If you are a reader of this blog, you saw earlier posts about the close connection between David Coleman, the architect of the Common Core standards, and Michelle Rhee. Stephen Sawchuk of Education Week confirms this here.

I learned from Ken Libby–a graduate student at the University of Colorado who likes to read IRS filings by advocacy organizations–that Rhee’s Students First has a board of directors; that David Coleman is the treasurer  of her board of directors; and that the other two members of her board are employees of David Coleman’s organization Student Achievement Partners (one of the two wrote the new CC math standards). To those who ask Coleman why he is on Rhee’s board, he responds that his term ends in June. That is non-responsive.

What outsiders really want to know is whether he shares her agenda and whether he rejects any part of it.

Rhee is a lightning rod. She has advocated for policies that will remove all job protections from teachers. She has supported rightwing governors who want to destroy teacher unions. She advocates for charters and vouchers. She has accepted millions of dollars from known and unknown sources to promote privatization. She has spent millions of dollars to support candidates–usually from the far right–who agree with her views. She treats test scores as the sine qua non of education. She is a darling of the far right.

There is something unsavory about the close alliance between Rhee and the man who drafted the nation’s standards.

The public has a right to know.

Diane