Andrew Delbanco Reviews Rhee and Ravitch

September 26, 2013 //

Andrew Delbanco of Columbia University contrasts the recent books
by Michelle Rhee and me in the New York Review of Books.

Read it and let me know what you think.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Ravitch, Diane, Reign of Error, Rhee, Michelle

54 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

Joe Nathan says:

September 26, 2013 at 12:21 pm

Here’s the conclusion: “Perhaps a starting point would be to acknowledge, as Ravitch does, that the golden age of master teachers and model children never existed, and, as Rhee insists, that the bureaucracy of our schools is wary of change. One thing that certainly won’t help our children is any ideology convinced of its exclusive possession of the truth.”

I agree.

Reply
- Duane Swacker says:
  
  September 26, 2013 at 12:48 pm
  
  “. . . any ideology convinced of its exclusive possession of the truth.”
  
  It’s not ideology if a belief is based on the truth and logically derived. It is ideology that needs the support of errors/falsehoods.
  
  Reply
  - Joe Nathan says:
    
    September 26, 2013 at 8:28 pm
    
    Lots of ideology around, Duane. For example
    * It’s ok for democratically elected local boards to create “public” schools with admissions tests that use standardized tests for admission – the kind of admissions tests you and others often criticize
    * It’s terrible for democratically elected state legislators to create charter public schools – this movement is “a hoax”
    * people who see value in the charter movement are either dupes or snake oil sales people, or “useful fools”
    * no response when it was pointed out that among others on the Education Nation panels were Marian Wright Edelman – who has been fighting for better health care, housing, jobs and other necessities for decades
  - Duane Swacker says:
    
    September 26, 2013 at 10:22 pm
    
    Joe,
    
    On your first point, I agree that any “select” school falls far short of equal opportunity. I have never said here or anywhere that I agree with the concept of select schools. I agree with you on that point
    
    Second point: I have not problem with Pubic charter schools if that means they can be free of some of the onerous state requirements but they should also be open to full scrutiny.
    
    Third point, I’ve never said not implied that.
    
    I have no opinion nor point of view on MWE.
- Michael Fiorillo says:
  
  September 26, 2013 at 12:48 pm
  
  You conveniently overlook the fact that, in the penultimate paragraph, the author writes that Diane’s major points can be accepted without having to validate Rhee’s claims.
  
  Also, Rhee and her backers’ scorched earth policies demonstrate that they are either “convinced of (their)exclusive possession of the truth,” or are so committed to real politik and their financial interests that they simply don’t care what anyone else thinks.
  
  Reply
- Cosmic Tinkerer says:
  
  September 26, 2013 at 1:24 pm
  
  If the shoe fits, Joe… start with your own ‘charters are wonderful even if they destroy our system of public education’ ideology…
  
  Reply
- Dienne says:
  
  September 26, 2013 at 1:26 pm
  
  The whole darn article is pretty much a condemnation of Rhee and an acknowledgment that Ravitch is right, yet you choose to quote the one wimpy paragraph at the end in which the author can’t even acknowledge the argument he spent his whole article developing. So typical of your pretense to be in the middle (or “messy middle” as your friend Merrow would put it).
  
  Reply
  - Joe Nathan says:
    
    September 26, 2013 at 8:15 pm
    
    Dienne, we agree that much of the review is a criticism of Rhee and an affirmation of Ravitch. I disagree with many of the sweeping assertions that the reviewer makes.
    
    I don’t see myself as in the middle at all. We try to work with and learn from a variety of educators. But I’m not on the middle on lots of things. For example
    For decades (since my mother was the first Head Start director in Kansas) I have been a strong advocate of high quality early childhood education that includes work with both youngsters and families.
    I’m a strong advocate of project based learning and involving youngsters in real live projects as part of their academic work.
    I’m a strong advocate of offering public school choice and a strong opponent of allowing public k-12 schools to use admissions tests.
    I oppose vouchers.
    
    Having worked with Saul Alinsky, I’m a big advocate of finding ways for people to work together when possible. For example, many years ago we helped put together a broad left-right, conservative-liberal coalition that successfully challenged the NCAA.
  - Rangoon78 says:
    
    September 26, 2013 at 10:58 pm
    
    The reviewer makes a convincing case that Rhee’s is a snake oil sales pitch and that Ravitch shoots her down; then incongruously calls for a give-and-take meet in the middle:
    “You would think there might be room for some agreement on how to improve public education. To find it would require all sides to moderate their tone.”
  - Reflective Thinking says:
    
    September 27, 2013 at 7:13 pm
    
    Joe if I could I would like to pick your brain about saul alinsky…I just finished reading his second book, rules for radicals, and am in the middle of reading his playboy interview…what is your opinion on his strategy of using the proxy tactic as a means to get middle-class people involved in radical causes. Do you think this still applies to day and could it be applied to fight the privatization of education?
  - Joe Nathan says:
    
    September 28, 2013 at 7:05 am
    
    Thanks for your question about Saul Alinsky, Reflective Thinking. Many of Alinsky’s strategies are being employed by those trying to improve public schools. As this discussion board demonstrates daily, there are different ideas about what should be done (and some agreements, like promoting more high quality early childhood education).
    The proxy idea that Alinsky proposed was tried and did not seem to have much impact on companies. But many of his other strategies did have an impact, as noted in Rules for Radicals.
    However, Alinsky wrote decade before development of the internet. So the proxy idea to challenge companies might be more viable now.
  - Reflective Thinking says:
    
    September 28, 2013 at 1:52 pm
    
    you’re talking about the internet as a tool for more affectively gathering like-minded people to target stockholders and form proxy organizations…or is there something more to that?obviously the internet would also allow you to more easily gather data and construct a database on corporations who own stock in other corporations for the purposes of not only owning proxies in a corporation but also owning proxies in corporations that have stock in that original corporation you are trying to influence and so on and so forth down the line of corporations. any other advantages to the internet?
    
    I’m interested who is using alinsky’s tactics to improve public schools?
    Do you know of anyone who is currently using the proxy tactic?
    I’m interested to know how it was used after Alinsky, and some of the cases where you say it did failed to work.
  - Joe Nathan says:
    
    September 28, 2013 at 2:48 pm
    
    This is a longer conversation. If you want to contact me, joe@centerforschoolchange.org we can discuss it. We’ve used Alinsky tactics a number of times to help improve public schools.
- Robert D. Shepherd says:
  
  September 26, 2013 at 1:40 pm
  
  I agree, Joe, that we need a lot less ideology and a lot more science in this education debate, but suggesting that there might be a common ground between Ravitch and Rhee on the subject of education is like suggesting that there might be a common ground between Alan Guth of MIT and, say, Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church on the subject of cosmology.
  
  Reply
  - Robert D. Shepherd says:
    
    September 26, 2013 at 1:44 pm
    
    Ravitch is our greatest historian of education and a deeply learned scholar. Rhee is an extremist ideologue. There is nothing that the latter has to say about education that should be of any interest to rational people.
- Robert D. Shepherd says:
  
  September 26, 2013 at 1:48 pm
  
  There are thoughtful, informed people, Joe, on the other side of the charter debate. You are a sterling example among those. So, I think, is the fellow who contributes regularly, on this blog, under the name teachingeconomist. But Rhee? Give me a break. I would hope for ongoing serious discussion between the likes of you and Diane. But that’s an entirely different matter.
  
  Reply
  - Joe Nathan says:
    
    September 26, 2013 at 8:04 pm
    
    Robert, I don’t recall praising Michelle Rhee here or elsewhere. Here’s a newspaper column in which I called some of her assertions questionable and some of them wrong:
    http://hometownsource.com/2013/01/09/improvements-needed-but-minnesota-school-reform-efforts-dont-deserve-a-d/
    
    As to the charter debate, there are more than two sides. Some people have called the charter movement “a hoax”. There are allegedly some (none I know of but the NY Reviewer seems to think there are some) who think charters will solve all the problems. Then there are some of us who think chartering can be a good thing. There are some people who are ok with charters run by non-profits but not by for profits. And I’m sure there are other points of view.
- Linda Johnson says:
  
  September 26, 2013 at 3:59 pm
  
  I agree too. That’s why I support Diane Ravitch, whose ideas are based on research and not ideology. Also, she is supported by the people who are actually doing the job. You can’t beat that!
  
  Reply
  - Joe Nathan says:
    
    September 28, 2013 at 2:49 pm
    
    Lots of people doing the job don’t agree.
Aaron Barlow says:

September 26, 2013 at 12:29 pm

The problem with that, Joe, is that the conclusion begs the question by relegating both Ravitch and Rhee to the “either/or” of weak journalism and then claiming to stake out a middle ground. There is no actual middle ground, however, in Delbanco’s conclusion (only a sampling of points from each), and the imputation that Ravitch (like Rhee) is a true believer is not supported even by his own article. All I see, in this disappointing conclusion, is avoidance, not advocacy, and not a tempered ‘middle.’

Reply
- Concerned Citizen says:
  
  September 26, 2013 at 12:35 pm
  
  Agreed. 95% of the article describes how Ravitch and Rhee are diametrically opposed. The last 5% argues that they are both right. This is a cop out.
  
  Not every debate has a middle ground.
  
  Reply
  - Teacher Ed says:
    
    September 26, 2013 at 12:56 pm
    
    The “middle ground” is in serious dispute. In his blog yesterday, Merrow effectively declared the middle ground to be the military style education provided by drill sergeant teachers to low income children of color at many charter schools, because KIPP founder Dave Levin characterized their approach as “the messy middle.”
    
    What genuine civil rights leader would claim that the middle ground is having virtual chain gangs of poor African American and Hispanic children walking silently on a line and demonstrating SLANT all day long, effectively requiring complete subservience to (mostly white) teachers?
    
    MLK Jr, must be rolling over in his grave at what is passing for “middle ground” –as largely determined by upper income white people today.
  - Joe Nathan says:
    
    September 26, 2013 at 8:19 pm
    
    “Virtual chain gangs?”
- KrazyTA says:
  
  September 26, 2013 at 12:59 pm
  
  Aaron Barlow: you went straight to the heart of the matter.
  
  Consider the graphic at the beginning of the article. Literally, Diane Ravitch is looking leftward and Michelle Rhee is looking rightward. Everyone to his or her own opinion, but IMHO this gives me the strong feeling that between these two dismissive ‘catty’ women stands the author, objective and fair and reasonable [perhaps occupying the “messy [male?] middle” between ultra-lefty and ultra-righty?].
  
  To judge by the author’s comments and writing ability, he chose to give a certain tenor to his article that is not supported by the very data he includes in it.
  
  Just what do I mean by that? To put it in its most simple form: the tenor of the whole piece should have begun with a graphic of Diane Ravitch looking at and extending her hand to Michelle Rhee, inviting her to an extended fair one-on-one debate before millions of viewers on MSNBC’s EDUCATION NATION, while Michelle Rhee has her back turned to her and is storming off, broom in one hand and masking tape in the other, to another of her ‘open-to-the-public’ meetings [aka ‘controlled product rebrandings’].
  
  So I issue this challenge to Andrew Delbanco: publicly invite Diane Ravitch and Michelle Rhee to debate their respective positions with each other in a truly open, public forum, with him as moderator. One-on-one. No two or three or four arrayed against Diane. Equal time to both. Equal number of questions to both. Delbanco not favoring one side against the other but pledging to act in an impartial manner.
  
  A ver qué pasa…
  
  🙂
  
  Reply
- Robert D. Shepherd says:
  
  September 26, 2013 at 1:51 pm
  
  Well said, Aaron!
  
  Reply
University Admission says:

September 26, 2013 at 12:31 pm

Delbanco sets up his case in the introduction. The point of the book is to highlight the fundamental principles of college that that have been “inherited from the past, are being challenged in the present, and should be indispensable in the future” (Loc 168).* His goal is to clearly articulate what college should do for students, above all else.

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Mark says:

September 26, 2013 at 12:34 pm

I happened to read it this morning on the way into school (I subscribe to the Review). I thought it was well balance, but I particularly liked (OK, so schadenfreude is one of my guilty pleasures) that he noted Ms. Rhee’s tendency to “self-praise.”

What is one of the axioms of the publicity business, that Ms. Rhee might want to consider? “Never believe your own press.”

Reply
Russ Walsh says:

September 26, 2013 at 12:51 pm

I thought the review was well done and I particularly enjoyed the author’s awareness that Rhee talks about being all for the kids, while her book is clearly all about Rhee. I also think that it was clear that Ravitch’s book, while strongly advocating a very different view than Rhee’s, was more in line with good sense. I didn’t read the last part as a cop out, so much as a plea to get on with the business of educating kids.

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jfraad says:

September 26, 2013 at 12:51 pm

I read it and I thought it was fair for the most part. I especially thought his comments on Rhee as a radical were particularly insightful. he really captured the fact that Rhee was trying to coop the term radical when she clearly has a corporate agenda. What I find simplistic about his review is his ending, a call for a meeting as if there is value we should acknowledge is Rhee’s point of view. He does , however in his analysis of Rhee show her callow disregard for teachers and children which is salutary.

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Mike Barrett says:

September 26, 2013 at 12:55 pm

This seems shallow and unworthy of the more thoughtful and insightful commentary and analysis that I expect from the NYRB. While not as egregious as John Merrow this still is another example of false equivalence. Delbanco is much too kind to Rhee and much too dismissive of Ravitch.

Sometimes there is actual data that allows a determination of which side is telling the truth. Delbanco should have noted that the facts and the data favors the views of Ravitch and shows Rhee as simply wrong!

Reply
Joanna Best says:

September 26, 2013 at 12:57 pm

I have read both books (well, almost finished with Reign) and so I liked reading what someone else who has read both thought (I don’t think there are many who have read both. . .??? at least I don’t know many who have, or who have read either for that matter). Anyway, not sure if you want our opinion of both books or just of the review but the review seemed fair, and I wouldn’t expect a review to provide the middle ground that people who would bother to read both books should discover. Otherwise, you would come away with an answer, rather than questions that would lead you to read the books.

I was 10 years old when A Nation At Risk came out. . .so basically the whole ordeal has been going on my entire school-age life. I try to gather wisdom from my mother, who was a teacher all that time (since 1968 or so), and my mother-in-law (same years), and I am drawn more to Dr. Ravitch than to Rhee because she was there as an adult all this time. That is my own personal prejudice. . .I listen to people who have seen stuff before I listen to those who have only read about it. Also, Rhee strikes me as somebody who was outspoken and so people noticed and she liked the attention and it just turned into a role for her to play. I am sure if she and I had a cup of coffee and she told me some of the stories from her book, I would listen intently. But I would walk away thinking, “wow, she is sure full of herself.” Whereas if I had coffee with Dr. Ravitch and she shared her stories, I would walk away enlightened and wondering what she thought of me.
“Radical,” also, is the descriptor my pastor father assigned himself (at the suggestion of a friend) when he thought it a justified decision to marry the director of the preschool at our church, when they were both married to other people. So the term has negative and eye-rolling associations for me. And I admit I can’t get past that when I recall Rhee’s book. I don’t understand wearing that self-proclaimed title with pride unless it is like about a fashion statement or something.
I liked that the review was lengthy and that it started with the scope of education in the 19th century. That is important to me—that this all be framed in a larger sense of how education got to where it is and not just a trend in giving out trophies to more children than should receive them. Competition doesn’t work with everything. I’m an artist. I teach music. Collaboration, historically informed choices, understanding the forest despite the trees, and an awareness of something larger than ourselves are more attractive to me than radical, flippant, know-it-all, follow me I’m hip observations with the surface wisdom of market mentality.
In short, I liked the review.

Reply
Lindy says:

September 26, 2013 at 12:59 pm

I read it this weekend and was very disappointed, expecting a more trenchant criticism from this reviewer and the NYRB in general. The review reads more like a criticism of “girls fighting” than an honest assessment of the arguments and data.

Diane, on a more personal note — I am sure critics are telling you that you’re “strident” and angry. I say, it’s about time someone shows some anger in public about the mess some “reformers” have created in too many schools and districts. On the other hand, what you have to say is so very important and only you have the standing to say it so please be careful.

Reply
- Mike Barrett says:
  
  September 26, 2013 at 1:02 pm
  
  I agree with your comment on anger and often refer to the following quote from Aristotle:
  -“[Those] who get angry at the right things, at the right time, for the right length of time, [are] commended.” -Aristotle on qualifications for excusing anger [paraphrase]
  
  Reply
- KrazyTA says:
  
  September 26, 2013 at 1:08 pm
  
  Lindy & Mike Barrett: yes and yes!
  
  The Aristotle quote rocks!
  
  🙂
  
  Reply
Robert D. Shepherd says:

September 26, 2013 at 1:28 pm

OK, it’s an excellent article. But, alas, putting pictures of Ravitch and Rhee side by side at the top of it elevates the later absurdly. Ravitch brings to the discussion of U.S. education enormous scholarship and intelligence and moral decency. All Rhee brings to the topic is a loud mouth and a nasty attitude. One might as well put a picture of Alan Guth of MIT alongside a picture of, say, Jerry Falwell at the top of an article about 20th-century cosmology. To Mr. Delbanco’s credit, his article does, subtly but clearly, explain what Rhee’s one real talent is: self promotion. Ravitch writes about education. Rhee writes about Rhee the invincible, Rhee the bee eater, Rhee the heroine of some videogame-like alternate reality.

Meanwhile, Rhee’s Erase to the Top Tour travels on. Stop and have a listen. She will explain to you how to do the job of a school chancellor:

Simply channel the Red Queen. Run about yelling, “Off with their heads!” and practice believing six impossible things before breakfast.

The money from the plutocrats will roll in. Great rivers of green.

Reply
- Robert D. Shepherd says:
  
  September 26, 2013 at 1:30 pm
  
  cx: latter, of course, not later
  
  pardon the typo
  
  Reply
- Robert D. Shepherd says:
  
  September 26, 2013 at 1:33 pm
  
  Here’s where that picture of Rhee belongs: next to “heedless” in the dictionary.
  
  Reply
Emmy says:

September 26, 2013 at 1:51 pm

This list below is from the article. It states the reformers’ approach. I’ll save this for my kids so that they know whey I sent them to private school.

(1) Students should compete for test scores and their teachers’ approval.
–No. Students should have the intrinsic motivation to learn more and more and the “grit” to stick with it when it gets tough, as it will. The purpose of education is to develop these two capacities.
–No. Students shouldn’t compete for their teacher’s approval. Who cares what the teacher thinks. They are not the holders of all knowledge but rather guides that can help the student learn what the student wants to know.

(2) Teachers should compete for “merit” rewards from their principal.
–No. Nothing is more rewarding and motivating than a job well done. A true feeling of accomplishment is achieved through the validation of one’s peers, who are also striving towards professional excellence. Man, can anyone say “fuhrer principle” with all of this “gain the approval of the leader” stuff?? Geez.

(3) Schools should compete for funding within their district.
–No. All schools should be equitably funded because our children, the future of our nation, spend the majority of their time there. Equitably funded in pure dollar terms would be an improvement in some places, but funded according to the actual needs of students would be better.

(4) School districts should compete for budgetary allocations within their state.
–No. All schools should be equitably funded. (See above).

(5) States should compete for federal funds.
–No. All schools should be equitably funded. (See above).

A society that uses this approach to education believes two things. First, hierarchy and obedience will produce the best results because the people at the top could only have gotten there by having more of the answers. Two, the people at the bottom are interchangeable insofar as they can be made to have basic functional criteria. Their needs as human beings (for beauty, wonder, camaraderie, love, respect, etc) have no business in education and have no relation to what makes people work hard. This is not what a democratic nation should aspire to and it is not what any parent, who looks at their child as a unique individual, would ask for. The most frustrating thing is that we know this already.

Reply
- Robert D. Shepherd says:
  
  September 26, 2013 at 1:54 pm
  
  Well said, Emmy. I bet you are a great teacher!
  
  Reply
Steve Cohen says:

September 26, 2013 at 2:00 pm

Delbanco writes, “Ravtich imputes bad motives and a grand design where there may be good intentions and overblown confidence.” But Delbanco ignores the great deal of evidence, from Milton Friedman on, that there is indeed a “grand design” to eliminate or subjugate public education to private interests (ie., public taxes to fund private ventures). Delbanco wants the reader to think that Ravitch is immoderate, that she does not have the “facts” to back up her passion. Pluleez. The “facts” have been there for years, for anyone honest enough to admit them. Delbanco “may” be yet another liberal critic who just cannot accept that a plutocracy has succeeded in a coup detat–and that public education is the next institution up on the block for “reform.”

Reply
- Dienne says:
  
  September 26, 2013 at 2:58 pm
  
  +1
  
  Reply
- Ang says:
  
  September 26, 2013 at 7:04 pm
  
  Agree!
  
  Reply
Harold says:

September 26, 2013 at 2:48 pm

I’m afraid Steve Cohen is right. Delbanco may be jonesing for some of that Walmart/Gates money.

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uarktransparency says:

September 26, 2013 at 3:32 pm

DelBanco’s review is useful but weak. It’s somewhat sympathetic to Ravitch but it doesn’t do much reviewing work, as in “summarize and evaluate the claims made by the author”. DelBanco has a few interesting quotes from Rhee but he leaves it there without any discussion. He quotes her describing “a culture in which teachers rank their students and families prod their children to raise their ranking. ‘Rather than damaging the souls of the less accomplished,’ she writes with an intimated sneer at those who would coddle rather than challenge children, ‘the rankings focused every family on moving their children up the ladder.'”

How plausible or even logical are these claims? I think it is important to pause and reflect that they make no sense whatsoever. A ranking is not a ladder that everybody can “move up” with effort. It’s a zero-sum game where one can only climb “up” when another climbs down. Further, a ranking is by definition relative. When everybody is incompetent, there is still one that is least incompetent and therefore ranked number one. When everybody is brilliant, it’s even worse: there will be some ranked at the bottom *even though they are brilliant*! And finally, when everybody improves at the same rate, everybody’s ranking will stay the same. A system of evaluation and reward based solely or mainly on ranking by definition doesn’t even register overall improvement – which is ostensibly Rhee’s goal.

In Baltimore, Rhee is said to have “grouped her students according to how they were doing, with the promise of advancement to a higher group if their work improved.” Again, such a system wouldn’t work if everybody improved. This is not a matter of opinion. It’s basic logic. Achievement is not the same as ranking.

It’s interesting that Rhee believes Americans are less “competitive” than others. Everybody with some international experience knows that this is factually absurd. Few people are even remotely as obsessed with rankings and competition as Americans are. Where else do you find parents bragging about test scores of their four-year-old children (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/26/education/on-entrance-test-whose-days-appear-numbered-a-95-just-wasnt-good-enough.html)? Yet with fact-challenged sound-bites like that, Rhee counts as an expert whom journalists are swooning over rather than asking hard questions? That in a nutshell is the “Education” debate in America.

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Paul says:

September 26, 2013 at 3:54 pm

It is interesting that Delbanco could be so sensitive to the ideology of the abolitionists in his last book and so insensitive to the resistance of anti-corporate reformers of today. As a very good historian he should know better. He intentionally avoids the context of the 50 billion that supports people like Rhee in collapsing an entire movement into a clash of the titans comparison between Ravitch and Rhee. This would be like analyzing Abolitionism as a competition between William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. We expect better of you Professor Delbanco. Perhaps your colleague, Eric Foner, should try the same thing. He would not likely cop-out, to put it politely, as Delbanco does in the final paragraph where he loses meaningful economic and institutional contexts. Professor Ravitch is the historian here, not a scholar clinging to “balance” like a childhood teddy bear. Perhaps Prof. Delbanco is looking for a more reputable publisher for his next book by sacrificing analysis and context to the altar of feigned objectivity. Historians follow the evidence and there is simply very little evidence on the Corporate reform side of the equation; but there is plenty of money to create a rhetoric of objectivity to define the debate.

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FLERP! says:

September 26, 2013 at 3:57 pm

I would be surprised if Diane wasn’t pleased with this review. The author casts Rhee and her book in a bad light and accepts every one of Diane’s premises without coming off like a fan review. The either/or vibe that some take issue with is standard for the “two-book review” format. And I actually think that format is productive for this book and this topic. It provides good context for readers who don’t know much about Ravitch or Rhee or the current debates about education reform, and it may lead many of those readers to pick up Diane’s book because the topic sounds interesting and the book sounds formidable. At least those are the considerations that make me want to read a book about a topic that I don’t know much about.

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- Robert D. Shepherd says:
  
  September 26, 2013 at 5:51 pm
  
  well said, FLERP!
  
  Reply
Duane Swacker says:

September 26, 2013 at 6:44 pm

Not having read either book, I have no comment on either other than I probably know what’s to be found in each primarily because Diane has laid out her arguments here and Rhee’s (hey I’m playing nice) book can only be a self aggrandizing one due to her nature of being.

My question is: Does Rhee have a similar website to discuss educational issues that is open to all who wish to comment like this one does?

Reply
- Joe Nathan says:
  
  September 26, 2013 at 8:38 pm
  
  Here’s the website of her organization. I did not see anything there comparable to this discussion group.
  
  http://www.studentsfirst.org/
  
  Reply
  - Duane Swacker says:
    
    September 26, 2013 at 10:24 pm
    
    And perhaps I am being lazy in my intellectual duties for not reading it but I don’t see how I can gain from reading that.
    
    Please enlighten!
  - Joe Nathan says:
    
    September 26, 2013 at 10:27 pm
    
    Duane, I am not recommending Rhee’s website. Just trying to respond to your question about whether she has a comparable discussion area.
    Also, re your previous comment – sounds like we agree on some important things.
Linda Johnson says:

September 26, 2013 at 7:03 pm

Here’s my favorite excerpt:

“To read Rhee and Ravitch in sequence is like hearing a too-good-to-be-true sales pitch followed by the report of an auditor who discloses mistakes and outright falsehoods in the accounts of the firm that’s trying to make the sale.”

Sounds to me like Delbanco went out of his way to be fair, but he wasn’t fooled.

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Liz Wisniewski says:

September 27, 2013 at 7:05 am

I read it. Dianne comes out ahead.

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Liz Wisniewski says:

September 27, 2013 at 7:07 am

Oh. Forgot to add that the caricature on the cover was cute.

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