Mercedes Schneider: Class Warrior
b'"Accountants took down the gangster Al Capone. If the corporate education reform movement in this country is brought down it will likely be by a statistician like Mercedes Schneider.\\n\\nThe Slidell English teacher got engaged in the public education debate after one of the early leaders of the reform movement Diane Ravitch broke with the reformers. The former assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Education renounced her earlier support for high-stakes testing. Schneider started blogging her own opinions on public education not much later and has been steadily at it ever since. She also writes at Huffington Post.\\n\\nSchneider\'s authored three books on aspects of the education reform movement, in addition to the blogging and her teaching, which she has not stopped.\\n\\nAs a practitioner and a statistician, Schneider brings unique tools to the table when she\'s discussing what works or doesn\'t work in education. And, she\'s been particularly adept at busting the manipulation of student performance data in Louisiana by Superintendent John White.\\n\\nSchneider pulls no punches. She\'s plainspoken, authoritative, patient and relentless.\\n\\nIn this podcast, Schneider talks about the reformers in Louisiana and across the country, John White\'s record of data manipulation, and the impact that high stakes testing has in the classroom and how testing came to be a central element in the reform movement."'