The lineup of folks coming in to sell schools books is going to be slightly different this year. Both EdWeek and the NY Times recently have articles on the publishing industry, following up on the “merger” of Houghton Mifflin and RiverDeep -- known for Reader Rabbit among other things (Riverdeep buys Houghton Mifflin for 1.8B eSchool News). Quoting former Hill rat Jay Diskey, the EdWeek story describes how Houghton Mifflin is going to buy Harcourt Education, creating a “big three” of textbook publishers in the US (Houghton Mifflin, Pearson Education, and McGraw-Hill). The NYT story focuses on the implications of RiverDeep’s move to become the largest textbook publisher in the US via via the takeover of Harcourt (Deals in Textbook Business Make Irishman a Leader in U.S. Publishing). Every buyer needs a seller, however, and some folks are happily heading out of the US education segment.
UPDATE: It’s also worth noting, I’m told, that Pearson has proposed to buy Harcourt’s Assessment and International divisions.