Pearson Education, known since 2011 as simply Pearson, is the educational publishing and services subsidiary of the international corporation Pearson plc. The subsidiary was formed in 1998, when Pearson plc acquired

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 pu ...

's educational business and combined it with Pearson's existing education company

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 throu ...

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 ...

. Pearson Education was restyled as simply Pearson in 2011. In 2016, the diversified parent corporation Pearson plc rebranded to focus entirely on education publishing and services, and as of 2023 Pearson Education is Pearson plc's main subsidiary. In 2019 the company began phasing out the prominence of its hard-copy textbooks in favor of digital textbooks, which are preferred by younger generations, cost far less, and can be updated frequently and easily. As of 2023, Pearson Education has testing/teaching centers in over 55 countries worldwide; the UK and the U.S. have the most centers. The headquarters of parent company Pearson plc are in London, England. Pearson Education's U.S. headquarters were in

Upper Saddle River, New Jersey Upper Saddle River is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough's population was 8,208,

Company history

Following the British government's acquisition and nationalization of several of

Pearson Pearson may refer to: Organizations Education *Lester B. Pearson College, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada *Pearson College (UK), London, owned by Pearson PLC *Lester B. Pearson High School (disambiguation) Companies *Pearson PLC, a UK-based int ...

's aviation, fuel, and energy divisions in the early 1940s, the diversified multinational conglomerate entered the education market. It acquired the textbook publisher

in 1968. In the late 1980s and 1990s, Pearson plc divested further from a number of its industries and acquired more educational publishing companies, and its education publishing operations became steadily larger and more significant. In 1988 Pearson plc purchased

, the sixth-largest publisher of textbooks in the U.S., and merged it with Pearson's educational books subsidiary Longman to create Addison-Wesley Longman. In 1996, it acquired HarperCollins Educational Publishing and merged it with Addison-Wesley Longman.

Marjorie Scardino Dame Marjorie Scardino, , FRSA ( Morris; born 25 January 1947) is an American-born British business executive. She is the former CEO of Pearson PLC. Scardino became a trustee of Oxfam during her tenure at Pearson. She was criticized by ''Pr ...

, who was CEO of Pearson plc from 1997 to 2013, increasingly focused the conglomerate on education and on making education acquisitions. In 1998, Pearson plc purchased the education division of

, which included Prentice Hall,

Allyn & Bacon Allyn & Bacon, founded in 1868, is a higher education textbook publisher in the areas of education, humanities and social sciences. It is an imprint of Pearson Education, the world's largest education publishing and technology company which is par ...

, and parts of Macmillan Inc. including the Macmillan name. Later in 1998 it merged Simon & Schuster's educational business with Addison Wesley Longman to form Pearson Education. Pearson Education sold and divested most of its Simon & Schuster divisions in 1999. It sold

Silver Burdett Silver Burdett was an American primary education textbook publishing imprint owned by Pearson Education, which is a division of media conglomerate Pearson PLC. History Silver Burdett first formed as a company in 1888 when Frank W. Burdett purcha ...

Ginn Religion, a Catholic publishing division it operated under the

Scott Foresman Scott Foresman was an elementary educational publisher for PreK through Grade 6 in all subject areas. Its titles are now owned by Savvas Learning Company which formed from former Pearson Education K12 division. The old Glenview headquarters o ...

imprint, to

RCL Benziger RCL Benziger is a Roman Catholic book-publishing house founded in 1792 by Joseph Charles Benziger in Einsiedeln, Switzerland. It is currently based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and operates as a subsidiary of Kendall Hunt Publishing. History The comp ...

in 2007. In 2007 Pearson Education sold the Macmillan name to

Holtzbrinck Publishing Group Holtzbrinck Publishing Group () is a privately held German company based in Stuttgart which owns publishing companies worldwide. Through Macmillan Publishers, it is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies. In 2015, it merged ...

, which had purchased Macmillan Publishing Ltd. in the late 1990s. Pearson Education was rebranded as simply Pearson in 2011, and split into Pearson North America and Pearson International. A restructuring announced in 2013 combined Pearson North America and Pearson International into one Pearson company organised around three global lines of business: School, Higher Education, and Professional. Following the sale of its financial news publications ''

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, Ni ...

'' and ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...

'' in 2015, Pearson plc rebranded in January 2016 to focus solely on education, and the corporation adopted a new logo. The logo is the unconventional symbol known as the

interrobang The interrobang (), also known as the interabang (often represented by any of ?!, !?, ?!? or !?!), is an unconventional punctuation mark used in various written languages and intended to combine the functions of the question mark, or interro ...

(‽), a combination of a question mark and an exclamation point, and the logo is meant to convey a "combination of excitement, curiosity and individuality" and "the excitement and fun of learning". In 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. E-textbooks will be updated frequently, while printed books will be updated less often. Students wanting printed books will need to rent them. As of 2019, the firm received more than half of its annual revenues from digital sales, and the US accounted for 20 percent of Pearson's annual revenue coming from courseware. In 2019, Pearson sold its US K-12 courseware business to the private equity firm Nexus Capital Management. In 2019 it also sold its remaining 25% stake in

Penguin Random House Penguin Random House LLC is an Anglo-American multinational conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, from the merger of Penguin Group and Random House. On April 2, 2020, Bertelsmann announced the completion of its purchase ...

to Bertelsmann.

Imprints

Pearson has a number of publishing imprints, including: * BBC Active (joint venture) * InformIT **

Addison-Wesley Professional 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 ...

Adobe Press Peachpit is a publisher of books focused on graphic design, web design, and development. Peachpit's parent company is Pearson Education, which owns additional educational media brands including Addison-Wesley, Prentice Hall, and New Riders. F ...

Cisco Press Cisco Press is a publishing alliance between Cisco Systems and Pearson, the world's largest education publishing and technology company which is part of Pearson PLC, the global publisher and co-owner (47%) of Penguin Group and formerly Financia ...

** FT Press **

Peachpit Press Peachpit is a publisher of books focused on graphic design, web design, and development. Peachpit's parent company is Pearson Education, which owns additional educational media brands including Addison-Wesley, Prentice Hall, and New Riders. Fo ...

** Que Publishing **

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 ...

* Rigby (outside the United States, where the imprint is owned by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) * York Notes (partnership)

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, digital magazines, and the development of digital libraries and catalogues. It also includes the editin ...

of technology and education content. It is headquartered in

Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Mari ...

. It publishes books,

e-book An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...

s, and videos, and its imprints include

, Pearson IT Certification, Que Publishing, and

. InformIT.com is one of the websites 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 its imprints. Other sites in the InformIT Network include Peachpit.com.

Peachpit Peachpit is a publisher of books focused on graphic design, web design, and development. Peachpit's parent company is Pearson Education, which owns additional educational media brands including Addison-Wesley, Prentice Hall, and New Riders. F ...

is a publisher that has been producing 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, Apple, Macromedia, and others. In 2001, the Pearson Technology Group and O'Reilly Media LLC formed a joint partnership called

Safari Books Online A safari (; ) is an overland journey to observe wild animals, especially in eastern or southern Africa. The so-called "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo – particularly form an import ...

, to offer a web-based electronic library of technical and business books from InformIT's imprint partners and O'Reilly Media. 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.

Technology products

Pearson's products include

MyMathLab ''MyMathLab'' is an online interactive and educational system designed by Pearson Education to accompany its published math textbooks. It covers courses from basic math through calculus and statistics, as well as math for business, engineering a ...

and Mastering Platform. In 2006, Pearson School Systems, a division of Pearson Education, acquired PowerSchool, a student information system, from

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

; 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. 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" o ...

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. In 2010, Pearson purchased

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 and working memory training program founded in 1999 by Swedish researcher Torkel Klingberg. In 2019, Cogmed was transferred back to the original founders. In 2016, Pearson acquired StatCrunch, a statistical analysis tool created by Webster West in 1997. Pearson had already been the primary distributor of StatCrunch for several years.

Partnerships

In 2007, Pearson partnered with four other higher-education publishers to create

CourseSmart CourseSmart, a privately held company headquartered in San Mateo, California founded in 2007, was a provider of Etextbook, eTextbooks and digital course materials. It was acquired by Ingram Content Group subsidiary VitalSource Technologies in earl ...

, a company developed to sell college textbooks in eTextbook format on a common platform. In 2011, Pearson obtained a five-year, $32 million contract with the

New York State Department of Education 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 ...

to design tests for students in grades 3–8. Que Publishing, a publishing imprint of Pearson based out of Seattle, partnered with AARP in 2014 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 Daniel Manus Pinkwater (born November 15, 1941) is an American author of children's books and young adult fiction. His books include ''Lizard Music'', ''The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death'', ''Fat Men from Space'', ''Borgel'', and the pi ...

'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 Eighth grade (or grade eight in some regions) is the eighth post-kindergarten year of formal education in the US. The eighth grade is the ninth school year, the second, third, fourth, or final year of middle school, or the second and/or final ye ...

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 ...

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.

References

External links

Official website
{{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