Pearson buys your student information system

Well, if you use Chancery or Powerschool that is.

In the past few weeks, Pearson School Systems has bought out Apple’s PowerSchool as well as Chancery Software. I found it very interesting that Apple gave up Powerschool, considering how much of a stake they have in the educational market. The article in eSchool does say that Chancery "plans to develop educational content for teachers and students that is compatible with Apple’s iPod and will be sold through Apple’s iTunes online music store", so I’m sure that figures into it.

Regardless, I think it will most likely be a positive thing for schools. Believe me, I loved PowerSchool but they really had no idea how to make their software user friendly for the people who were managing it. Maybe Pearson will make that a higher priority. The fact that there was no graphical way to design object reports in Powerschool is just inexcuseable. There is a third party company that offers a solution, Object by Fog Technologies, but when I tried the software it always felt more like a beta than a finished product. It was an improvement, but also incredibly frustrating (not to mention expensive). So hopefully Pearson will address some of those issues.