MERCEDES SCHNEIDER BOOK METICULOUSLY EXPOSES SCHOOL REFORM FOR THE MONEY SCAM IT IS

Mercedes Schneider, a well respected teacher-researcher from Louisiana, takes down the motives of the so called education reformers in a new book called, A Chronicle of Echoes: Who's Who in the Implosion of American Public Education.

Here is a review written by Seth Sandronsky in Counter Punch. (Thanks to Jeff Kaufman for sending it around.)

Sandronsky's analysis of Schneder's work contains this key section on Common Core State Standards:

"The CCSS is not piloted, or tested. Classroom teachers are uninvolved in pushing the CCSS, and its 'evidence' for improving students’ learning is a mirage, unlike the Gates Foundation’s dollars distributed to both political parties, think tanks and the American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association. This is influence-peddling the old-fashioned way: buying it.

There you have education reform summed up in less than a paragraph. 

Schneider goes further than the most notable critic of education reform Diane Ravitch.  Ravitch is very careful about not criticizing the teacher unions whereas Schneider is willing to include union leaders like Randi Weingarten in her attacks.