Laurel Sturt, a teacher, sent this note, responding to an email from StudentsFirst founder Michelle Rhee. The teacher has Michelle wrong. Michelle doesn’t hate teachers. She just wants to see more of them fired, lose their teaching license, lose their mortgage, and suffer grievously unless they raise test scores every year. Let’s be clear. She appreciates some teachers. The winners. Don’t you get it? Life is a racetrack. Test scores are the metric.
“Michelle Rhee is providing a thank you card for people to give to teachers, with all sorts of glowing compliments to teachers. I just posted this on Facebook:
It’s Teacher Appreciation Week, as well as Breathtaking Hypocrisy Week. Here Champion and Defender of Teachers Michelle Rhee encourages us to download a not-so-free card (in exchange for our personal contact info and sign up to volunteer for her). If we’re all she says we are, then why does she hate us so? http://www.studentsfirst.org/page/s/download-this-card-and-show-appreciation-to-a-teacher
You can’t make this stuff up!
Best,
Laurel”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
She really is unbelievable. I wouldn’t even know how to respond to a card from Ms. Rhee’s organization.
” I wouldn’t even know how to respond to a card from Ms. Rhee’s organization.”
I would, but Diane doesn’t like that kind of language on her blog…
Stu,
LOL!
You don’t have to use foul language and should not.
But why not use colorful imagery:
1. Michelle Rhee gets pushed into a giant food processor and a child accidentally turns on the switch.
2. Michelle Rhee slips on a banana and straight into a collection of petri dishes filled with e-bola.
3. Michelle Rhee trips over a rock on a farm field of corn and gets thrown under a harvest tractor in motion.
4. Michelle Rhee visits an endangered animal petting zoo and gets accidentally locked in a pen of 8 underfed wolves.
5. Michelle Rhee texts and talks while driving atop a mountain road while vacationing in the Pacific Northwest, and the car topples over a low metal barrier, plunging into the fiery depths of explosion and incineration.
You see? Not one curse word. No vulgarity. Just good clean, wholesome fun.
The sky is the limit.
It’s easy. It’s fun.
And the whole family can join in. Turn off the devices and have some good old fashioned family time.
Who needs Twister or Candyland?
We must STOP giving this no-nothing, know-it-all woman any publicity at all.
“She who must not be named” ran out her 15 minutes long ago.
Who was it who called her “She Who Must Be Paid” ? We are reading The Odyssey and every time I hear the word “epithet” I think of Odysseus and Michelle.
Teacher Appreciation Week? Who appreciates teachers? Haven’t you gotten the memo? It’s Charter School Appreciation Week. Now there’s something we can all appreciate!
Having Charter School Appreciation Week in the same week does seem to demonstrate some desperation, or at least a naked political stunt.
A more accurate Rhee slogan should be … “Arrogance First”.
Her blatant dishonesty is almost without equal … but then there’s Arne, Coleman, Christy, JB …
Michelle Rhee has done more to hurt the teaching profession, and the students of America, than any other person. By now, she is probably getting the idea – or maybe not.
Don’t give Rhee the “credit” for “having done more to destroy education” as she is just a low level power and money hungry pion for a lot of megamillionaires who buy off politicians to get what they want. She is heinous but just a puppet.
For teachers and custodial parents: Thank you for putting students first. Your jobs are the most important ones.
It has never been fully explained why it is “anti-teacher” to say that districts and principals should have more discretion to get rid of the absolutely worst teachers (the bottom 1 or 2%), rather than being tied by tenure rules that make it all but impossible to fire anyone.
I mean, if I say that doctors who operate on the wrong limb or negligently kill patients should lose their license rather than having “doctor tenure,” no one would say that I’m “anti-doctor.” You certainly wouldn’t see the 95% of legitimate doctors getting so freaked out at the thought of anything ever happening to the very worst doctors.
Because it’s a lie that “tenure” [sic] makes it “all but impossible to fire anyone”. Any administrator who claims that is the one who should be fired for incompetence.
BTW, saying that this “has never been fully explained” is also a lie and shows that you are not here to actually read, learn and honestly participate, but to troll.
Teachers generally have a probationary period of two or three years. During this time an administrator is free to dismiss a teacher who is not effective. In addition to this, almost 50% of all new teachers resign during the first five years.
Ineffective teachers, like all ineffective public sector workers (city librarian, police officer, firefighter, etc.) can be dismissed if a process is followed. By law, they have “due process” and can only be fired “for cause.”
Of all the professions, K-12 teaching has the most turnover, so when a person says that can’t get rid of the worst teachers, they are lying or seriously misinformed.
Because teachers have contracts, they are sometimes told that their contracts will not be renewed at the end of the year. The only teachers who are “fired” in the middle of a term are teachers who have abandoned their positions or have done something serious (such as drinking on the job). These occurrences are very rare and that’s likely the reason people think that a teacher can’t be fired. Do some research and you will find out that I am right.
Excellent response, Linda, only there are more and more places where teachers can be fired without due process.
In Indiana the law passed by the legislature a few years ago does not guarantee a teacher an impartial hearing. “Due Process” for Indiana teachers now means a conference with the district superintendent and/or board of education. No impartial hearing is required.
Your analysis is wrong headed. The “managers” (administrators) that hired the worst of the worst had two to three years to eliminate them without reason or cause. Zero discretion was needed to eliminate a teacher. With two to three years of feedback that goes well beyond formal observations; feedback from students, feedback from parents, feedback from other teachers. And in in the “tenure” years they continued to be responsible for supervising their work and providing needed supports. They also have the ability to document and prosecute incompetence. So stop blaming bad teachers for their own existence. Start placing the accountability in the right place: weak administrators.
Some side notes worth mentioning WT:
All work places have a small group of the worst workers. Why do you want to single out schools? Shouldn’t every work place then get rid of the absolutely worst workers? How’d that work out for Jack Welch at GE where the goal was 10%? Do you really expect the Lake Wobegon
concept to work in schools? Schools where all teachers are above average?
Drawing a fair line in the sand on the dismissal of bad teachers is nearly impossible with the exception of criminal misbehavior.
The area is so gray that it becomes entirely subjective. Most of the teachers that parents hear complaints about from their children or other parents are simply not very good at what they do, but far from being grossly negligent or incompetent. Millions of successful adults can look back and identify a few truly horrendous teachers or professors they have had. Clearly they did not prevent any of us from overriding their deficiencies in the classroom.
Many veteran teachers were hired during an era in which the profession was not held under a microscope. An era when pay was not commensurate with the qualification criteria. An era when it was common for districts to hire former students regardless of their skill level. An era when every sneeze wasn’t hyper-scrutinized.
And finally in what world is accountability for learning fall on everyone but the learner. Throughout all this hullabaloo, there has been nary a word uttered regarding the responsibility of students. The responsibility to attend, to listen, to think, to actively participate, to question, to study, to prepare, to persevere, to simply do THEIR job as a student. And what message do they get under this punitive, test-based regime? If they fail, their teacher is to blame!
“two to three years to eliminate them without reason or cause.”
Because no teacher ever changes in quality over time, right? And as soon as one principal makes a bad tenure decision, no future principal for the next 30 years should be able to do anything about it.
“All work places have a small group of the worst workers. Why do you want to single out schools? Shouldn’t every work place then get rid of the absolutely worst workers? ”
They do! That’s because in every corner of the private workplace, there’s no such thing as “tenure” or “due process.” It’s all employment at will, meaning the employer can fire at any time for any reason.
Somehow the rest of American society manages to live with this. It’s not the case that all employers fire people willy-nilly. Sure, they make some bad decisions, but at least they don’t have to spend $500,000 on legal fees and years in court just to be able to get rid of the most incompetent employee. They can just say, “You’re not working out, so here’s two weeks’ notice.”
“Because no teacher ever changes in quality over time, right? And as soon as one principal makes a bad tenure decision, no future principal for the next 30 years should be able to do anything about it.”
And what do you do about the teacher where half the students and parents love him and half hate him? Teaching and learning styles differ. A child may hate a particular teacher but that doesn’t make them “bad”. Don’t think it can’t happen? My 1st child absolutely adored her algebra teacher. She learned so much and did really well on her SAT’s. My other child did nothing but complain about the teacher. She made them show all the steps. She taught differently than she was used to. Was she bad? No, but some parents wanted her let go and others wanted her to stay. Due process protects that teacher.
As far as the next 30 years, it really depends on the administrator. I have worked for poor administrators who did nothing and fabulous, fair administrators who got rid of more teachers than you can count. It can be done but the administrator had to do his job. He/she actually has to go into the classroom and observe and they need to document it.
What most people don’t understand is that most teachers will leave before tenure charges are ever filed. If they know the principal thinks their teaching is not up to par and that principal is taking steps such as corrective action plans, transfers to different grades or subjects etc., they won’t take a chance. That’s why you don’t see larger numbers of tenure charges. And this is before any of that $500,000 you talk of is spent.
WT
“Because no teacher ever changes in quality over time, right? And as soon as one principal makes a bad tenure decision, no future principal for the next 30 years should be able to do anything about it.”
Shear nonsense.
“They do! That’s because in every corner of the private workplace, there’s no such thing as “tenure” or “due process.” It’s all employment at will, meaning the employer can fire at any time for any reason. ”
This statement is utter nonsense.
“at least they don’t have to spend $500,000 on legal fees and years in court just to be able to get rid of the most incompetent employee.”
Complete and utter non-sense.
You’re O for 3. With this level of incompetence Diane should fire you from posting on her blog.
WT, there are many workplaces that are not “at will,” though our oligarchs are doing everything in their power to eliminate those. Have you never heard of a union contract? Have you never heard of worker protections and worker rights? States differ dramatically with regard to this.
“And as soon as one principal makes a bad tenure [sic] decision, no future principal for the next 30 years should be able to do anything about it.”
Again, you are proving that you are a troll, not a serious participant. It has been explained, many times, that there is no such thing as tenure at the K-12 level. It’s called due process and it simply means that administrators have to allow teachers a “fair” hearing before they can be fired (the definition of “fair”, however, seems to be changing). All employees *should* have this right. Rather than arguing for teachers to lose this right, why don’t you argue for private sector workers to gain this right?
Dienne & Bob Shepherd & NY teacher & flmlk & WT: the “fire your way to excellence” crowd instinctively recoils from the obligation of making any effort to do a minimal amount of homework and preparation before they post here. A pretty low level of “grit” and “determination” donchathink…
I am about a quarter of the way through A CHRONICLE OF ECHOES and such hasty and ill-founded behaviors and thoughts are the norm for the leading charterites/privatizers and their enablers and enforcers. Joel Klein, Eva Moskowitz, Wendy Kopp, Michelle Rhee, Eric Hanushek—and I am about to start with her chapters on Chicago and Vallas and Duncan and Obama and Emanuel. Brrrrr… Somehow, an image of smash-and-grab jewelry thieves comes to mind. Not only do they steal from you—not just objects but your peace of mind as well—but they leave an awful mess behind for others to clean up. And then they go elsewhere, e.g., to other school districts or blogs…
“I go in, fix the system, I move on to something else.” [Paul Vallas]
English-to-English translation: “I sneak in, put the fix in, move on to other prey.”
Link: http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Paul-Vallas–213999671.html
Even if one is following the Potemkin Village Business Plan for $tudent $ucce$$ of the self-styled education reformers as opposed to a viable education model, at least they could avoid repeating what W. Edwards Deming so cogently described as worst business practices.
But then, when it comes to doing it right and getting it right and keeping your moral compass set on a righteous course:
“I reject that mind-set.” [Michelle Rhee]
😡
Hey WT,
I would amend part of your remark about private companies not having to spend $500,000 to rid themselves of their most incompetent employees to read, “They can just say, “You’re tanking the entire economy, so here’s a multi million dollar golden parachute.” I am not aware of any single teacher who has ever had anywhere near the power of, for example, a Bernie Madoff, to so thoroughly ruin so many lives.
In schools, you want to create a climate where every student can be brought to believe that they can succeed, that the adults working with them will never give up on them. It is difficult to create and maintain such a climate if their teachers have to live in constant fear that the next low test score or overlooked piece of worthless paperwork could be the thing that gets them called on the carpet. In an interview with an educator from Finland, said educator was asked what the Finnish, with their education system recognized as one of the best in the world, what do they do when they have a “bad” teacher. The response was that her/his colleagues work to help her/him become better. Then when asked, Well what if that doesn;t work?, the response was that they try harder.
Why? Because so many self-proclaimed reformers are soaking in “privatization” bubble bath for too long to make a discrenationary judgment on education policy. The only resort they have is talk, talk, talk. And it echoes like, lie,lie, lie.
You’re first mistake is to believe that K-12 teachers have “tenure” and there are no “tenure” rules. None have ever had tenure and none never will. Simple fact, Jack!
When a basic premise of your argument is blatantly false your argument conclusions will be blatantly false, plain and simple.
none ever, not none never
WT @ 5:54,
“That’s because in every corner of the private workplace, there’s no such thing as “tenure” or “due process.”
Are there any private universities that grant tenure??? If yes, and I suspect there are then your statement is false. Start with a falsehood, end up with a falsehood.
“Somehow the rest of American society manages to live with this” [at will employment.]
No, that isn’t true. I’ve worked jobs other than teaching where the employee has had due process rights. So again a false argument. Start with bovine excrement, end up with bovine excrement.
“but at least they don’t have to spend $500,000 on legal fees and years in court just to be able to get rid of the most incompetent employee. ”
Source please for that half million figure.
WT, teachers are being evaluated on the basis of completely invalid standardized tests and conformity to inane checklists that do not recognize the diversity of possible pedagogical approaches and teaching styles. I wonder where this school is in which it so difficult to get rid of a teacher. I have never encountered such a mythical place.
In the ideal world envision by Education Deformers, a person in authority can remove an employee on a whim. It sounds to me as though our oligarchs will not be happy until they have absolute authority, in their sole discretion, to make whatever decisions they wish to make, for whatever reasons, about the lives of others. Of course, power corrupts, and such absolute authority corrupts absolutely. That’s why we have checks and balances and why, in some places, we have had some small shadow of due process.
When I start seeing evaluation systems in which teachers, in teacher-run schools, make these kinds of decisions, then I’ll start thinking that people actually have some respect for teachers and have a clue what “teacher appreciation” means.
Agree. Due process helps to ensure checks and balances. Also, each administrator has their own way of dealing with employees that they consider difficult or not up to par. Administrators can at will move teachers to a different school in the district requiring over an hour of travel time, move them into a different grade, move them into a different certification area if they have multiple certifications and place them on intensive corrective action plan. All of these examples move them out of their comfort zones and may force their resignations. I have taught in six different buildings in two different states for over 20 years. I am perplexed WT about all the references to these “absolutely worse teachers.” All this accountability because we need to get rid of all the “absolutely worse teachers.” I can honestly say that in over 20 years of teaching in 2 different states and 6 different schools at all levels including elementary, middle and high school I have yet to meet even one absolutely worse teacher or any teacher that is in the bottom 1 or 2%. WT- I really want to know what criteria are you referencing to even identify “absolutely worse teachers.”? I have advanced degrees and I can say as a student I have not met an “absolutely worse teacher”. As a student, I felt it was my responsibility to learn the content. I was raised to accept responsibility for my own learning and any reference to having a “bad teacher” would not have been tolerated. Life long learners have always accepted responsibility for their learning and continue to feed on their passion and desire for acquiring new knowledge. The teachers they had may have lead them to water but they continue to quench their own thirst for knowledge. WT-I agree with others -you must be a troll.
These are people who think that one can come up with a single number that accurately separates good teachers from bad. They do not understand, clearly, the complexity of the human interaction that is teaching and the astonishing variety of teaching methods and teacher types. Was that really demanding teacher who lectured all the time and scared the $&&$*#*&#$ out of me all those years ago a bad teacher? Well, I suppose she would have been on almost anyone’s rubric. But I learned a lot there. How about that airheaded hippie teacher I had? Well, I learned a lot from her too, come to think of it. From the first of these I first learned about plot structure. From the second I learned the fundamentals of existentialist thought. Neither would have survived an evaluation using the Danielson rubric. But they were, in their dramatically different ways, great teachers. Was the former absolutely the worst teacher I have ever had with regard to characteristic y and the latter with regard to characteristic x? Well, yes. But they had other qualities. Which is your best and worst child? You see, this is not the kind of question that always makes sense.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx “Somehow the rest of American society manages to live with this” [at will employment.] If I may add some specifics to Bob Shepherd’s reply… I worked for a decade at an international engrg co., & my knowledge of their policies continues for decades, as my husband is a manager there still. The only ‘easy’ way to get rid of a mediocre employee is to can him in a big layoff [expensive, with severance and unemployment].
If an administrator has been foolish enough to keep on an incompetent for more than 5 yrs or so, it is the devil to get rid of him. This might be someone important’s relative who has a wee drinking problem that becomes an embarrassment as he ages. Or a foreign hire made during a crunch, whose English never improves, meanwhile younger good communicators come on board. Or a woman in a tech position who never really makes the grade. An administrator must follow evaluation procedures to the letter, on schedule [warnings etc], or be the cause of the company’s defending itself against an expensive and time-consuming ageist, sexist, or due process lawsuit.
This is generally true the higher up the chain you go. Reducing teachers to ‘at-will employees’ is tantamount to de-professionalizing the profession, and will cause administrators to find an ever-lower caliber of applicants to an already poorly-paid profession.
Here’s a laugh. My school can’t even afford to provide some food for a decent lunch on teacher appreciation day. Instead, they thought it would be a good idea to ask the parents to chip in via donations.. However, my school is a title one school where most of the parents are considered economically disadvantaged. If each of the four administrators in my school chipped in let’s say 100 bucks they could have easily afforded to fully fund the luncheon. Yet I spent over 120 dollars on snacks for the entire week of FCAT testing for students whom are not even my own students. Sadly, this will be my last year teaching I cannot continue to waste my 141 point IQ on a job that will have me making 40 grand for the rest of my life. I’ve already given up 11 years of my life that I can never get back. I guess exceptional male math teachers come a dime a dozen these days.
I was with you until you decided to brag about your IQ. That’s relevant because….?
That’s relevant because education has a hard time recruiting the best and brightest with their pathetic pay scales, but i guess that’s too hard for a simpleton like you to comprehend. Let me answer your inquiries; the years were wasted because of top down policies that drive creativity and passion away from those who dedicate their lives for the benefit of others. The years were also wasted because of broken promises in pay scale advancements as well as pension contributions that are now required which equals further pay cuts both currently as well as in the future in the form of reduced retirement pay outs. Do you want any more reasons? I can go on forever. Furthermore, why does my IQ irk you so much? I’m sure you have many qualities that I may not possess; but I’m not getting my panties in a bunch over it. It’s too bad IQ’s are pretty much fixed if not I would have helped you raise yours; but keep on attacking the characters of whom you know not if it makes you sleep better at night. In regards to that “pity” keep it, you may need it for a rainy day. Have a good one!
Also, why do you want those 11 years back? Were they not well spent, even if things are changing now to the point you can no longer put up with it? Sounds like you think those years were wasted. Pity.
https://twitter.com/govsandoval/status/463706038504407041
The Governor of Nevada campaigned using Michelle Rhee as a consultant – saying he would fire one in five teachers. Now he send this on twitter?
Just another slap in the face.
Oh, but the deformers love their slogans, don’t they? They have no understanding how foolish they appear when they speak of education in indefensible cliches. Oh, the irony!
To Mr. Schimezzi, Grade 5, who stood at the front of the class and lectured and would probably be fired for doing that, these days, but who made us feel like adults and told us of endless wonders.
“The world is so full of a number of things,
I ‘m sure we should all be as happy as kings.”
You taught me that. I mean, you REALLY taught me that. You set a brush fire, Mr. Schimezzi, that is still blazing. Thank you.
To that ninth-grade algebra teacher whose name I have, idiotically, forgotten, who went way beyond the textbook into the foundations of math in set theory and logic. Wow. That was some fascinating stuff. And who knew that math was patterns until you turned analytic geometry into revelation? Math as art. Math as trees growing and galaxies whirling. Wow. How grateful I am that you knew far more than was in the stupid, boring textbook.
To that wonderful drama teacher in Grade 9 whose name I forget but whose classes I shall always treasure in my memory. I read just about everything Sartre ever wrote last year and thought of you and “The Wall” and “No Exit” the whole time. You would have been very pleased. It’s a wonder the administrators didn’t fire you, BTW, for all the crazy stuff you had us read. Challenging, provocative stuff. Thank you. So, ninth-grade teacher with the long brown hair, I had a terrible crush on you back then. Come to think of it, I still do. That’s why I was so quiet in your class. I’ve gotten over that, BTW.
To George Luckenbill, Grade 11, who was so goofy and learned and so passionate about wave motion and math! Thank you!
To Mr. Long, Grade 11, who made me a reader and writer of poetry, forever.
To Don Gray, who defined, for me, forever, what it was to be a scholar and a decent, reflective human creature, and to that capacious soul, Michael Flanagan, and to James Miller, who rose to my defense and who taught me that learning is sometimes hard won, and to E. Talbot Donaldson and Paul Gebhard and Douglas Hofstadter and Murray Sperber and Alvin Rosenfeld and Peter Lindenbaum and Jim Worley and Professor Machina–to all my amazing teachers throughout the years. Professor Rosenfeld, when I read, you still read over my shoulder. You always have. Sometimes, when I read, I hear your voice doing it, even now, reading with precisely the right intonation and then pausing and asking those penetrating questions, those questions like flowers blooming.
To that English professor who, when I sneered at Poe, said, in his wonderful southern drawl, “You have to be willing to take Poe’s trip,” and then laid down on his desk and closed his eyes and recited Annabel Lee from memory, smiling all the while. I am sick at not remembering your name, but what you taught me lingers on and informs all my teaching and my profoundest understanding of the often strange and wonderful arts of hermeneutics.
On this teacher’s day, thank you. Thank you, all. What gifts you gave!
And when do teachers get to return the favor with a Michelle Rhee appreciation week?
Oh, I forget. Every week is Michelle Rhee appreciation week in the alternate rheeality universe that is Education Deform. The deformers even took the name of their movement, Education Rheeform, or the Rheeformation, from her and lavished her with millions for being the picture perfect posterchild of goblish Vichy obedience to oligarchical corporate deform.
I hope you all caught her unforgettable “Erase to the Top Tour” in which she explained how to be a most excellent schools chancellor. You, too, could be raking in the dough! Simply channel Lewis Carroll’s Red Queen: Believe six impossible things before breakfast and stomp around yelling, “Off with their heads.” Oh, and call the press to come take pictures of you at the executions. Rheemember, it’s all about the PR. Who knows? A quick class at a Broad Academy and a few lessons from the master, and you, too, could be on the cover of Time magazine riding, uh, wielding, a broom. Just repeat after me:
Tests for Tots! Test them till they scream!
And when they fail, fire the teachers. Fire them all. That’s why the corporate gods created the new Teach for Awhile and computer-adaptive learning programs. Teaching, there’s an app for that! And there will always be a new crop of pimply adolescents to teach for a couple years before going on to their real jobs in investment banking.
Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the rheeformist rheeformer of all? Give it up, all–lowly peon teachers that you are–your obedience is not optional–give us a Great Gates Great Grate for that bee-eating, masking-tape-and-pink-slip-wielding Radical Ms. Ed Deform Spending Spree Rhee!!! [deafening applause, cameras flashing]
After all, there’s someone who really appreciates teachers, for without them to bash, where would she be, I mean, rheeally? So, declare war on teachers and then issue a cutesy smarmy love letter to teachers on Teacher Appreciation Week. Contradictions are no problem in the alternate rheeality Universe. Only peons are capable of contradicting themselves.
From the Rheeformish Lexicon:
bee-eater. Dependably reformish sociopath in position of authority and determined to assert it (thus the bee-eating). See radical.
radical. Defender of whatever ideas are being pushed, this week, by those who hold power and write checks.
P.S. I am available to do introductions at any future speaking tours that Ms. Rhee wishes to conduct.