Jennie Schmidt, Coordinator of Evaluation and Learning

Work Background:
Jennie brings in over 20 years of working for social justice through her work in the field of elementary and secondary education.  Her early work as an elementary classroom teacher included work in a bilingual Portuguese program and as a 4th – 6th grade teacher in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  Later, Jennie left the classroom to work as an associate trainer  with the National Algebra Project – a program that seeks to impact the struggle for citizenship and equality by assisting students in inner city and rural areas to achieve mathematics literacy.  This work involved Jennie in working at both the classroom and policy level to address issues of access and inequality in the schools. 

Academic Degrees:
Jennie received her Bachelor of Arts from Earlham College, her Masters in the Art of Teaching from the Shady Hill School/Leslie University joint program and her doctorate in Social Foundations of Education from the University of Iowa.  Her doctoral dissertation was a case study of rural Anglo parents who chose a dual-language (Spanish-English) school program for their children. 

Place of Birth:  St. Louis, Missouri

Favorite Quote:  If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.  Bishop Desmond Tutu