Mercedes Schneider was invited to testify to a Michigan legislative committee about the alleged “New Orleans miracle,” which she explains is a mirage.
In addition to presenting her views in a five-minute video, she made a ten-minute video specifically directed to Michigan parents.
She explains what is happening in Louisiana, the data manipulation, the political games played with statistics to bolster privatization.
If you want to meet Mercedes Schneider, watch the videos.
Mercedes teaches high school English in Louisiana and she holds a Ph.D. in research methods.
She is also fearless, which is unusual these days.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The 10 minute video is great.
I think it’s so important to realize 1. that if you lose your schools you’re never getting a public school system back, and 2. the goal isn’t to improve the existing system, it’s to replace it.
Love that she hits those two points. The second point is really important for Michigan public schools parents generally (those outside the areas targeted for privatization) because of course if the goal isn’t to improve existing public schools but replace them, public school parents who want to retain their public schools shouldn’t hire ed reformers to run public school districts.
LikeLike
This broke my heart:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/parentsandthepublic/2013/12/new_orleans_parents_petition_to_save_school_from_closing_hits_roadblock.html
“New Orleans parents hoping to use Louisiana’s so-called “reverse trigger law” to save Sarah T. Reed High School from closing discovered that the parent-petition law does not apply to city schools taken over by the state after Hurricane Katrina.
Community groups launched the petition drive during a Dec. 9 rally in front of the school, according to an article in the Times-Picayune. The Recovery School District, which was formed by the state to take over struggling schools, oversees the operation of Reed High School. The Orleans Parish School Board controls roughly one-quarter of the city’s schools. The local board has filed a lawsuit seeking to control all New Orleans public schools.
The “reverse parent trigger” law, which was signed in June, allows parents to petition to return a state-takeover school to local control if the school has failed to improve its accountability grade above a D in five years and has not been transformed into a charter. (Only 15 of the Recovery School District’s 74 schools are not charters.) While Reed High—which is not a charter school—meets the academic criteria, the narrowly-worded law does not apply to schools that were seized by the state immediately following Hurricane Katrina.
Meanwhile, Louisiana also has a “parent trigger” law that allows parents to petition to shift failing traditional public schools into the state-run Recovery School District.”
Such a flat-out, really cynical lie that this “empowers parents”. They have absolutely no power.
The laws are written to promote a very specific and narrow “empowerment” towards privatized schools.
What’s it like to be a kid in an existing public school in Louisiana? The state has decided their schools are the designated losers in this “competition”. Kids in public schools cannot win, they will always lose.
LikeLike
Chiara Duggan: an excellent [if unfortunate] example of your “choice not voice” observation.
😎
LikeLike
Mercedes,
You are the tops, the next Diane Ravitch-to-be, the next AFT President, the next state superintendent, the next secretary of education, the next congresswoman . . . .
Thank you for everything you stand for . . . .
LikeLike
Since Michigan is considering flunking 3rd graders who can’t pass a? reading test, what does the data show/say about the “Florida reading miracle?” Anybody been following this in Michigan?
LikeLike
Thank you Mercedes Schneider.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Crazy Crawfish's Blog and commented:
These are awesome. Thanks Mercedes! I am working on my own additions to the body of evidence refuting the oft promoted New Orleans miracle model.
LikeLike