Pearson's board of directors is less than impressive to start with. Many of them are well over 60-years of age and they live in the past with regard to cutting edge educational technology. The average age there is 58 and although I value age and wisdom and experience, I am not at all seeing it in any of their top-tier stuffed shirts. I myself am nearly 60 but I also attend annual CEU training and I am always looking at new ideas and I am not looking back in a bag of old tricks when I need to teach, or draft a curriculum or a syllabus.

EXAMPLE: CEO OF WSI: (SOURCE WSI)

Glen Moreno^~, 67, was appointed chairman of Pearson in October 2005. He is senior independent director of Lloyds Banking Group; a director of Fidelity International and chairman of its Audit Committee; and was named in November 2010 as deputy chairman of the U.K.s Financial Reporting Council. Until mid-2009, he was a non-executive director and senior independent director of Man Group, and served in 2009 as acting chairman of UK Financial Investments, the body that manages the British governments investments in banks.

From 1987 to 1991 he was chief executive of Fidelity International, one of the world's most successful investment and financial information companies, recruited to lead its international expansion. Before that, he spent 18 years at Citigroup in Europe and Asia.

He is also a governor of The Ditchley Foundation, founded in 1958 to advance Anglo-American links, which has since broadened to involve nations from all over the world.

An American national, he divides his time between the US and the UK.
Other details

Born: 1943, California
Education

1965: Stanford University, BA with distinction

1966: Delhi University, Rotary Foundation Fellow

1969: Harvard Law School, JD

^ A member of the remuneration committee.
~ A member of the nomination committee.

Their CEO is not a licensed educator and as per his bio, he never has been. I cannot find one scrap of evidence that he ever worked in education. Yet he is running an education or training company...His background is money and finance....

Their stocks closed at $18.39 which is hardly stellar for such a supposedly great company. On July 29th 2011 they will publish their interim results to investors via a Web cast at 0900 hours.

It might be interesting ask a few people why they recently sold their shares.

EXAMPLE: Marjorie Scardino who sold 57,3338 shares.
EXAMPLE: Robin Freestone who sold 22,610 shares.

Now given that WSI claims they will make so much money as a result of Pearson's getting on board, why in the world would people be unloading THOUSANDS OF SHARES? Those people are not just anyone, but their CORPORATE DIRECTORS......

By the way the SEC is my source for this data: http://secfilings.nyse.com/files.php?symbol=PSO

Pearson's only bought the Chinese division from the Carlyle Group's affiliate and not all of Wall Street Institute. In fact Pearson's bought WSI from an affiliate of the The Carlyle Group and Citi Private Equity, and not the Carlyle Group itself. They did not buy all of WSI.

If the Carlyle Group or their affiliates were making money in China, they would not have sold out their interests but they do recognize risk management and as such, they got out while the getting was good.

Their franchising brochure for WSI is at least entertaining although far from informative.

http://www.wsi-develop.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/WSI_Franchising_Brochure_2011.pdf

I can think of many better ways to invest 500,000 to 700,000 dollars and I would love to know why they need 15-18 months to teach anyone English if their methods are so hot.

Getting past the pages of lawsuits filed against Pearson, the fact that WSI's are located in dangerous overcrowded shopping malls with totally inadequate fire suppression and without clear escape routes and without bilingual clearly identifiable and well-trained security, and in areas of heavy traffic congestion thereby guaranteeing a 100% involved structure fire by the time EMS and fire personnel could even get close to the scene, and the fact that in many instances WSI locates their "pilot centers" on the roof of a structure or near it, is a recipe for failure, death, serious personal injury, and catastrophic loss.

A review of their extremely poor quality lesson materials in my opinion and in the opinions of people I trust that are state licensed educators, combined with the fact that they cannot seem to comply with prevailing laws concerning copyright issues and numerous other legal issues, add up to one decision.

DO NOT WORK THERE.

As for specifics on Wall Street Institute litigation in numerous jurisdictions I am making a few calls now and in some cases those matters ended up in the hands of labor boards in various nations.

You can keep on barking Wall Street Institute all that you want to and I am totally cool with that. BUT....you also need to know that many of us on this board are well-seasoned educators who have more or less, been there, and done that, and we learned lessons the hard way.

We, I, don't know everything and no one here claims to. However, it would be a cold day in hell before I ended up at Wall Street, EF, Shane, Disney, Web, or any other such nonsense.

Damn I'm thirsty. I need a black beer to match my black skin.