The Daily Howler is a tough marker.
He reports on how the media reports on events.
He was not happy with the PBS show about Rhee.
He thought it was dated and failed to ask important questions.
By the way, if you haven’t seen The Daily Howler reports on how the media fumbled the latest international test scores, you should. See here. And here. And here.
There is a connection. Rhee loves to carry on about how horrible American schools are, how dreadful our teachers are, how far down we are in international tests. But if you read the links above, you will learn that our scores on international tests are not so bad. StudentsFirst will have to rewrite a lot of its documents, maybe even retire that insulting video where SF showed a US athlete in the Olympics who pranced around and stumbled pathetically, a man doing a female-only sport. When I recall that awful commercial (shown on national television), it makes my blood boil. What is it with this woman? Why does she want to humiliate the U.S. in the eyes of the world? Why does she have such contempt for our teachers, our schools, and our students?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I liked the show, I just didn’t like the show’s title, “The education of Michelle Rhee”. I would have gone with “Bull in a china shop, Michelle Rhee and the D.C. public schools”
“When I recall that awful commercial (shown on national television), it makes my blood boil. What is it with this woman? Why does she want to humiliate the U.S. in the eyes of the world? Why does she have such contempt for our teachers, our schools, and our students?”
Hmm. Were I a xenophobic, racist, anti-Communist, I might think our Michelle is a North Korean agent. . . but that would mean that A NATION AT RISK was true. . . just 25 years too early. The destruction of our education system from within is in fact the goal of our current for-profit deformers.
“I might think our Michelle is a North Korean agent. . .”
I’ve been saying that for quite some time now. Did you see the picture of her with the NK Military leaders?
What do you expect from a sociopath? Ration and reason? No way! She is the perfect example of: There but for the grace of God (go I).
The real question is this:
Why does she have so much clout? Who died and made her the sec of education?
Why does the press give her more p/r than Duncan? She is not even a real teacher!
Why does the press give her more PR than Duncan? She’s hotter.
BTW, Duncan’s not a teacher either.
You’re correct on two points.
1. Duncan is part of the Chicago corrupt crew- Obama- Rahm Emanuel, Duncan…
He’s not a teacher and only had his bachelor’s when Obama appointed him…
2. And Rhee is “hot” alright..she is the “devil incarnate” in human form…
PS And in your “Leave a reply” you have Diane’s name spelled wrong!
God if the rheeject is hot then I must be Angus Og.
I think we give her power by giving her so much press and attention. It’s amazing the energy we spend on her. I refuse to say her name.
“We” don’t give her power…the press does…She is a nothing…
We shouldn’t give her the time of day…
I would not be surprised to learn that this woman had experienced some kind of tragedy in her life that has made her the miserable, self-serving creature that she is.
Yes it was her failure as a teacher and she decided to take it out on the entire profession. She was mediocre on her best day.
I dunno, I think it’s probably more than that. Even she admits her own mother was concerned about her not getting along with her peers as a child.
I think Rhee is intensely insecure, hence her need for absolute control. I don’t know if any specific event made her that insecure, or a cummulation of events or the atmosphere she grew up in or what.
Dominatrix, too!
I would opine that Rhee hates teachers and our profession because it is something that she failed at, and she resents that.
Posted mine above before I read yours…yes…definitely a failure complex.
Nah, I think HER mouth was taped shut when she was a student, after being forced to eat bees.
When she ventured into teaching, she hit a wall of frustration, as many new teachers do. This was probably the first real challenge of her life. Instead of pausing and thoughtfully considering what she could do to change and improve, she has been trying to demolish the wall with an axe. It’s like a continual tantrum. How about a time out?
What is Michelle Rhee about??? To quote from Warren Beatty in his role as Jack Reed in the film REDS, when asked about why America was entering WWI, his response was, “Profits!” Rhee is not only profiteering for herself, with substantial donations from nepharious types like the Koch Brothers and other uber right wing corporate scions in their attempt to privatize all public services, including public education, according to their Ayn Randian view of the universe, as she simultaneously advances the corporate right agenda intent on getting their grubby little hands on the $500 billion or so in annual spending on public education, to do to public education what they did to the national economy in 2008… A manufactured crisis in true SHOCK DOCTRINE form…
I would also suspect that her contempt for teachers et al., stems from her own deep seated self loathing, masked over by pathological levels of psychopathic tendencies, including an utter lack of human compassion, or even good taste and manners. Just look at the men she’s become involved with — both husbands of which she has engaged in allegedly criminal behaviour — the first, engineering a TFA knockoff to supply plenty of nonunion teachers for the DCPS she once led, the second, a seven time alleged child sexual abuser wtih at least one of the allegations she helped to cover up via engineering payoffs to victims…
She’s rather a loathesome lot, as are those suckups who cling to her, though they pose as Democrats, which is perhaps the height of her hypocrisy — or her denial…
She would otherwise be quite easy to diagnose and lock up in a well padded room, dose with thorazine, if only to prevent some other mass cruelty or devastation she might commit… I’m sure she has a lot in common with mass killers, but she’s more clever about the crimes she commits…
After following John Merrow’s series of stories on Rhee over the past 6 or so years since she started, one thing that really stands out about her is how talented a speaker she is. She really would be such an asset for teachers if she were on our side.
It seems that her downfall on the other hand was simply that she did not know what she was doing. She has almost zero experience as a classroom teacher (That bee story is so laughable to an experienced teacher). A McDonald’s manager would come to the role of Chancellor of DCPS with more experience than she did.
She could have surrounded herself with people who did know teaching, but that would come across as weak for her, right? Rhee was politically retarded, unless she intended for the mayor to be thrown out, in which case she is a genius. When I look at her, I see someone who began actually wanting to improve things, made mistep after mistep, was undone by her idiotic logic and decided to toss it all and go into the charter school business. The Short but Happy Education Career of Michelle Rhee.
thelivingteacher.com
I’m not sure it’s true contempt for teachers on the part of Rhee. I believe it’s more narcissist. She’s clearly smart enough to charm the right people at the right time, AND know what they want to hear and what she needs to say to appear most useful to them. She has used this skill to lift her relevance with people in power (the narcissist will know how to close in on these people in order to lift their own status). Rhee, knowing that she was lacking as an educator (or maybe her plan from step 1-even before taping tiny little mouths closed?) has chosen to demean and undermine the field.
Michelle Rhee greatly disturbs me. Does the following parallel her behavior?
“The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air and in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for others. Dangerous as these people may be, they are not so significant as thousands of other people who have never been mentioned.
The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information.
With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.”
― Henry A. Wallace
LOVE the Rhee Haters.
“Keep our people’s of color unnnnn edjucated so we gets to earn the big salries keepen em that wayss!!
Frankly, Terry, you have described precisely the effect Rhee’s reforms have on children. Cherry picking charter school students, closing community schools, disrupting any remaining neighborhood stability, narrowing the curriculum because of the intense focus on test prep, firing experienced teachers and principals based on narrow test results, attempting to remove earned teacher tenure, and attempting to end teacher unions have really helped educate our students. Oh, but all this is okay with a little test result tampering thrown in the mix.
We need to all work together to strengthen and improve our public schools. Addressing poverty is a must. Rhee’s blinded and off the mark.