Douglas Harris is an economist at Tulane University who was recently appointed to lead the Education Research Alliance in New Orleans. Harris has written extensively about value-added measurement (VAM). Mercedes Schneider is a high school teacher in Louisiana with a Ph.D. in research methods and statistics; she is also an outspoken critic of privatization and corporate style reform of the kind that has eliminated public education in New Orleans.
Mercedes recently attended a meeting convened by Professor Harris to discuss the choice program in New Orleans. Afterwards she talked to parents who participated on a panel, and she talked to Doug Harris, who made a point of meeting Mercedes. She had written some strong blogs (cited in her post) wondering whether a research organization like Harris’s could be neutral. In her conversation with Harris, she was blunt, as you would expect. Face-to-face contact is always useful when people disagree. Mercedes had a chance to size up Harris, and Harris now knows Mercedes. We hope that both of them benefit by the introduction.
Mercedes followed up that post with another one expressing her disappointment that the 3-day conference on the New Orleans reforms is heavily weighted towards advocates of privatization and has little representation of those affected by the reforms or local researchers. She says there is “too much Tulane” and not enough local community to judge the reforms.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
How accurate is the assessment expressing disappointment in this particular event by Mercedes reflected nation-wide? Was the out of balance more than usual, or about the same we find almost everywhere?
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Let me preface this by saying I am appreciative of the fact that Doug Harris met one-on-one (even if briefly) with Mercedes Schneider.
If the following is too harsh, I apologize to the redoubtable deutsch29, but overtures to her and Kristin Buras smack of tentative attempts to co-opt them by playing the ‘good cop’ to the ‘bad cops’ of the outright edubullies of the charter/voucher/privatization movement. *In the style of: Hey, c’mon ladies, let’s take the “shrill” and “strident” out of your vocal stance on one side of the ed debates and join me here in the ‘fair and balanced’ middle.*
Doug Harris would do well to read a little Mark Twain:
“A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.”
And if Dr. Schneider is that cat, we’re talking tigress or mountain lion, not a little domesticated tabby.
😎
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“Which is easier? Taking…”
A bull by the horns?
A cat by the tail?
A rose by the thorns?
Or Schneider by gale?
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SomeDAM Poet: in the spirit of VAManiacs everywhere that loves them some scores from high-stakes standardized tests, aware that there are “misleads” and “decoys” and “distractors” that will focus attention away from the “mostest bestest answer” I will choose—
Well, I’ll start me with some $ucce$$ Academy test prep smarts [but don’t get me started about not getting into one of those high-falutin’ NYC HS whose standardized exams I couldn’t pass]. So, to begin, I eliminate the most obviously wrong, er, “mostest not bestest answer” and leave out “Schneider by gale”—
Which only leaves me three others to choose from.
Wow! If only John King were here to remind me of how much Common Core and Montessori are the same [look at all the letters they share!] and how to, you know, actually think and such…
Ok. I give up.
Or did you leave out “E. None of the above is easy, easier or easiest”?
If you did, then I think that high-stakes standardized testing is junk science.
And you call yourself a poet…
Which you most definitely, positively, and absolutely are.
Keep writing. I’ll keep reading.
😎
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My comment on Mercedes blog:
“He said that he was concerned about Buras’ “tone,””
Such a tender, delicate and sensitive man(?) this Harris dude. Come on Bub, the educational malpractices you support cause untold real harm not only to way too many students but also teachers, communities and public education in general. Come deal with those of us who can intellectually clean your clock made of VAM, vouchers and privatization. I hope they’re paying you enough so that you can somehow handle that ever so threatening “tone”. Jeez, what a wuss. Come on up to the Windy City at the end of April and experience the NPE conference.
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Lots of other examples of disdain for public school personnel are in Sneider’s reflections on her New Orleans conference. “Hess notes that the teachers are rising above their training (??) and likely do not make good administrators. It is the same logic as is reflected in this 2003 Broad education leadership manifesto on which Hess advised.” They want to flood “reformed” schools with tons of business and legal personnel while there is an undercurrent of paternalism and sexism in this agenda. The implied message I get is that women are not perceived as effective leaders and managers. Leadership is not a product of gender. I guess they never learned this in the MBA program.
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“Tone Deaf”
The tone-deaf irked by tone?
And blind perturbed by light?
You better hold the phone
The mute can speak tonight
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DAM–PLEASE come to the NPE/ Chicago this April & do a reading of your poetry collection (as well as some new ones!).
Go to the NPE website & fill out/e-mail in a presentation proposal.
We’re all anticipating with baited breath! (Or–are you the “surprise” luncheon guest with Edushyster?!)
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