Mercedes Schneider here analyzes the tax returns submitted by Michelle Rhee for her two organizations. One engages in political activities, and the other is an advocacy group.
Rhee gives generous contributions to those who seek the privatization of public education.
Schneider notes the close connection between Rhee and the creators of Common Core.
She concludes her review with these thoughts:
“In reading these tax documents, I cannot help but wonder if our democracy is such a farce that it will crumble beneath the weight of the wallets of the wealthy removed. I wonder what it will take for them to realize that they are foolishly destroying the foundation upon which they themselves stand. In their arrogant fiscal elevation they forget that even they require the foundational institutions that form our democracy– public education being one such institution…..
“Here’s a hint: When you hear that a candidate in a local election is being outspent by 10- or 20-to-1, vote for that candidate.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well, at she’s nowhere near as evil as Martha Stewart …
… at least …
but at least Martha Stewart doesn’t try to navigate public dollars to private interests. Martha Stewart keeps her business in the business realm. Not so with Rhee.
I am going to paste something I just wrote an another post here (pushed for time) because to me that is the main problem. There has been an intentional confusion started (and shouted by Rhee) about who should be paid for services rendered in the realm of education (types of services, their value, etc). In an effort to de-value the service of teaching, there has been/is an attempt to put a number on that value so as to devalue the service in terms of money, and then an effort to inflate the value of technology, innovation, global ideas has come in redirecting the money.
I have chatted with folks who are in this type of business. I think they are wowed by the notions of innovation, technology and a “digital, global age.” Fine. But we are still people. And schools still need to be set up for such and as such. I know for a fact that those who have stood for what they think is good for lots of people (like, I have heard edupeneurs talk about how backwards it is to have a card catalogue) think they are helping and bringing the newest and greatest thing along (and they happen to get Gates money for doing so, while they are doing it). While it certainly is more efficient to have a library file on computer, I don’t think that if a school has a card catalogue, that means they need a digital one room schoolhouse to come in instead. It’s a matter of finding where what they have to offer can benefit the schools, but instead what they are really looking for is a way to have it benefit them and they become blind to the real issues. They have the mentality of missionaries, but without the vow of poverty (so it becomes about them and they resort to buzz words like “global,” “innovation,” “digital,” and probably apply for Gates money and boom, they get it and off they go to start their edubusiness, justifying the need over that of teachers and the personal aspects of schooling.
One thing I’ve tried to do so that I can keep perspective is compare Gates money for these type things to Ford Foundation money back in the 60s (I learned a lot about this when I read a biography of Obama’s mother—because she was funded to study as an anthropologist in Indonesia with this type funding). People are looking for projects. They want to contribute. They want to leave their mark. But really if you wave a bunch of money in their face, they want that more. So they are trying to do both. Payment for services rendered is the way business ought to work. (And there is no fault in expecting that). Instead, everything is flipped upside right now where people who expect payment for services rendered (teachers) are being faulted (like Rhee saying they are riding a gravy train) and people who are not really rendering a service that is entirely necessary (technology is a 1st world issue, really—and it is definitely a reality, but if it becomes the focus, then the real value of education for people is lost) are demanding payment, up front, in full and lots of it.
I think in time things will get sorted out, where we can push technology back to being something that supports teachers and students, not the end itself. And a more balanced approach to who gets money for what in education (hopefully, for true services rendered that MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO BE MEASURED with a score).
Can you measure which of your parents loved you more? Can you measure which one was a better parent?
Joanna:
The answer to your questions
Can you measure which of your parents loved you more? Can you measure which one was a better parent?
is that if people can answer the questions “Which of your parents loved you more?” and “Which one was the better parent?”, then you can measure it.
Bernie–
I don’t think those questions can be answered.
Also, how do we know they love us anyway?
Joanna:
The point is a technical one on the nature of measurement. If enough people can answer a series of yes/no questions about the topic of interest then you can build a measure. Personally, I can answer your questions. Two of my three children can.
There are certainly a number of technically developed “parenting scales” around.
There is a big difference between subjective, personal viewpoints and objective measurements. Just because three people say that Mom loved them, or an entire populations says that the earth is flat, does not mean those claims have been proven to be true by any valid measure.
CT:
That is why folks designing measurement tools have to present their reliability and validity data. Determining whether the earth is flat or not by asking people is kind of silly – that is why appeals to consensus opinions in science are always viewed somewhat skeptically.
There are lots of areas where we quantify difficult to assess qualities including a whole range of Olympic Sports, dog shows, etc. These measures are never perfect and there is always potential for disputes and measurement errors, but such measures survive more or less the same for many years and retain their legitimacy – because their perceived usefulness outweighs their known flaws and limitations.
They endure because they are the professional opinions of experts, based on years of training and experience, not the personal beliefs of neophytes.
Mercedes:
I always believe that it is best to support the candidate whose positions are closest to your own. How much money they raise is hardly a pertinent issue. How they raise their money and from whom is another question.
And do they support the issue to get the $$$ and then they can jump on the bandwagon….their support also seems to waiver depending upon who has the most cash. Not my kind of candidate.
Teach for America is organized the same way as StudentsFirst. TFA is a 501(c)3, while their Leadership for Educational Equity is a 501(c)4. Matt Kramer and Arthur Rock are on both boards. What a simple work-around our government has provided. What the right hand can’t do, the left hand can.
What organizations that don’t have a 501(c)4 arm do, such as ALEC, is argue that their lobbying is “education.” So, if ALEC can’t get around the 501(c)3 issue, no problem, they will just launch a 501(c)4.
Instead, they should all be classified as PACs!
FYI, I didn’t mean to imply that PACs are an easy answer. Actually, I don’t think there is one right now, because of the SCOTUS Citizens United ruling, which resulted in SUPER PACs that can legally circumvent the maximum contribution limitations on PACs. There is also a loophole which permits some nonprofit contributions without having to disclose the source, so we’re talking about a lot of “dark money,” too…
Also, it comes down to what people expect our country to be. Are we just a platform where you get away with whatever you can and make as much money as you can and to hell with a vision for a country where quality of life, in general, matters? That’s a key issue. Our country doesn’t have one sense of what we should be. Some want to just be here so they can figure out how to make as much money as they can in whatever way they can, whereas others don’t see money as the end game. A balance between those two visions seems extremely elusive at this point in time (I have ideas, but that’s because I care about a vision for our country aside from it not just being an open playground for survival of the fittest. And some would fault me for that; I do recognize that).
As usual, song lyrics come to mind (not in how I feel, but in what I’m seeing). Also, I think folks need to consider Patton Oswolt’s “Sky Cake” piece (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55h1FO8V_3w):
Alfred The Lord above gave man an arm of iron
So he could do his job and never shirk.
The Lord gave man an arm of iron-but
With a little bit of luck, With a little bit of luck,
Someone else’ll do the blinkin’ work! The three
With a little bit…with a little bit…
With a little bit of luck you’ll never work!
Alfred The Lord above made liquor for temptation,
To see if man could turn away from sin.
The Lord above made liquor for temptation-but
With a little bit of luck, With a little bit of luck,
When temptation comes you’ll give right in!
The three With a little bit…with a little bit…
With a little bit of luck you’ll give right in.
Alfred Oh, you can walk the straight and narrow;
But with a little bit of luck You’ll run amuck!
The gentle sex was made for man to marry,
To share his nest and see his food is cooked.
The gentle sex was made for man to marry-but
With a little bit of luck, With a little bit of luck,
You can have it all and not get hooked.
The three With a little bit…with a little bit…
With a little bit of luck you won’t get hooked.
With a little bit…with a little bit…
With a little bit of bloomin’ luck! Alfred
The Lord above made man to help is neighbor,
No matter where, on land, or sea, or foam.
The Lord above made man to help his neighbor-but
With a little bit of luck, With a little bit of luck,
When he comes around you won’t be home! Jim and Harry
With a little bit…with a little bit…
With a little bit of luck, You won’t be home.
Alfred They’re always throwin’ goodness at you;
But with a little bit of luck A man can duck!
Oh, it’s a crime for man to go philandrin
And fill his wife’s poor heart with grief and doubt.
Oh, it’s a crime for man to go philanderin’-but
With a little bit of luck, With a little bit of luck,
You can see the bloodhound don’t find out!
The three With a little bit…with a little bit…
With a little bit of luck she won’t find out!
With a little bit…with a little bit…
With a little bit of bloomin’ luck!
He doesn’t have a tuppence in his pocket.
The poorest bloke you’ll ever hope to meet.
He doesn’t have a tuppence in his pocket-but
With a little bit of luck, With a little bit of luck,
He’ll be movin’ up to easy street.
With a little bit…with a little bit…
With a little bit of luck, He’s movin’ up.
With a little bit…with a little bit…
With a little bit of bloomin luck!
Read more: My Fair Lady – With A Little Bit O’ Luck Lyrics | MetroLyrics
You are not alone in wondering about our democracy crumbling under the weight of money supplanting people in importance.
Again, would urge people to read “Why Nations Fail”. Superlative scholarship, scary scenario.
Thanks, Gordon. Too true. History repeats itself.
I just discovered that my State Senator, John Flanagan (NY) received over $10,000 from StudentsFirst (Michelle Rhee) last year. In addition he also received contributions from Coalition for Public Charter Schools ($2500) and Great Public Schools PAC (Eva Moskowitz) ($2000). He’s on the State Education Commission and sponsored a bill to end to Last In First Out (Seniority Protection) for NYC teachers. I’m disgusted!
The worst thing about Flanagan is that he is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council. He is willing to introduce model legislation in the NY state senate that has been crafted by corporations. He allows himself to be wined and dined by the slimiest of CEO’s in exchange for doing their bidding. In other words he is a complete sell out.
Sad and scary thought that indeed could be true.
Michelle Rhee sold or is selling her turn of the century house in Washington DC. . . . DC’s very own Amityville Horror House . . . . . with the ghost of Rhee still haunting the new owners. You should check out the pics. . . . her taste in decor was probably early mid century gothic evil with a touch of bleach and Raymour and Flannigan.
Anyway, beside a focus on still investigating her erasure spree in DC – and we should forget about the flaccid journalism of wimpy John Merrow – Rhee’s credentials should be the new spotlight.
How long did she teach for?
She – what – put tape over her students’ mouths?
Why not put tape over her mouth? Perhaps, it’d be little more than an exercise in futility, as she’d break through the (gorilla duct) tape with her fangs. Oh well.
The public ought to really understand her qualifications for driving educational policy.
She’s not qualified. Period.
She should NOT go to jail, but should sentenced to a life time job as customer service clerk in your local WalMart. It’s an easy sentence. She already works for the Waltons anyway . . . . . .
When will people on this blog acknowledge that the Common Core is the education portion of Agenda 21 envisioned by the United Nations, brought to us by Bill Gates? The globalists are TRYING to collapse the United States through any and all means: shipping our jobs overseas to collapse our manufacturing and machine tool capacity, rigging Libor Rates to bankrupt our cities like Detroit and Benton Harbor to let them be taken over by “emergency managers” who lock the democratically elected town councils out of their offices and proceed to privatize the cities with taxpayer funds, converting our public schools to test prep mills guarded by police, and looting the American people by keeping interest rates at zero for grandma’s savings account while refusing to reinstate the Glass Steagall Act to separate speculation from real banking so that we are heading for another financial implosion worse than 2008.
These people own land in Paraguay and Chile and they have already converted their dollars into gold and other currencies. If you think they care that they are destroying our U.S. institutions and our children’s minds…..you are sadly mistaken.
Sir Michael Barber worked for Tony Blair for 4 years, the prime minister that created the fake dossier containing the news of Saddam Hussein seeking “yellow cake” in Nigeria that started the Iraq war. Sir Michael Barber also worked for McKinsey & Company, that has provided slimy individuals like Jeffrey Skilling to rob the good people of California through the Enron scam. David Coleman worked at McKinsey with Sir Michael. They are buddies. They are partners in crime you might say. Bill Gates funds it all and somehow floats above the fray. He made a deal with UNESCO to spread the agenda and goals of the UN around the world through education. The UN has stated that the U.S. must be collapsed so that a new world order can be put in place. George Bush Sr. said so when he returned from the “Earth Summit” held in Rio in 1992. This is not a conspiracy. It is published. You can order Agenda 21 from Amazon.com. You can also order all of the sustainable development guide books that our city planners are using to create our comprehensive plans. You can read how your local town council is using your tax dollars to implement Agenda 21 in your county. Governor Cuomo sat on Bill Clinton’s Presidential Council on Sustainable Development which raised the crazy ideas dreamed up down in Rio with the 1500 NGO’s like WWF and the Nature Conservancy and the Carlyle Group to cabinet level implementation. Stop concentrating on the Common Core and realize we are in the end game of a fascist coup. Obama has sold us out to the Wall Street bankers and the slime mold that exists in the City of London. He bows to the Queen. The sun still never sets on her Empire.
No need to purchase Agenda 21. The UN has posted it online for free here: http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/Agenda21.pdf
Let others decide for themselves from reading the actual document whether they agree with the conspiracy theories of Glen Beck et al.
It is a conspiracy. It is just not a theory. People that refuse to entertain the possibility that an elite cabal could be trying to control everything have blinders on. You can let people decide for themselves about opinions and preferences. You can not let people ignore facts putting all people at peril.
Please don’t make blanket assertions without citing exactly where in that document it states the claims you have made, because a lot of us are not seeing the same things in there.
We have documentation to support collusion amongst business people and politicians in our own country though, which have paved the way for current governemnt policies, including the 1971 Powell Memo: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/the-lewis-powell-memo-corporate-blueprint-to-/blog/36466/ and Marc Tucker’s 1992 Dear Hillary Letter: http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/marc_tucker/ And then there’s MIlton Friedman’s 1995 “Public Schools: Make Them Private” http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-023.html
I think that Gates, the Waltons et al. didn’t get the memo on the importance of unions:
“Agenda 21 – Chapter 29
STRENGTHENING THE ROLE OF WORKERS AND THEIR TRADE UNIONS
PROGRAMME AREA
Basis for action
29.1. Efforts to implement sustainable development will involve adjustments and opportunities at the national and enterprise levels, with workers foremost among those concerned. As their representatives, trade unions are vital actors in facilitating the achievement of sustainable development in view of their experience in addressing industrial change, the extremely high priority they give to protection of the working environment and the related natural environment, and their promotion of socially responsible and economic development. The existing network of collaboration among trade unions and their extensive membership provide important channels through which the concepts and practices of sustainable development can be supported. The established principles of
tripartism provide a basis for strengthened collaboration between workers and their representatives, Governments and employers in the implementation of sustainable development.
Objectives
29.2. The overall objective is poverty alleviation and full and sustainable employment…”
President Clinton brought Agenda 21 to cabinet level by creating the Presidential Council on Sustainable Development. If he wanted to support workers so much, why did he sign NAFTA and CAFTA. This shipped our manufacturing jobs overseas. But it did not benefit the people overseas. They are now slaves working for crumbs. They are commiting suicide in China because their “life” is so abhorrent. This is what the elite have in mind for the people of the U.S. too. They very clearly state the “more highly educated people tend to use more energy” therefore they want to dumb us down with the Common Core. Do you really believe the United Nations is a useful institution with only good things planned for the world? The Rockefellers donated the land on which the United Nations sits. On page 405 of David Rockefellers memoirs, he outs himself and his family. He admits that he is proud of being part of a secretive cabal working for the destruction of the United States so that a new world order can be established. The Worlk Wildlife Fund (the one with the cute panda bear logo) was created by Julian Huxley. Julian Huxley was also the president of the British Eugenics Society. These environmental groups are being used as a cover for imperialism and fascism and a eugenics program. In 2012, Bill Gates and the British Government cohosted a meeting in honor of the 100th Anniversary of the Eugenics Society in London. The United Nations is a vehicle for the elites to take power from sovereign nations. It is not what it pretends to be. I am sorry if that doesn’t fit with your current world view.
I have no illusions about greedy, self-serving politicians and corporate leaders and I have written extensively about them, including of the severe socio-economic damage that Clinton and other neo-liberals have done to this country and workers abroad. I see no altruistic motives behind the actions of Gates, the Waltons or other robber barons, as well as entrepreneurs that have created hundreds of military style boot camp charter schools across this country for poor children of color, who are being taught to be obedient above all else.
Agenda 21 addresses environmental and equity issues and there is nothing in that document substantiating claims made by people who believe that it’s a conspiracy. There are corporate leaders behind promoting the notion of Agenda 21 as a conspiracy, including those who have denied global warming, are against environmental protections and do not want to pay livable wages. Those people would prefer that their industries be unregulated, so they can continue to rape the earth at minimal cost and increase their wealth, including the Koch brothers. It’s no coincidence that the same people promoting Agenda 21 as a conspiracy want to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy.
See: “Agenda 21: The Latest Sleight of Hand Trick by Corporate Elite”
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12906-agenda-21-the-latest-sleight-of-hand-trick-by-corporate-elite
Rosa Koire is not a corporate elite. Check out her website. Be open minded. Allow the possibility that you have been duped by the British monarchy, Al Gore, the United Nations, and WWF. The Club of Rome “decided” to use global warming as the boogey man we could all be afraid of to unite us and make us scared enough to give up our national sovereignty, our property rights and our scientific perspective on the future development of the U.S. and underdeveloped nations. Al Gore is making a killing selling carbon offsets. And since he owns the company, when he flies in his jet, he can just pay himself to offset his excessive use of jet fuel. A convenient truth.
http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com/
“Allow the possibility that you have been duped.” It’s a conspiracy theory that has been debunked. Try to use your critical thinking skills:
http://www.metabunk.org/threads/debunked-agenda-21-iclei-sovereignty-un-depopulation.363/.
One man’s opinion on his own blog with no facts to back up what he says is your idea of debunking?
I have heard that some people are paid to comment on blogs, to put down ideas or opinions of others.
You have no facts. You have beliefs and those who hold such beliefs could be endangering our planet: “How Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories May Pose a Genuine Threat to Humanity” http://www.alternet.org/story/153554/how_right-wing_conspiracy_theories_may_pose_a_genuine_threat_to_humanity?page=entire”
Use of a real name would go along way toward advancing the truth.
I have provided lots of facts about Bill Gates, the Rockefellers, and the U.N.
The eugenics movement has co-opted the green movement. Some people are aware of their role in this. Others are well meaning dupes. Did you read Rosa Koire’s book, Behind the Green Mask? She is a Democrat. She is not a right winger. Don’t be so quick to judge. Open mindedness is a lost art in this world of political correctness.
Teachers should know that those of us who don’t have union protections and tenure can’t afford to use our real names if we want to pay the rent and eat.
I have no more faith in neo-liberal Democrats than I have in neo-liberal Republicans, because our problem is the oligarchs in THIS country, who could care less about you, me, our children and our planet, not a non-binding UN accord and foreign royalty. Yes, I have read it all before and, quite frankly, I think that anyone who has fallen for that nonsense needs to seriously work on their critical thinking skills.
I have no more time to waste on this conspiracy theory.
I’m not going to get into this, since it’s clear that some people will believe the most baseless claims, other than to say that a lot of people have debunked the Agenda 21 conspiracy theory, so ignore the fear mongering propaganda, Folks, and think for yourselves! Here’s an example:
Agenda 21 Conspiracies Debunked – The Truth
Julian Huxley was also the first Director General of ENESCO. Bill Gates signed an agreement with UNESCO in 2004 pledging to disseminate the goals and agenda of UNESCO by creating a world wide curricula. …..Enter the Common Core.