Many readers have asked how they can contact CNN to respond to its interview with Michelle Rhee.
CNN has invited comments: http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/05/rhee-on-saving-americas-schools/comment-page-1/
Bear in mind that the international rankings, which she loves to tout to embarrass America, its students and its teachers, predict nothing.
When the first international assessment was given in 1964, our students came in 11th of 12 nations.
Since then, our students typically rank in the bottom quartile or no better than the international average.
Yet we have the largest economy in the world.
We are number one in child poverty, which explains the performance of our students. The more poverty in a school, the lower its test scores; the less poverty, the higher the scores.
Almost 25% of our children live in poverty. Did Rhee mention that?
Please help inform CNN. Maybe they will get it right next time.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This was left as a comment probably by the Rheeject herself:
RheeFan
Careful, Diane Ravitch encouraged all anti-reform Rhee-haters to jump on this one. This would be the same as Limbaugh asking tea-partiers to comment on a story about health-care reform.
This reply from “Rheefan” demonstrates yet another birdbrain heard from who is employed by StudentsFirst and Rhee.
Comparing an education historian, Diane Ravitch, to Rush Limbaugh, a media personality whose job it is to rile the masses for ratings, is preposterous.
Rhee’s world of paid hacks promote propaganda WITH propaganda and emotionally-charged sound bytes.
Please point us to anyone who defends Rhee with facts, evidence, real quotes from real individuals, real stories from real schools in which she was involved.
In the meantime, journalists need to take M Rhee out of their roladex. She is no more an education expert as Bernie Madoff is a stock portfolio growth expert.
Recap:
1) Rhee has had less than a stellar (she would refer to it as “ineffective” teaching experience of less than 3 yrs.
2) She enjoyed reminiscing about taping student’s mouths shut while she spoke with new teachers.
3) Her controversial term and divisive personality with the community guaranteed the mayor’s defeat thus ousting her as Chancellor.
4) She ignored terms of binding contracts and illegally fired hundreds of DC teachers – this was overturned.
5) Her in-your-face, I’ll-do-what-I-want style cost DC taxpayers millions.
6) She is under investigation for standardized test cheating under her brief, dictatorial reign.
Tell me again why she’s touted as an education expert?
We know she is a really really good liar and unfortunately we live in a shallow, superficial society.
Two of us already answered that back by talking about the Students First comment “competition.” At least Ravitch isn’t offering a gift card.
As far as Limbaugh is concerned, remember “Operation Chaos?” During the 2008 primaries, he urged Republicans to change their party affiliation in order to vote for Hillary Clinton as Barack Obama was getting close to clinching the nomination. He wanted there to be drama all the way up to the convention. He has 15 million listeners on that show versus perhaps a few thousand on this blog. Furthermore, voting and commenting on a website are TOTALLY different things with different ramifications.
There is just one thing that Michelle Rhee doesn’t understand about American education – everything. American students compete very well with students around the world when the variables of the playing field are leveled. A good place to start the leveling would be with poverty, since 25% of American students are living with it daily. It’s pretty difficult filling in the bubbles on scores of tests when your stomach is growling or you’re wondering where you’ll be sleeping that night. Add to that the number of limited English speakers and special education students and you’ve got a school system that reflects what our society values: cheap and easy education policy that gets us nowhere. And nowhere is exactly where Michelle Rhee is trying to take us. This is not about making excuses, this is about implementing realistic policy that takes into account existing social circumstances – something Michell Rhee is obviously
not capable of doing.
It’s also about all the money Michele and her cohorts are making on the backs of our students. Wait–no–it’s ALL about the money, and nothing else.
There is also evidence that children in the US pay a larger price for being poor – or even middle class – than in other countries:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2011/12/poverty-shmoverty-part-iv.html
Statisticians refer to “curvilinearity” to describe this phenomenon. In all countries, the wealthier a child’s family is, the better they do on tests; however, in the US, the test scores rise FASTER for wealthier kids than in other countries.
So it’s not just that we have large pockets of poverty. Our wealthier kids are right up there with the rest of the world’s wealthier kids; our poorer kids, however, struggle more than the rest of the developed world’s poorer children.
As Pasi Sahlberg says, it’s because countries like Finland care about equity; the result of that care is excellence.
This was an article in the Washington Post’s Outlook section this morning. It was about DC’s bid 10 years ago for the 2012 Olympics. Timely. About poverty. What if?
What if D.C. made an Olympic effort to end poverty?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-if-dc-made-an-olympic-effort-to-end-poverty/2012/08/03/19f6d03e-dc17-11e1-9974-5c975ae4810f_story.html
And by the way, since Rhee raises millions of dollars why doesn’t she fund grants and solutions that REALLY HELP children and education? Since when is destroying the lives of teachers, rewriting legislation, and out-sourcing education really help children? Why is this women allowed to propagate this bull and go unchallenged? I mean, how simple are news directors and editors to believe that a situation that has plagued schools since before the turn of the century (1900’s); poverty and achievement- could be solved by a non-career educator? Generations of scholars, scientists and educators have studied the problem and Rhee’s solution, which has yet to bear fruit and shows opposite results is to get rid of tenure, due process, and veteran teachers. And in the 5 years since this has happened in WDC- nothing has substantially changed, with results worse (stagnant and declining tests scores, an achievement chasm and an as yet to be solved cheating scandal 2008-2010)
Rhee said NOTHING. !
Since Rhee is so convinced that poverty doesn’t matter, and all those impoverished kids simply fall behind because of their lousy teachers, perhaps she’d like to fund a little experiment: Switch the teaching staff, and nothing else, between the nation’s lowest-achieving school and the nation’s highest achieving school. Then, watch as the impoverished kids miraculously succeed and the well-to-do kids suddenly fail. C’mon, Michele. Why not?
It is mind-boggling that some people have so little perspective on their own merits that intellectual blank-slates, like Rhee and her acolytes, would presume, with a straight face ( visible even when expressed with the printed word) that their views carry credibility-equivalence with the undisputed greatest living authority on education in America.
I thought you would enjoy this:
The Rhee Antidote.
http://atthechalkface.com/2012/08/04/first-of-many-thechalkface-parody-videos-this-one-of-the-recent-studentsfirst-drivel/
Isn’t she the one who had no classroom control and taped her students’ mouths shut? Yeah like I am going to listen what she has to say. She should have been fired after that stunt!!
It is a pleasure to read the comments on that board now!
I am sick that Michelle Rhee is treated like an educational expert, but I think we would do well to lay off the the tape incident. I don’t know if there are several versions floating around, but the one I heard her tell was less than the heinous crime it is being made out to be. Actually, it was a pretty good example of why new teachers need lots of support and more than five weeks(?) of training. I began teaching in a private school with no training and believe me it was obvious. I studied like mad, but I had no business in a classroom.
The tape incident was recorded and made available via the Washington Post. Rhee told it to a group of new teachers in the DC schools.
Yes, and some rendition of that story as a talking point in questioning her credibility is overused, IMHO. She regularly twists or misrepresents “research based” facts to support her position. I find this deliberate misuse of data much more offensive and clearly unethical.
It seems to me that the only plausible explanation for Rhee is that she is a plant from the North Korean Intelligence Agency sent to destroy America’s public education system.
Done. Thanks for heads-up. Not that they’ll listen. But Duane’s comment is the best I’ve heard so far!
Thank you!
typical “Rhee-toric”
After 39 years in education and living through many policy changes I can tell you from personal experience that children’s standard of living influences their success with school curriculum more than ANYTHING else. In my opinion we need to focus on reducing the number of children in poverty and invest in parent education and early childhood education.
I’ve read virtually all 147 postings and none of them are in support of Rhee or the “purported” interview. It was a flipping ad for herself and not much else. CNN is complicit in shilling dollars for the corporate takeover of public education so don’t expect much in response from them. We are considered collateral damage from the “reform” train they are riding over us.
In the discussion of US scores on international exams and poverty, which Rhee never mentions, it should be underscored that while poverty was high here in the 60s, when PISA was first instituted and the War on Poverty was declared, poverty rates have increased, are at an all time high, and “the actual average poor person is working.” That America has so many working poor today is an utter disgrace to our nation: http://www.npr.org/2012/08/04/158141728/how-americas-losing-the-war-on-poverty and http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/child-poverty-in-america-2010.pdf
The erosion of the American middle class is due to the ever increasing bloated pockets of the greedy 1% who pay employees in their trenches salaries that are unlivable, outsource jobs to foreign nations, and are behind the left-right alliance to turn public education into a for-profit enterprise, and Rhee is their paid spokesperson. Follow the money: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/26/us-usa-education-reform-studentsfirst-idUSBRE85O1CN20120626
It really disgusted me how Rhee compares education in the US to being in the Olympics and how we wouldn’t want countries like Luxembourg and Hungary to get more gold medals than us, yet they are beating us in education. I mean, seriously?
Luxembourg?
Luxembourg has a $80,119 GDP and is one of the most wealthy of countries. Their children learn 3 mandatory languages in school, and they only have a 4.5% child poverty rate. Of course, those students are going to be more successful.
Hungary, on the other hand, only has a $19,591 GDP. However, when I looked at comparisons in literacy and math, the U.S. and Hungary were close in many areas, usually with the U.S. edging Hungary out a little. Hungary has a 10.3% child poverty rate.
The United States has a $48,386 GDP. Much higher than Hungary, but much lower than Luxembourg. The U.S. also has a 22.4% child poverty rate, second only to Mexico, which has 26.2. (I got these statistics from NationMaster.com)
To me, one of the greatest factors in education is poverty! It’s kind of like the little dirty secret that keeps getting swept under the rug. The U.S. needs to start addressing this. The school I teach at has a 75% free and reduced lunch population. These kids are more worried about the next meal than the next test. According to the US Census Bureau, “more than one in five children in the United States (15.75 million) lived in poverty in 2010. 2010. More than 1.1 million children were added to the poverty population between the 2009 ACS and the 2010 ACS. The 2010 ACS child poverty rate (21.6 percent) is the highest since the survey began in 2001.”
If StudentsFirst really cared about putting their students first, they would put their money into addressing the poverty issue instead of making insulting advertisements like the one with the out of shape Olympian.