A reader comments on the fact that StudentsFirst–the Michelle Rhee organization that is raising $1 billion to attack teachers and public schools– is promoting the parent trigger film:
A reader comments on the fact that StudentsFirst–the Michelle Rhee organization that is raising $1 billion to attack teachers and public schools– is promoting the parent trigger film:
I find it more than slightly ironic that Michelle Rhee, a woman who has openly joked about putting tape over the mouths of young children to keep them quiet, has been chosen to promote “Won’t Back Down.” Apparently, one of the fictionalized events in the film that triggers the parents to revolt against the school is a nasty unionized teacher who locks students in closets. Surely, any parent who heard about this abuse would want to rise up and take action. But any parent who heard about a teacher taping their child’s mouth shut would also rise up and take action. It wasn’t a corrupt union that kept Michelle Rhee in the classroom, it was TFA. Maybe teachers in the Charlotte area can show up to the DNC screening of “Won’t Back Down” with tape over their mouths and signs that say “Won’t Shut Up.” Just a suggestion… |
This reminds me of the irony of Campbell Brown attacking teachers unions for protecting perverts and sex criminals even as her husband, Dan Senor, sits on the board of StudentsFirstNY, the group run by Michelle Rhee, the woman who was named in a Congressional committee report as running “damage control” in a sexual misconduct scandal involving her then boyfriend (now husband) Kevin Johnson and a young female employee at the charter school Johnson had founded.
If Brown is so concerned about powerful groups protecting perverts and sex criminals, she might take a closer look at the Rhee/Johnson/St. Hope case, just as anybody concerned about teacher abuse of students might pause when Michelle Rhee, who claims she taped kids’ mouths shut to keep them quiet, is the face of that effort.
Shilling for the billionaire boys deformer club means that you are automatically immune from such criticisms, so no, obviously it’s not ironic, just a fact of life that the peons should accept.
Read the details here…her husband who is on tape, “apologizing” to a 16 year old girl he groped and fondled and then tried to “hush” with a payment of $1000 per month for life. Here are all of the horrific details:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/22824701/Criminal-Referal-By-Gerald-Walpin-re-Kevin-Johnson-8-7-08
$230,000 for sexual molestation charges against NBA star Kevin Johnson
June 3, 2008
An unnamed girl reached a $230,000 settlement with former NBA star and Sacramento mayoral candidate Kevin Johnson to resolve a sexual molestation lawsuit she filed, alleging that Johnson molested her at the age of 16. Johnson agreed to the settlement to avoid litigation, though he denies the allegations in the suit. Originally seeking $750,000, the girl will receive part of the agreed upon amount up front and the rest in six-month installments
July 17, 1996 – Phoenix Police Report – 17 year old- charge: Sexual Misconduct with a Minor.
Click to access Phoenix_Police.source.prod_affiliate.4.pdf
Now, there seems to be a problem. He obviously has a thing for minors-just wrong- forget about the age of consent- he’s an educator and an adult. (That is a line you should never cross). The second problem I have is: How is he allowed anywhere near a school, let alone be able to run a school? Is it me? He should be a registered sex offender. Maybe that’s why Rhee’s children are safely ensconced with her former husband, KEVIN Huffman, the Tennessee Education Commissioner.
I just find this offensive on so many levels and even more aggravating is media silence and what appears to be a tacit approval by those who know and those who should. He’s just lucky that a brother or father hasn’t come after him.
The term for an adult who has a strong preference for adolescents is called an “ephebophile.”
Urbanlad,
Isn’t the Phoenix case a different one from the case I linked? So that makes two cases that were “taken care of”?
Tis an excellent suggestion.
I don’t know why there has been a such a deafening silence regarding Michelle’s classroom shenanigans, falsifications on her resume, and running interference with a federal IG investigation ; and that of her husband and his nefarious misconduct.
Even more puzzling is the fact that politicians love being photographed with both. (The subversive art and agitprop possibilities are endless.) I guess no one knows how to do a cursory Google search or just doesn’t care.
If you or I did anything she was accused of doing, we would be doing time.
Mass media doesn’t ever want to print the facts.
Yep, mass media serves to make a profit for its financiers, that’s all. Has nothing to do with facts and truths-whatever sells best is what will be shown.
Rhee’s stated goal to raise $1 billion is itself some combination of horrifying and laughable. She wanted to raise that in her first year.
Fun fact: do you know how hard it is to spend that much money without waste, fraud, and abuse with a brand new startup organization? Even $10 million is a lot of money for a brand new organization to digest and manage.
And where is that money coming from? She’s trying to raise it from parents … so it’s coming out of communities, and away from local schools.
How many actual students are in the Students First offices every day interacting with Rhee and her staff?
It is not coming from parents.
It is coming from millionaires and billionaires.
Actually, she has been soliciting money from parents. I would say their money could be better spent elsewhere, and I’ve come across people who have sent $10 or whatever and then realized what the organization was really about, and were appalled.
Yes, but that’s not the source of the millions. She has funders who have given her tens of millions in one gift
Diane
If anyone is not familiar with the Michelle Rhee taping the students’ mouth incident, and article is here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-zucker/michelle-rhee-and-masking_b_801339.html
To hear her describing the incident, which she thought was humorous, in a speech to new teachers when she was Chancellor of Washington DC schools, follow this link:
http://americansocietytoday.blogspot.com/2011/09/michelle-rhee-talks-about-taping.html
Are unions organizing their members to picket theaters playing this movie?
The movie hasn’t yet come to our city, but this is a good opportunity for retired teachers and parent groups to help active teachers and have these protests organized and ready to roll. Teachers are actually REALLY busy teaching right now (and the unions–e.g.–see Chicago Teachers’ Union–might have their hands full). Thanks, Louis, for giving me some ideas!
The mass media would jump all over this story if a)Rhee were important enough to catch the public’s attention, and b)they connected the dots the way the commenters here have done.
With her billion-dollar battle-drive, Rhee should accomplish the former. And I can see a number of my documentarian friends working on the latter. Rhee’s story will make a startling Doc. Working title, in my mind, “Should have backed down.”
What a destructive and self-destructive person.
I’ll help out if necessary.