Michelle Rhee announced that she is launching a national tour of “town halls” to discuss how to make every school a great school.
She will invite union leaders and teachers to attend as she stops in such cities as Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Birmingham. She will be joined by Steve Perry, ex-CNN commentator, and George Parker, ex-president of the DC teachers union and now a member of Rhee’s staff.
“The Los Angeles event is scheduled for Sept. 5. A Birmingham stop will be held on Sept. 12, with a Philadelphia event to follow on Sept. 16.”
September 16 is a good time to be in Philadelphia. The city’s schools are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy after more than a decade of state control and harsh budget cuts. At the present moment, there is uncertainty about when and if they will open in September.
And even more fun: I will be speaking at the Philadelphia Free Library the next night, Septembet 17.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
She’s inviting teachers so she can ridicule them, unions so they can learn to redefine themselves, and parents so they can become advocates for Rhee’s view of education.
Steve Perry will be with her?
Then let’s all go to Capital Prep (Capitol Prep? Capitalist?) and free the children!
Ooooh! We could sneak them out the back door, take off their black, or is it brown belts, and pleasure read in the park. No slanting, chanting, walking in straight lines, bubbling….the freedom to read whatever you want. Scholars one and all!
Perry and Rhee…..what a putrid pair. I wonder how he manages to be the principal of a school while touring with the Rheeject.
Don’t forget he referred to teacher unions as roaches. By the way if you show up you’re counted as a “grassroots” supporter.
Make sure you read Mercedes Schneider’s Blog about the scholarly work Dr.Perry produced with his dissertation. Worth the read. He is the National Validator of High Standards!? He is so great…just ask him!
Oh yes, here it is and much commentary. Please read if you haven’t one and all. He is a fraud:
Very enlightening. His contribution along with many others will be the subject of someone’s dissertation in the near future. Perhaps mine! I already know the conclusion and findings. It will take a few years to document the long-term havoc they have inflicted.
They are like BAD dreams, which won’t go away. Either they live in a bubble or they get their jollies making hay on others, and the most vulnerable, too.
How anyone can listen to them is beyond me. They are the circus and clowns.
Right, Linda, & if you sign in…why, you’re automatically a member of Students First! However, I strongly recommend that people go
(go in quietly, & act as if you’re an enthused Rhee supporter), THEN–during the talk–start a Mic-Check. (Signs would be good, as well, if you could hide them on your person to whip out later!)
Michelle Rhee is not stopping in DC and Atlanta Public Schools?
Our Nation’s educational museum documenting the ultimate results of BigCorp$$ EdReform and Drill/Kill/Bubble Fill, statistically unfathenable test score increases, and MASS CHEATING SCANDAL! All characteristics aligned in both cities, along with many other systems, to produce the EdReformers’ desired results. Their finest hour!
Michelle Rhee, please visit your EdReformers’ Mecca. Triple dare you!!
What if Michelle Rhee announced a speaking tour and nobody came?
Sadly, when she spoke to the LAWAC, the room was packed. I was there. She was outrageous in her comments. She is completely self aggrandizing and seems to have a mania as she whips herself into a frenzy rather like a tent revivalist. Eli Broad introduced her much as Oprah did, as the savior of American education.
This is the LA group that recently refused to invite Diane to speak since Eli Broad is on their Board, and members of their Board are owners and Board members of charter schools.
Very discouraging…but although some of these wealthiest of people call themselves Dems, such as Broad, they are all of the same ilk and their prime affiliation is money.
Wishful thinking,stephen. See my recommendation as a reply to Linda, above.
Hooray for the Philadelphia Free Library which is so free that it hosted high school Literature classes for Philly teachers & students launching The Parkway Program because they’d been kicked out of their own buildings. Sound familiar?
Eject Rheeject!
I like the fact that so public and spotlighted a person as Rhee will be out in the raw, open, live public with real ordinary everyday people.
This has potential for so many varied outcomes . . . . . And so many different types of consequences.
I wonder how much Rhee and Perry will pay faux audiences to sit in on these “town hall” meetings and plant their pre-formulated questions and comments.
They’re such a power couple, aren’t they?
Better than Liz and Richard, Brad and Angelina, Steve and Eydie, Sonny and Cher, and Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos.
They’re taking their show on the road . . . . .
The circus and its freak show has been doing that for centuries.
Or Bonnie and Clyde….the laws are outside…quick get out the back door.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hJN4fEqaimM&feature=related
Rhee and Perry make such a cute couple, don’t they.
They should be on the Newlywed Game. Here’s the very scene to air:
Bob Eubanks: “Michelle, Steve says you are best at your job when you are _____________. ”
Steve: (looking nervous but lovingly at his new education bride).
Michelle: “U-m-m-m-m. ‘Focused?'”
Steve: (holding up the card). “No, honey. I said ‘Unjust and immoral’ “.
(Buzzer rings out loud to indicate an incorrect match).
Michelle: Oh my god! I can’t believe you said that! How could you? (lightly hits his arm as a love tap, but also turns red before the audience).
Steve: Oh c’mon! Who knows you better than me? (kisses her temple).
Michelle: (giggling and embracing Steve) “I guess you’re right on this one. But do you want to be right? Or do you want to be loved? . . . “
I’m not sure they can share the limelight and Perry may be too preoccupied with his hairdo and the lighting. How many principals have their own public relations agency?
http://www.collaborativeagency.com/speaker.php?Num=22091
Did you ever read ths…Steve Perry talks to white people, catch the head shot.
This week found America’s “most wanted educator” venturing to perhaps the reformiest place in America: Minneapolis. There, Dr. Steve Perry delighted the reformer-heavy crowd with his unique brand of high-octane, high-expectations roof raising, including referring to teacher unions as “roaches” and regaling the audience with tales of children who are literally dying from excuses. In this special guest post, an embittered veteran teacher (is there any other kind???) weighs in on what she and her low-achieving colleagues learned from Dr. Perry’s visit—or what they would have learned had they not been too lazy to attend.
http://edushyster.com/?p=2432
Linda,
Hysterical in a wait-a-minute-that’s-not-so-funny way.
If I go to one of these town hall meetings, I want front row seats.
If any educators do attend, including union reps, they would be wise to plan ahead and learn from the UK’s teachers’ union leader, Mary Bousted, who confronted Rhee last year better than any US union rep or reporter that I have ever seen:
Headteacher TV sacking: Mary Bousted and Michelle Rhee – BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18592185
It should go one of two ways: no one shows up, she has nothing to offer or a protest/riot, she has nothing to offer.
Linda–as I’d written to stephen, it’ll NEVER happen that no one shows up–of course, all her cheerleaders will. So–the naysayers CAN’T stay at home. Also–another idea–Diane’s book is scheduled to come out September 17th (am I correct?)–if people can get advanced copies, bring the book, wave it in the air, & scream, “Ravitch is right–reform is wrong!”
Thanks Cosmic for this link….well worth watching the Brit teacher put Rhee in her place using truth of information about her actions in DC.
The Politico piece marketing Rhee’s latest privatization marketing effort is such poor journalism. They allowed Rhee to bemoan the incivility in the debate with no push-back at all to her 5 year campaign to portray anyone who disagrees with her as self-interested.
Why is the obvious and blatant self-interest of “reformers” like Rhee and Joel Klein and the rest of the people who are paid to advocate for privatization or have a direct financial interest in privatization completely ignored? It defies common sense. Is it because media has so pushed school reform, and so many current and former members of media are employed by reform lobbies?
At some point the public should look at media corruption. That’s the word for it, and it should be applied. Education Nation on NBC was a propaganda piece. It was blatantly and ridiculously anti-public schools.
Michelle Rhee is a lobbyist for charter schools. Nothing she has done has improved existing public schools, and 95% of public students attend the traditional public schools. When she is quoted, a public school advocate should also be quoted. This is just basic fairness and presenting the facts.
Would that all of America was as informed, articulate, and correct as you Chiara.
Sadly, the media is mainly owned by the major corporatists who definitely slant the information. Rupert Murdoch and 4 other billionaires own almost all of the media, and now Sam Zell is trying to sell the’ just out of Chap. 9 bankrupt’ Tribune Corp., and thus the LA Times, to either the Kochs or Murdoch who owns the WSJ. Broad made a bid but only wanted the LA Times, so he is supposedly out of the mix.
Where has the government been in not enforcing anti trust laws and allowing this conglomeration to usurp the free press, free media, which is the core of democracy?.
Where can the public turn for honesty and real information other than cyber sites, as Diane also says repeatedly?
Rhee, Klein, and their ilk make for good audiences on Sunday mornings and even Charlie Rose falls for their mendacity and treats these vultures of America universal education as the saviors.
It continues to be all about ratings and all about money. None of them published the fab u-tubes of Diane with Matt Damon and his teacher mom…and they never will.
Education Nation made NBC look like an absolute joke. They allowed a program to be presented to the public that was basically written by Bill Gates. I’ll never for get Duncan sitting on stage. I had worked in two charters and knew the whole presentation was a lie. All of their shows are nothing but propaganda. It was disgusting. Chelsea Clinton toured around with an Education Nation bus that went to Detroit and spread a bunch of bs propaganda about the EAA (state takeover schools). Honestly? Is everyone for sale?
Yes.
With “friends” like Rhee, public schools need no enemies. — Edd Doerr (arlinc.org)
I look forward to Diane rebutting Rhee the night after.
Will those who are present have to have their mouths covered with duct tape?
Only those aforementioned who come in & cause trouble, I reckon.
Gordon Gecko gave us “Greed is good.” Too bad for Rhee that “Bullying is good” doesn’t have the same alliterative ring to it.
Then let’s try “G-Rhee-d” is good . . . .
I like that, Robert. Definitely, she should call it the “G-Rhree-Is Good” tour!
Oops. I like that, Robert. Definitely, she should call it the “G-Rhee-d Is Good” tour!
Glad we have agRheed to that . . . .
How does Rhee still manage to assume a position of authority to launch a tour or include/invite others? You should need to be publicly vetted to organize and/or lead an event-and I believe she has come up short in terms of experience, know-how, honesty and transparency.
Dan- That’s not the point. Perhaps this is her comeback tour. Remember, she’s a legend in her own mind. Inviting teachers and union leaders is her idea of collaboration. Not that she’d listen to us…
The old message “if you repeat it enough, it must be true!” Though I say “just because you say it’s so, doesn’t make it so!”.
Dan…you are so correct…however if you watch the British u-tube link above, Rhee answers as though she had the best education creds in existence, and the best long term experience.
Interviewers seem not to put her on the spot by bringing up her minimal academic creds, and her only training of 5 weeks with TFA, and then her couple of years teaching 2nd grade in a charter school. Why does no one ask her how this infinitesimal background prepared her to be Chancellor of DC schools, and then, after only a couple of years, to be the self appointed voice of American education.
It is both a travesty and a pathetic statement about media hero worship for cash.
Do people actually listen to her? She is nothing but a fraud.
Here’s the problem – she’s a good speaker and her rationale, on the surface, makes sense to an uninformed mind. Unfortunately for her, experienced teachers and administrators know her rhetoric is nonsense. She is extremely dangerous to our education system.
It is interesting that we no longer see the prime unindicted charlatan, Michelle Rhee, introduced by her mentor, Eli Broad. This all powerful billionaire who helped to create her, using his PR firm and his vast media contacts, seems to have disappeared from view since John Merrow published the ‘secret document’ showing Rhee’s failures and questionable’ legal’ actions during her term as DC Chancellor.
Hope you have all read this eye opener document.
CNN of course, and other media, refuse to publish Merrow’s findings. Broad, Gates, Murdoch, all have total control of most media sources so We the People only get their selective choices.
As Diane says, it is only with our cyber activity can we get truth to the greater community.
One of the Center Right blog sights expands on the law suits that are haunting Rhee, by saying the Dem Party (with a plethora of DC voters being Black) joined forces to force the DC Mayor to lose the election and thus discredit Rhee, but they of course they do not make mention of her knowing about the cheating on test scores, nor her massive firings without due process. She brags incessantly about how much she enjoys firing folks and says “never cross an angry Korean woman” which I personally heard her say some months back at a LAWAC meeting in Santa Monica.
This team of Rhee and Perry sounds more like a Coen Bros. comedic horror flick than an academic presentation. These two are made for each other.
Ellen, I have to mention, here, that Google has been “burying” some of my blog e-mails. Also, I recently read some info. from Avazz (an advocacy group) that Google was attempting to stifle their e-mailing in some way.
Be ever watchful and careful.
Thank you for mentioning this new google/Avazz misadventure. I have only read about this in the past week, but some other education blog sites have alerted to this. It is really frightening to learn how much we are all open to being censured and our lives being manipulated.
Today, in the Business section of media, there are reports of a Gates supported medication the size of a grain of rice that will have a chip implanted to monitor forever the health aspects of anyone who takes it….this means the chip reports to the drug manufacturer the foods we eat, drugs/meds we use, sleep patterns, sexual activity, etc. This was just approved by the FDA.
We are no longer seen as independent humans, but rather as pawns to be directed by corporations. Sci-fi has come to pass, and it is all of us.
And of course, when Obama appointed the VP of Monsanto to head the FDA, many of us knew who Obama was really connected to… a horror of a tale.
Just realized that Rhee/Perry will be in LA on Sept. 5 which is the most important Jewish Holy Day of Rosh Hashana, celebrating the New Year. Some schools with large Jewish populations (LA has the second largest Jewish population in the nation) close that day since so many students and teachers are worshipping.
Wonder about her choice of the date, perhaps to negate the big and informed voice of Progressive educators and parents who would certainly put her on the hot seat.
Hope everyone heads over to hear her and carries signs and bull horns to get their questions and comments heard. I will be there, so if you want to join me please contact me at
joiningforces4ed@aol.com
How does one get invited? I would love to go and totally call her out. She is Rhee-volting and needs a BAT VISIT!
Marla…I will attempt to find out where she will be speaking, feel certain I can get in, and if I can, so can you.
Let’s stay in touch. Find me at
JoiningForces4Ed@aol.com
Most of the attention associated with Michelle Rhee focuses on her effort to eliminate tenure, teacher unions, and public education. A few in the press did question MR’s lying on her resume’, minimalistic response to cheating, and failure to improve student learning. The tragedy for students is that Rhee supports ignorance regarding science and research on teaching and learning, Ms. Rhee, never having seriously studied education believes the world is flat. Research on brain-based learning, organizational change, school culture, school improvement, statistics and measurement, multiple intelligence Ms. Rhee ignores or disregards. In Ms. Rhee’s world the patient/student lives/learns or dies/fails the test. Who cares why? Experience in the world of MR (who has virtually none) is discounted. Regarding educational leadership Ms. Rhee is clueless. Motivating, inspiring, assuring that there is a culture of respect, enthusiasm creativity and discovery are irrelevant. Simplistic platitudes work when delivered by the ignorant to the ignorant to sustain ignorance.
well said, cjwb!
This so called tour will have Rhee being set up to be attacked as as one of it’s primary purposes. She and other reformers know full well that the tide is turning. An attempt to appear sympathetic is one of her last chances to remain somewhat relevant. Solution? ATTACK WITH FACTS! Refer everyone to John Merrow’s excellent work in pointing out that no substantive investigation was ever done. Just for fun, ask why Darrell Issa hasn’t investigated her and Duncan as a part of his Obama witch hunt. Ask her why she told lie after lie in her Op Ed attack against the Seattle teachers MAP boycott. The bottom line is that Rhee is such a target rich environment that all you need do is point out her long string of lies and failures and debunk her stale talking points. No surprise at all that Chicago is not on the list.
Just to reiterate a bit, referring everyone to outside sources and articles on Rhee-ject will be a great strategy as events like these will offer little chance to go into any detail beyond talking points and sound bites. Like so many other “listening tours” it will be designed to create the illusion of dialog. http://prosserjohn.tumblr.com/post/44848476440/michelle-rhee-is-wrong http://www.otlcampaign.org/blog/2013/01/09/5-ways-michelle-rhee%E2%80%99s-report-puts-students-last Someone should also ask why her front group $tudentsLast gave Louisiana top marks for being reformy when the corruption is so totally over the top there. One tiny example……http://louisianavoice.com/2013/05/16/doe-run-like-a-snow-cone-stand-but-course-choice-fraudulent-enrollments-looking-like-a-major-scandal/
Diane it’s probably no accident about the timing. You being in town at the same time or Rhee being there at the questionable start of the school year in Philadelphia. I’m very concerned about a forum like this during a vulnerable time in Philadelphia. I’m not sure both sides of the debate will be properly articulated. I see it as a angry cross fire about the frustrations with the budget crisis and who is to blame. Would you be able to attend this? That would be something to see.
Maybe the larger question is why she has yet to be investigated for knowingly hearing about cheating on tests and pushing it under the table. That she continues to be protected is critical to her ability wield influence. I
You are asking the operant question. Why indeed has she been able to avoid an investigation?
I was on Alabama’s Stop Common Core Facebook page just prior to getting on this blog site. There was a post about Rhee planning to come to Alabama and wanting to talk to Alabama teachers about how to improve education in Alabama. I hope that the majority of Alabama teachers know better. Even if she came to my city, i certainly would not be in attendance.
Isn’t Mrs. Clinton going to be in Philly
at that time also? Any connections?
I wonder if she will dare make a stop here in Florida? And Rick Scott, Florida Governor is listening to her along with Jeb Bush. Yeah! Maybe we should invite her here for a wonderful debate and if she can really hold herself up to the criticism!
How is it that we get these inexperienced know-nothings like Rhee and Duncan in positions of great authority in education in this country? It’s a shocking indictment of the state of journalism in the U.S. that these buffoons have not been laughed off the stage long ago.