This was in my email:
From: Education writers forum. [mailto:EWA-L@PO.MISSOURI.EDU] On Behalf Of John Merrow
Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2013 3:31 PM
To: EWA-L@PO.MISSOURI.EDU
Subject: [EWA-L] Michelle Rhee and the Missing Memo—which has turned up
Listers,
Below are the first few paragraphs of what I am posting in a few minutes. The piece runs 4300 words is fully footnoted: 40 footnotes, which appears as hashtags in the excerpt below.
I am also reporting that, after five years of Rhee/Henderson, the DC schools are worse off by almost every conceivable measure: graduation rates, truancy, enrollment, test scores, black-white gap and teacher and principal turnover.
John
Diane Ravitch's blog 
John made the point about the indicators in his conversation last night with Chris Hayes
Of course Merrow is not considering the BROAD view. From the perspective of Eli BROAD, the are more charters and dispirited educators, both of which are part
Of which are positives!
Was Bill Gates somehow aware of this memo prior to it surfacing to the public, prompting his recent backpedaling piece regarding teacher evaluations in the Wahington Post recently? It would be interesting to know what is going on behind the scenes with rheeformers. Are some beginning to distance themselves from Michelle Rhee? I think profits will trump billionaire education reformers’ love for Michelle Rhee (if their love for Rhee starts to have a negative impact on their profits).
Is it wrong to be giddy with excitement over this? This is the best news I’ve heard in a LONG time!
There is no real excitement until Rhee is investigated as thoroughly as Beverly Hall, an effort that has top go far beyond City Hall’s walls in D.C.
Only then will we have real hope.
Of course, this is a start.
Won’t make a bit of difference. Facts just don’t matter that much in a nation where the gov’t is owned by corporate interests. Think about national health care, global warming, austerity politics, gun control. The facts are clear and they are out there, but policy goes on as if they just don’t exist.
Michelle Rhee:
I’m pleased, as has been previously reported, that both inspectors general (DOE and DCPS) reviewed the memo and confirmed my belief that there was no widespread cheating.”
These two flawed, IG-led investigations uncovered nothing because they didn’t really want to uncover anything.
Rhee can try and hang her hat on these two IG-led investigations as proof of exoneration but they actually raise more questions than they resolve and they certainly do not give us definitive proof that “Atlanta-style wrongdoing” didn’t take place in DC since only the last investigation in Atlanta – the one pushed by Governor Perdue – actually found the evidence of widespread cheating.
Remember, the first couple in Atlanta, as ineffectual and limited as the two IG-led investigations done on Rhee, found no evidence of cheating either and exonerated Beverly Hall and her teachers:
In August 2010, after yet another blue-ribbon commission of Atlanta officials found no serious cheating, Mr. Perdue appointed the two special prosecutors and gave them subpoena powers and a budget substantial enough to hire more than 50 state investigators…
The result :
Dr. Hall [Ex-Atlanta Schools Chief] was charged with racketeering, theft, influencing witnesses, conspiracy and making false statements. Prosecutors recommended a $7.5 million bond for her; she could face up to 45 years in prison…
-Perdido Street School blog:
“This “smoking gun” memo that shows Rhee, Henderson and other DCPS brass knew of the allegations of widespread cheating in DCPS and did nothing to investigate them shows us why there needs to be an independent, Atlanta-style investigation of Rhee’s tenure at DCPS.
But who’s going to call for that investigation?
The education reform establishment long ago hitched their wagons to the Rhee wagon train.
They’re not calling for an investigation.
The Obama administration has close ties to Rhee and Arne Duncan in particular has a conflict of interest in the matter.
There is no way you’re going to get the USDOE to conduct an independent investigation of Rhee and DCPS.
And those in power in the DC municipal government don’t seem too interested in learning the truth either.”
Sources:
http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2013/04/rheedc-cheating-memo-leaked-but-will-it.html
In Rhee, Gates, Walton, the “Broadfathers” et al world losing is winning so they claim they improved when in reality they lost. George Orwell really knew what he was talking about. Also, How about the book by Eric Hoffer “The True Believers?” There is some insight to what is going on and when you combine that with “Hapsburgs to Hitler” you really have the whole story.
For the sake of the children, I would have gladly been proven wrong about Rhee and regret that I, like many here, am not.