In this pairing of opposites, David Kirp takes on the mythology of corporate reformers and says we should fix the schools we have, rather than close them. He boldly challenges the claims of Michelle Rhee and disparages the hapless Race to the Top
On the same page, Michelle Rhee displays her inability to speak truth. She reviews the Los Angeles school board election and makes the bizarre claim that school board president Monica Garcia won even though she was “strongly targeted” by the United Teachers of Los Angeles.
She neglects to mention that Garcia had the help of the $4 million fund raised by Rhee and friends, while the UTLA endorsed several candidates opposing her. The second place contender had a bulging war chest of less than $20,000, raised in small amounts.
She skips over the triumph of Steve Zimmer, who beat Rhee’s candidate despite being outspent 4-1. Rhee and her buddies got beaten in the race they targeted, and now she tries to spin it into a victory. Amazing
Rhee would have readers believe that she, Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, and Rupert Murdoch are fighting for the kids, and those evil teachers don’t care about them.
Really, this grows stale as well as ridiculous
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Is Michelle Rhee going to star in the next remake of The Wizard of Oz? She certainly appears to be the woman behind the curtain.
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I envision a different role for her: “I’m melting! I’m melting!”
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Why didn’t I think of that!
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Who gets to be Dorothy?
(Every teacher in America lined up to audition?)
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You know, the more I think about it, Michelle could be the Wicked Witch or one of those damned flying monkeys that gave me nightmares when I was a kid.
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There’s one race we are forgetting about. In the East San Fernando Valley, Monica Ratliff did very well against Antonio Sanchez who outspent her 100-1. Again, he received money from the same coalition that funded Zimmer’s opponent. If Ms. Ratliff attracts the votes from the other two candidates, she has a chance at defeating Sanchez in the run-off with a significant margin. This campaign will be another “grassroots” effort. Hopefully, the community got the message that outside money is not welcome.
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I see that’s May 21st. I wonder how much national attention it will attract, especially after Bloomberg’s well publicized soda setback.
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Nice article by David Kirp on what improving school systems really looks like.
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Stale and ridiculous is right, Big Lies projected again and again. Only way for defenders of pub schls and public goods is to to field our oceans of people against their ocean of dollars; go door to door campaigning stand on every corner and in every supermarket door and under every theater marquee reaching out. NPE could perhaps stir this kind of grassroots offensive against the fake reformers with astroturf dollars by developing state-based election squads that “follow the bad money”–wherever Broad, Rhee, Bloomberg, Gates, Koch, Zuckerberg, etc. shovel their millions to overwhelm elections. How to mobilize our vast numbers effectively? Let’s brainstorm usefulness of mobile election squads and other grassroots tools.
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Go read my comments at the S.F. Chronicle article in this comment. It is the only comment. How can this be after 6 days? Rhee and crew are total liars and have absolutely no ethics.
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Rhee learned a long time ago that a lie (or in this case twisted facts) repeated often enough becomes truth… Why the MSM gives her lines on the editorial page is beyond me…
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Let’s call it what it is “lying.” They learned this technique from the Nazi’s. Appropriate, isn’t it.
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Sadly, this will continue up until the indictments. And probably afterwards.
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Here is how sociopathic the so-called “Reformers” are. At the Tuesday LAUSD Board Meeting Deasy’s and Steve Barr’s sneak attack on Venice High School was stopped. The board voted to approve the plan but not the location because LAUSD and Barr made sure that until the last moment the public did not know. In fact a board member brought up Barr’s name and said it was in their documentation. I looked at my large printout and it was in theirs not ours. A student obtained in less than 2 days about 1,000 signature to not have that school on their campus. Previous to this as a result of Steve Zimmer being elected instead of the corporate privatizer put up by Rhee and friends Monica Garcia, every privatizers bought and sold friend, will not be board president after this term. She has had six and that has never before happened. Now no one can have it for more than 2 years.
As a result of this vote on Deasy’s and Barr’s sneak attack yesterday Deasy went to the Venice High cafeteria where there was a silent protest against the proposed school with permission of the principal. As he approached the door he ripped off their signs, threw them in the trash and came in yelling at the parents. The parents and community members were calm and Deasy was like a crazed animal. We must stop these psychopaths and sociopaths as that is exactly what Broad, Gates, Walton, Kock Brothers, HP, Rhee, Bloomburg, Duncan et al are in fact. This is who they really are. Their armor is cracking. Their game is starting to be understood. This is something they cannot deal with considering their ideology. They have great fear of all their plans falling apart which is exactly what is happening. We must continue the attack with facts while they talk garbage.
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She is beginning to sound like the product of the schools she advocates: not an original idea in her head, just keep spouting the party line. Scripted learning taken to its “highest” form.
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Would a superintendent who really wants to improve his schools tear down those signs? Would he exhibit anger, even if he was upset by them? Wouldn’t he sit down and talk with the parents and students there? Apologize for not doing a better job of including them in the decision? That’s PR 101. Apparently Deasy never took the class.
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Deasy’s job from day one was the destruction of the LAUSD public school system. He quit his Prince George’s County job one week after the phony PHD story hit the papers. He was hired by Gates one week after that. One year later he was at LAUSD. One year after coming to LAUSD he was voted superintendent even though I informed every board member before the vote of his lying about his PHD. I even spoke to the issue before they voted on the issue that day. He is here to privatize. In 2011 LAUSD had about 250 charter schools. That is the most in the U.S. Charter schools have zero accountability according to the latest Federal DOE OIG report which is DOE-OIG/A02L0002. They tried to run a sneak attack on the Venice High School community.
Deasy is scared that his and the corporate privatizers game is coming apart at the seams. Before the Venice issue came up I spoke at the public comment on Deasy and Garcia, board president, lying to a California Assembly Select Committee on Preventing School Districts from going into Receivership, bankruptcy. They both stated that LAUSD only had $4,800/student when it was, according to the California Dept. of Ed. website, $11,233/student. Those numbers are close aren’t they? What they did not know is that the Congress of Racial Equality of California (CORE-CA) testiied later and that the committee already had the documentation which we presented. What kind of nerve and arrogance do you have when you lie to a high level committee like that and to think that you can really get away with it?
This must be stopped and stopped it will be. If they will not be reasonable with you and deal with documentation with their name on it you only have one choice, WAR!!!!! Our youths and our societies future depend on us to stop them.
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