James O’Keefe, the conservative activist best known for doing undercover video recordings in ACORN offices, released a new “sting” video last week in which a Houghton Mifflin Harcourt sales executive is heard admitting that common-core textbooks are “all about the money.”
“You don’t think the educational publishing companies are in it for education, do you?” says Dianne Barrow, an accounts manager for the publishing company in a heavily edited video. “No, they’re in it for the money.”
Linda Zecher, the CEO of Houghton Mifflin, said in a statement that Barrow “is a former employee” who was with the company “for less than a year.” The video also shows a clip of a foul-mouthed Brooklyn teacher complaining about how the standards were created “to sell more books.”
The real aim of the nearly eight-minute video, it seems, is to take down the Common Core State Standards.
