equity Partners for $350 million cash.

Poptropica

In 2007 the company developed the youth-oriented

online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" or ...

quest game ''

Poptropica ''Poptropica'' is an online role-playing game, developed in 2007 by Pearson Education's Family Education Network, and targeted towards children aged 6 to 15. ''Poptropica'' was primarily the creation of Jeff Kinney, the author of the ''Diary of ...

'', through its Family Education Network. In 2015 Pearson's Family Education Network, along with Poptropica, were sold to the London-based investment group Sandbox Partners.

Cogmed

Pearson owns

Cogmed Cogmed is a cognitive training software program created in the lab of Torkel Klingberg, a neuroscientist at the Karolinska Institute. Dr. Klingberg was using it to present working memory challenges to people while he studied their brains using f ...

, a

brain fitness Brain training (also called cognitive training) is a program of regular activities purported to maintain or improve one's cognitive abilities. The phrase “cognitive ability” usually refers to components of fluid intelligence such as executiv ...

and

working memory training Working memory training is intended to improve a person's working memory. Working memory is a central intellectual faculty, linked to IQ, ageing, and mental health. It has been claimed that working memory training programs are effective means, bo ...

program founded in 1999 by Swedish researcher Torkel Klingberg.

StatCrunch

In 2016 Pearson acquired

StatCrunch StatCrunch is a web-based statistical software application from Pearson Education. StatCrunch was originally created for use in college statistics courses. As a full-featured statistics package, it is now also used for research and for other sta ...

, a statistical analysis tool created by Webster West in 1997. Pearson had already been the primary distributor of

for several years.

InformIT

InformIT, a subsidiary of Pearson Education, is an online book vendor and an

electronic publisher Electronic publishing (also referred to as publishing, digital publishing, or online publishing) includes the digital publication of e-books, Online magazine, digital magazines, and the development of digital library, digital libraries and catalo ...

of technology and education content. InformIT.com is one of the web sites of the Pearson Technology Group, and one of several sites in the ''InformIT Network''. The site features free articles, blogs, and podcasts on IT topics and products, as well as a bookstore carrying all titles from these imprints. Publishing imprints represented on InformIT.com include

Addison-Wesley Addison-Wesley is an American publisher of textbooks and computer literature. It is an imprint of Pearson PLC, a global publishing and education company. In addition to publishing books, Addison-Wesley also distributes its technical titles through ...

Professional, Cisco Press,Safari Tech Books Online Named Exclusive Online Provider of Cisco Press Books
/ref>

IBM Press IBM Press is IBM's official retail book publisher for professionals and academia. A collaboration between IBM and Pearson Education, books are distributed in print and on Safari Books Online. Published topics range from general information techn ...

Professional Technical Reference, Que Publishing, and

Sams Publishing Sams Publishing is dedicated to the publishing of technical training manuals and is an imprint of Pearson plc, the global publishing and education company. Sams Publishing was founded in 1946 by Howard W. Sams, originally producing radio schem ...

. The other sites in the InformIT Network include: * Peachpit.com: Peachpit is a publisher that has been publishing books on graphic design, desktop publishing, multimedia, Web design and development, digital video, and general computing since 1986. Peachpit is a publishing partner for Adobe Press, lynda.com, NAPP, Apple Certified, AIGA Design Press and others. * FTPress.com: The book publishing imprint related to the

newspaper,

FT Press Financial Times Press in the United States and Financial Times Publishing in the United Kingdom are the book publishing imprints related to the ''Financial Times'' newspaper. The book imprints are owned by Pearson plc, a global publishing compan ...

creates books in the areas of general business, finance and investing, sales and marketing, leadership, management and strategy, human resources, and global business. FT Press is the publishing partner for

Wharton School Publishing Wharton School Publishing was a publishing house, a division of The Wharton School and Pearson, the world's largest education publishing and technology company. The imprint brought together a variety of business educators and corporate executives ...

Safari Books Online joint venture

In 2001, the Pearson Technology Group and O'Reilly Media LLC formed a joint partnership called Safari Books Online, to offer a web-based electronic library of technical and business books from InformIT's imprint partners and

O'Reilly Media O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates) is an American learning company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books, produces tech conferences, and provides an online learning platform. Its distinctive brand features a woodcut of an ...

. The InformIT Network offers access to this service via its web sites. Pearson sold its interest in Safari Books Online to O'Reilly in 2014.

Realidades

Realidades is a standards-based high school curriculum that balances communications and grammar. With books for both middle school and high school students, Realidades features insight on the Spanish language, culture and technology.

Digital textbooks

In July 2019 Pearson announced it would begin the process of phasing out the publishing of printed textbooks, in a plan to move into a more

digital first Digital first is a communication theory that publishers should release content into new media channels in preference to old media. The premise behind the theory is that after the advent of Internet, most established media organizations continued to ...

strategy. The company reportedly envisions students relying more on e-textbooks which would be updated frequently, while printed books will be updated less often. Students wanting printed books will need to rent them.

Current business model

As of 2019, the firm gets half of their annual revenues from digital sales. The United States accounts for 20 percent of Pearson's annual revenue coming from courseware.

References

{{authority control * Educational publishing companies Educational publishing companies of the United Kingdom Publishing companies of the United Kingdom Book publishing companies based in London Computer book publishing companies Educational book publishing companies Textbook publishing companies Education companies established in 1998 British companies established in 1998 Publishing companies established in 1998 1998 establishments in England