Deborah Meier

Hello

My name is Deborah Meier and it is hard to believe I have spent four decades involved in public education. I have worked in public education as a teacher, principal, writer and public advocate. I have been noted to be the founder of the small schools movement and founded a number of public elementary and secondary schools in New York and Boston that serve predominantly low-income African American and Latino students.

Currently I serve as principal emeritus of Mission Hill School in Boston, co-chair of the Coalition for Essential Schools, and am a senior scholar at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education. I received the MacArthur Genius Award in 1987 for a few of my books which includes, The Power of Their Ideas, In Schools We Trust and Many Children Left Behind.

Recently I was interviewed by Amy Goodman at "Democracy Now", in response to the education policy of President Obama and Arne Duncan, the Education Secretary,speaking before the House Education and Labor Committee Wednesday, May 21, 2009.

This is part of my response;

I think it’s missing the heart of what’s the problem and looking at this from the eyes of—there’s a wonderful book called Seeing Like a State, which I urge people to read, because there’s a way of looking at what’s wrong with schools that I think the business eye sees, which is different than the teacher, child and parent eye, what’s wrong with our schools. And so, to look for the answer increasingly in distant from where the action takes place, the cutting out of teachers’, parents’ and children’s voices in making decisions about schools, as we escalate the penalties if they don’t meet test scores. The incredible obsession with test scores, particularly in two particular areas, that hardly define what it means to be a well-educated person.

For my complete interview please click on my link http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/21/stream