FURIOUS US mums squared up to greedy bosses at private education multinational Pearson yesterday for trousering swathes of taxpayers’ money intended for hard-up schools.

Yesterday the Morning Star revealed that the coalition had diverted an astonishing £355 million from the government aid budget to a developing world scheme propped up by Pearson and other profiteers.

The giant business, reputedly worth more than £11 billion, has sunk its claws into lucrative contracts worldwide, including “high-stakes testing” in the US. And it has come under fire in the States for tick-box teaching, spying on students and reporting children who discuss their exams with each other — or even with their parents.

But an army of teachers and parents from the US and Britain are fighting back — and bought shares in Pearson so they could confront its directors at its AGM yesterday.

A lobby of Westminster’s Northumberland Avenue was joined by representatives from British teaching unions NUT and ATL, the American Federation of Teachers and parents from London and New Jersey.

American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten registered for the Pearson AGM and made a speech railing against the company’s profit-driven agenda, in contrast to a wave of mutual backpatting and praise for the company’s “social responsibility” from major shareholders.

Speaking afterwards, she said: “Something is wrong when test security is so high that it’s requiring spying on students in the US.

“How do you do that to students and their parents?”

NUT deputy general secretary Kevin Courtney branded high-stakes testing “disruptive to education.”

He said: “It’s very peculiar that when all the parties say they’re opposed to profit in education that the government is happy to support Pearson.” Pearson, which owns the Financial Times and Economist magazine, is one of a number of “edu-businesses” increasingly taking over services previously controlled by national governments. It has operations in 80 countries.

Under high-stakes testing, which is being rolled out in around half of US schools under Pearson’s administration, eight to 16-year-olds are subject to biannual exams in maths and English. Schools can be penalised if student performance does not reach examiners’ expectations.

The tests have proved controversial with parents, who say children are being taught to the exam while subjects such as history, music, art and PE are being shelved under the pressure.

In New Jersey, Pearson reported a number of students who had discussed their tests with each other to the state education authorities, resulting in punishments.

At the firm’s AGM yesterday Christine McGoey, a mother of two from Montclair, New Jersey, where 68 per cent of parents have refused to have their kids tested by Pearson, said: “I fear for the future of our country.

“We’ve been told that we’re not allowed to talk to our children about their tests. I don’t want Pearson coming between me and my children. The children come first, not the test.”

ATL general secretary Mary Bousted said: “The effects of the profit motive in education are being felt throughout the world. It’s leading to a narrow curriculum and taking away from educators’ professionalism.”