This is a must-read column by John Merrow.
In it, he says that Michelle Rhee paid $2 million to a politically connected public relations firm (Anita Dunn and SKDKnickerbocker) in D.C. in a one-year period. (Anita Dunn was communications director for the Obama administration from April to November 2009.)
He writes:
“In just one year[1] Michelle Rhee spent about $2 million to buy the public relations services of Anita Dunn [2] and SKDKnickerbocker. It’s a continuing relationship that goes back to early in Rhee’s Chancellorship in Washington, and it’s probably the best money Rhee has ever spent (especially because it was contributed by her supporters).
“Just consider the challenge facing the PR team: The former Chancellor of the Washington, DC public schools ignored clear evidence [3] of cheating by adults [4] on the District’s standardized exams, as Linda Mathews, Jay Mathews, Jack Gillum, Michael Joseloff and I documented in “Michelle Rhee’s Reign of Error.”
“But Rhee went beyond covering up the misdeeds. Instead of making a sincere effort to root out the cheaters, Rhee stage-managed four ‘investigations’ so that they cleared her. All the while, a feckless Mayor and the local newspaper averted their eyes, in sharp contrast to the vigorous investigation of a comparable cheating scandal in Atlanta.
“With her test-based accountability schemes discredited and her reputation as a fearless, tough-minded leader severely damaged, Ms. Rhee might have been expected to disappear from the scene. However, that has not happened. Instead, she remains in the public eye, writing op-eds [5] and offering analysis of educational developments. This fall she will be a presenter in the annual “Schools of Tomorrow” education symposium sponsored by The New York Times–even though the subject is higher education.”
He wonders why the District of Columbia was not included in the New Yorker article about cheating scandals.
(Read the original to follow the links.)
Most interesting is his description of an effort to smear him while he was preparing a documentary about Rhee for PBS. Even for a veteran reporter like Merrow, it was intimidating to be confronted with a long list of accusations, intended to undermine his credibility as a journalist.
He deals also with Rhee’s efforts to call herself a Democrat even though her organization, StudentsFirst, funds many conservative Republicans. According to this article in Salon in 2012,
“Rhee makes a point of applauding “leaders in both parties and across the ideological spectrum” because her own political success — and the success of school reform — depends upon the bipartisan reputation she has fashioned. But 90 of the 105 candidates backed by StudentsFirst were Republicans, including Tea Party enthusiasts and staunch abortion opponents.”
Maybe her PR team can resurrect Beverly Hall.
Basically, Rhee is a bully… and a well-paid bully at that.. Michelle Rhee makes more in an hour of bashing public school teachers & their unions as the average starting teacher makes in a year—while we have to read the outrageous stuff that her supporters claim about how self-less and noble she is..
Below, we can read as one of her backers blathers about how Rhee is now “shunning high salaries” to “improve the lot of our nation’s students,” and how she was targeted and victimized in D.C. because she “put students first.”
Check out what WAITING FOR SUPERMAN director Davis Guggenheim wrote in his blurb accompanying her page in TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Important People list:
(CAPS are mine… Jack… it’s in the last paragraph)
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2066367_2066369_2066128,00.html
—————————————
DAVIS GUGGENHEIM:
“She (Michelle Rhee) SET A GOAL TO IMPROVE THE LOT OF THE NATION’S STUDENTS, and she has stuck to that. And she PAID DEARLY FOR IT, stepping down from her D.C. post in 2010 after Mayor Adrian Fenty lost his bid for re-election, a public rejection that some saw as A REPUDIATION OF THE TOUGH STEPS to raise the standards of the city’s public schools.
“Subsequently, SHE SHUNNED ANY HIGH-SALARY OFFERS that resulted from her high-profile tenure and INSTEAD FOUNDED HER OWN ORGANIZATION.
” ‘PUTTING KIDS FIRST’ could be a pithy slogan. For many it is.FOR RHEE, IT’S A LIFELONG COMMITMENT.”
—————————————
Hey Davis, you know who else has to “pay dearly”? The folks who have to pay to have this woman speak for an hour or two!
Ms. Rhee may have “shunned any high salary offers” after the voters of D.C. ran her out of town, but she sure isn’t shy about lapping up her $50K / hour speaking fees!
(NOTE: her 2013 STUDENTS FIRST tax forms indicate she currently makes $350,000 annually… isn’t that “a high salary?)
It’s nice that her “lifelong commitment” to “putting kids first” pays so well.
Here’s Hollywood agency CAA’s promo blurb for her:
http://caaspeakers.com/michelle-rhee/
——————————————————————-
“In the ever-evolving landscape of education in America, Michelle Rhee has been working tirelessly for the past two decades to give children the skills and knowledge they will need to compete in a changing world.
“From adding instructional time after school and visiting students’ homes as a third grade teacher in Baltimore, to hosting hundreds of community meetings and creating a Youth Cabinet to bring students’ voices into reforming the DC Public Schools, Michelle has always been guided by one core principle: put students first.”
——————————————————————
Wow, Rhee has “been guided by one core principle: put students first.”
How touching and noble of her? Given that moving statement, I’m sure that—like Dr. Ravitch—Ms. Rhee probably donates her time to give speeches and make appearances… at most only asking to have her expenses covered.
Wait a sec. I just found something on-line. It says that… Ms. Rhee… NO, I DON’T BELIEVE IT… SOMEBODY’S LYING OR MAKING THIS UP TO HARM HER REPUTATION…
No… it says that… she actually CHARGES MONEY (???!!!) for her speeches?
Say it ain’t so!
And that, when giving speeches, she is represented by the top Hollywood agency C.A.A., Creative Artists Agency?
Well, I’m sure her pay is just a small honorarium… as, like you, Dr. Ravitch, her true motives are to improve the educational lives of children, and to make sure every child has a great teacher at the front of his or her classroom, and, as Davis Guggenheim puts it, her mission to “put students first,” while “shunning high salaries.”
What’s that? It’s NOT just a token honorarium. Let me guess…
$1,000?
$2,000?
Higher? You gotta be kidding!
$5,000?
$10,000?
Get outta town!
$15,000?
$20,000?
What? She gets more than that just for an hour or two of speaking and answering questions?
Really? It’s actually higher?
$25,000?
$30,000?
Okay, someone’s just winding me up here. There’s NO WAY she charges more than THAT!!!
$50,000!
BINGO!!!!!
$50,000???!!! I don’t believe it.
Somebody’s gotta be making that up to discredit Ms. Rhee. It’s probably some evil, corrupt defenders-of-a-failed-status-quo teachers union thugs who put adult teachers’ interests ahead of children/students’ interest that hacked into C.A.A.’s website and created… yeah, it’s probably them who are making up and spreading these lies in an effort to harm Ms. Rhee’s reputation, and protect those teachers’ own selfish interest and cushy jobs-for-life.
Apparently not.
Some enterprising writer named Molly Bloom at the on-line publication STATE IMPACT actually got a copy of the contract that Rhee uses for her personal appearances and posted it on-line.
Oh, will you just shut up and gimme that link!
http://stateimpact.npr.org/ohio/2011/10/10/michelle-rhee-to-speak-at-kent-statestark-prompts-faculty-to-organize-counter-event/
What’s that? Just scroll down and you can see
a scanned copy of Rhee’s boilerplate contract? Hmmm….
Yep! There it is… In the contract posted, $35,000 is indeed what she’s getting paid to speak at Kent State, plus a bunch o’ FIRST CLASS expenses. .. (She claims here that she was discounting her usual $50,000 / hour fee because the venue, Kent State, was “a school.)
The contract posted is the actual one used for Ms. Rhee’s appearance at at Kent State University,
Why, that’s SECOND worst atrocity ever associated with that school’s history. (“Tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming… Four dead in O – hi – o… “)
(Watch this whole video… it’s pretty well done!)
I like how the “Purchaser”—the entity or person who hires her— sends the payment to:
“Rhee Enterprises, LLC” (PAGE 2)
Helping improve the education of children and “putting students first” is a lucrative Big Business, apparently.
There’s more on PAGE 3:
——————————————————————
“a. Purchaser shall provide the Artist with one (1) First Class round-trip, unrestricted, fully-refundable airplane tickets, or cash equivalent, at Artist’s election;
“b. Purchaser shall one (1) VIP hotel suite; Purchaser to make and confirm reservations in consultation with the Artist; Artist reserves the right to choose hotel;
“c. Purchaser to provide the Artist with meals and all reasonable incidentals;
“d. Purchase shall provide Artist with a towncar and Professional Driver for round-trip transportation from the Artist’s home to the airport, airport to hotel, hotel to engagement, or any combination thereof;”
——————————————————————
Yes, that’s right… Rhee demands not just a hotel room, but a “VIP hotel suite” at a hotel approved by her, as well as a towncar with a chauffer to drive her around???!!!
Come one. Be fair. Don’t beat up on Rhee because of this. You need all that if you’re going to be “putting students first.”
Item 6 is telling. Michelle or her agent crosses out the following:
——————————————————————
(CROSSED OUT WITH A PEN)
“6. RESPONSIBILITY for EVENT-RELATED TAXES. Purchase agrees to pay any and all local, State, and/or Federal rental, amusement, sales or other taxes as required by law.”
——————————————————————
Next to the crossing out, Michelle or her agent scrawls,
“TAX EXEMPT”…
… as Students First is a non-profit organization.
Awww, that’s too bad. That money would have gone to the state’s general fund for education, as Ohio schools are hurting for cash right now.
Item 9 is interesting:
——————————————————————
“9. ARTIST’S MERCHANDISING RIGHTS. Artist shall have the right, but not the obligation, to sell souvenir programs and other merchandising items on the premises on the place of the presentation without participation by the Purchaser, subject to local venue’s contract requirements, if any, of which the Artist is notified in writing.”
——————————————————————
(INSERT JOKE HERE… it’s too easy… i.e. Michelle Rhee T-shirts, action figures, etc.)
There’s also a pay-or-play clause, which means that if the event is cancelled for any reason, you have to pay Michelle her $35K anyway.
Reading this I feel like I’m watching a final scene of “THE WOLF OF WALL STREET”, where the slimebucket and convicted Wall Street felon Jordan Belfort now makes a cushy living as a “motivational speaker.”
God save us all!
The “tax exempt” note in item 6 probably relates to the University’s status as an educational institution. The taxes at issue in item 6 are “event-related” taxes, meaning taxes on ticket sales, food and drinks, payroll taxes for catering, etc. I think (not sure) that Kent State might be exempt from event-related taxes.
BELOW IS the link that shows
Ms. Rhee’s usual speaker fee is
not $35,000 (as it is in the
scanned copy of her contract
included in the above link)
Indeed, it is actually $50,000.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/guess-what-michelle-rhee-charged-a-school-to-speak/2011/10/24/gIQAen6GJM_blog.html
According to Valerie Strauss at
the Washington Post, “Rhee had
actually discounted her usual
speaking fee of $50,000 because
Kent State is, after all, a school.”
How generous.
That’s more than the average teacher salary for a year in NC.
What was that gravy train she mentioned?
She is a caricature of herself anymore. Like Sarah Palin. It’s a cover model movie star thing. . .it’s not even about the cause they started on.
Misguided angels.
The perks in her contract
are what get me… this all
sounds like stuff that’s
demanded by one of the
Kardashian’s… or by
Justin Bieber… to appear
somewhere… having a
big-time Hollywood agent,
too… the “pay or play”
contract…
How can anyone read
all of this and then
not conclude that Rhee
is a money-motivated
fraud?
Sweet Jesus!
WTF???!!!
Davis Guggenheim is a
Hollywood director who’s
plugged into all how much
CAA got for Rhee (he
did some good work on
DEADWOOD, btw)…
So when Davis wrote that
ridiculous TIME Magazine
gush-fest about Rhee’s
selfless refusal to cash in,
he knew that he was lying
through his teeth…
Naturally Rhee calls herself a Democrat, just like Anita Dunn, who worked in th Obama White House and appears on MSNBC, calls herself a Democrat while accepting money to lobby for the XL Pipeline and for privatizing public education. This is what the Democratic Party is today, taken over by the same monied interests who run the Republican Party as well. Joe Klein and Jonathan Alter probably call themselves Democrats too, even while supporting legal efforts to end teacher job security and due process.
They are all welcome to the name. I will look for a new Progressive party to support, and hopefully it is coming soon. No more contributions and no more working for Democrat candidates who respect only money and who disrespect what teachers do for their students and their country.
The privatization devil, Eli Broad, is a registered Democrat. Reason enough for all educators to flee the Dems.
To where?
Where, you ask. The Green Part or a new third party choice that appeals to the voting block known as the independents. What use is voting for the lesser of two evils when both lead to destruction?
In January 2012, Gallup reported that 40 percent of Americans identified as Independents.
27 percent as Republicans
31 percent as Democrats
Logic says that the 40 percent want another choice. The challenge is to identify what that would be and then offer it to them if possible.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/151943/record-high-americans-identify-independents.aspx
Maybe the choice the independents might rally around would look more like a Teddy Roosevelt progressive.
She may call herself a Democrat, but I have other terms I call her.
I have a problem with Merrow calling Rhee an “educator.” TFAers who have had 5 weeks of summer training and spend two or three years in a classroom are tourists of ghetto schools, carpetbaggers and scabs, NOT “educators.” Plus even Rhee admitted that her first year was as an utter failure, when she taped the mouths of 7 year olds to keep them quiet. I read that she had an assistant that year, too. The following two years she team taught with a co-teacher, which is questionable at best, considering how rare team teaching is in primary education in neighborhood public schools. At my school, a teacher was fired for taping kids’ mouths. She taught for one of the early charter management organizations, Edison. It sounds like they responded by reining Rhee in. And, unlike genuine elementary educators, that’s three years of not teaching alone in a classroom.
Someone should contact the teachers Rhee visited with TFA in the 90s. I’m sure there would be much for them to say.
In Goldstein’s book, “The Teacher Wars”, out in September, she says on page 264: “My Interviews with disaffected Teach for American alumni have led me to believe that many corps members end up unhappy with the program because they do not believe in “no excuses” practices like incentive-based discipline systems, and they had no idea that TFA’s training was so closely affiliated with that particular community of practice.”
The traditional media might not cover the fact that Michelle Rhee is a fraud and a fake, but if enough people who use WordPress, Reblog this post, Retweet it and also post it on Google+ and LinkedIn, I think this information will reach more people than the media reaches because it will generate word of mouth.
If you want to post an original tweet, then just copy and paste this one:
John Merrow Writes About the $2 Million Plus Spent on PR by Michelle Rhee
As he reveals the fraud
And the fake
That WordPress short link leads back to this post.
Wow… this is creepy…
——————————
JOHN MERROW:
“While we were actively investigating Rhee’s response to the erasures for a Frontline documentary, I found myself the victim of a carefully-targeted smear campaign. A 10-page letter dated January 24, 2012 and sent to Frontline, the NewsHour, PBS, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, accuses me:
” — of ‘demonstrable and material misrepresentations of fact.’
” — of soliciting funds from ‘a wide swath of leaders in the education community including opponents of education reform and vocal critics of Michelle Rhee.’
” — of actively seeking ‘dirt’ about Rhee and of hanging up on someone who praised Rhee.
” — of making ‘false allegations’ about Rhee’s response to the widespread erasures.
“The letter, signed by a StudentsFirst Vice President, urges PBS not to broadcast my reporting and closes by noting that ‘we are discussing our options with our attorneys.’
“According to reliable sources inside StudentsFirst, Anita Dunn organized the carefully targeted smear campaign. Hoping to learn more about her work for Rhee and StudentsFirst, I have called Dunn’s office at least four times but have not been able to interview her. [9]
“Every one of the accusations in the StudentsFirst letter is false, as I painstakingly demonstrated to Frontline, the NewsHour, PBS and CPB. However, ‘The Big Lie’ technique is effective, as others before Dunn have proven, because I spent three weeks marshalling the evidence to refute the charges, three weeks that I could not spend investigating Rhee’s behavior in regards to the erasures.
“It is possible that I lost more than three weeks, because, even with the proof I supplied, I cannot say with certainty that none of the mud stuck. Is it possible that some who received the missive still have lingering doubts about my integrity? I hope not, of course, but I have no way of looking inside the minds of the letter’s recipients.”
Not too long ago John Merrow tried to “get over” his [self-proclaimed] “obsession” with Michelle Rhee—in part by denying his own pivotal role in making her a superstar in the education establishment—but he seems to have discovered that edubullies don’t easily forgive and forget those that pledge their troth to the cause of $tudent $ucce$$ and then move on to other things.
With all due respect for Mr. Merrow—he has done some work of merit re education—he needs to lay aside his obsession with “obsession” and just get back to the business of reporting. Nothing but the facts. And if it hurts to tell the truth, it’s a whole lot better than what he’s been doing ever since his puff pieces on Michelle Rhee.
He leant his good name and reputation to the Bee Eater. It’s time he took them back. Without the deflections, without the hesitations, without the half-measures and self-serving exculpations. No easy way out with hair shirts and self-scourging.
If the above seems a bit sharp, I would remind them of an acute observation by an American who knew a thing or two about life:
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.” [Mark Twain]
If he needs some advice about how to do it right, I suggest he contact the owner of this blog.
😎
Rhee doesn’t seem to me to be particularly smart, talented or charismatic.
A lack of a conscience has come in handy, though
Integrity and intelligence, fake those and success is assured, at least in the bank account, which is all that counts to these creatures.
“The story of how the for-profit colleges survived the threat of a major federal crackdown offers a case study in Washington power brokering. Rattled by the administration’s tough talk, the colleges spent more than $16 million on an all-star list of prominent figures, particularly Democrats with close ties to the White House, to plot strategy, mend their battered image and plead their case.
Anita Dunn, a close friend of President Obama and his former White House communications director, worked with Kaplan University, one of the embattled school networks. Jamie Rubin, a major fund-raising bundler for the president’s re-election campaign, met with administration officials about ATI, a college network based in Dallas, in which Mr. Rubin’s private-equity firm has a stake.
A who’s who of Democratic lobbyists — including Richard A. Gephardt, the former House majority leader; John Breaux, the former Louisiana senator; and Tony Podesta, whose brother, John, ran Mr. Obama’s transition team — were hired to buttonhole officials.”
DC is an exclusive club and we’re not members. The teachers in Atlanta aren’t members either.
Well said. I like your last point about how the teachers involved in the Atlanta teaching scandal/fiasco (can’t decide which word is better) unlike psychopathic Rhee don’t have the big bucks to save themselves
John Merrow talks out of both sides of his mouth. Since he is a privatizer sellout from way, way back, I don’t care what he has to say about Rhee.
As you can see, it’s all very arms-length and not at all a small group of people who know one another:
“What was Arne Duncan doing sharing the stage with Michelle Rhee at a recent education conference?
Mr. Duncan is the education secretary.
Ms. Rhee was the chancellor of schools in Washington from 2007 to 2010.
Since last summer, the Office of the Inspector General in Mr. Duncan’s department has been investigating whether Washington school officials cheated to raise test scores during Ms. Rhee’s tenure.
You would think Mr. Duncan would want to keep Ms. Rhee at arm’s length during the investigation. And yet there they were, sitting side by side last month, two of four featured panelists at a conference in Washington about the use of education data.
“This is an amazing panel, so I’m thrilled to be part of it,” Mr. Duncan said in his opening comment.”
Dumb and dumber.
Some co-chairs for Democrats for Public Education are as follows:
Reps Pocan, Takano and the Montana state superintendent, Denise Juneau.
I’m trying to determine if this an authentic effort or just a political tactic by Democrats to “support public schools” from August to November in an election year.
Rep. Mark Pocan from WI is for real. He was the first Democrat I heard to call out ALEC on its agenda to privatize public education, when he worked in the WI state legislature a few years ago. I don’t know about the others.
Unless the candidate has a clear history of supporting public education and teachers, I think it is a political tactic. If there is no history, I wouldn’t trust them any further than I could pick up and throw Mt. Everest over China and into the Pacific.
Ted Strickland in OH was good for public schools.
Honestly, though, it may still be a political tactic because they would pick people who have supported public schools to front the group.
We’ll have to watch and see if they actually do anything other than issue press releases 🙂
Why does it always boil down to voting for the lesser of two evils? And then we have to wait and see.
ALEC has been around since the 70s but the world didn’t know anything about them until the February 2012 Trayvon Martin killing and the ALEC-modeled “Stand Your Ground” legislation came to light. Pocan, who had infiltrated ALEC to find out what they were up to, describes below how special education “opportunity scholarships” come straight from the ALEC playbook and are a way of privatizing public education. Remember, Milwaukee has had vouchers since the 90s.
“Mark Pocan – Explains how ALEC is working to eliminate public education”
And ALEC is an acronym that translates into the Koch brothers and their libertarian thinking—in other words, what’s good for the Koch brothers and the growth of their wealth and power is the best option for the rest of the United States even if the rest of the United States will suffer from it.
Nevada Legislature is stuffed full of Students first lobbyists. Yep. 50% of my evaluation is student test scores but that is not enough. They wanted to by-pass collective bargaining the other day and just lay us off willy nilly. She may be on the run in some states but she is alive and well and searching for scapegoats and witches in Nevada.
She is our governor’s friend and special consultant. God help us, no one else besides our colleagues will.
Interesting that ed reformers supported RTW in Michigan.
RTW includes private sector unions.
They’re opposed to private sector unions now, too?
Wow.
The OH legislature took testimony on a public education measure about 3 months ago. 14 of the 15 witnesses were from the lobbying group StudentsFirst.
As you can see, we’re having a very rigorous “debate” here in Ohio. Very scholarly and free-ranging.
It seems Michelle is on a slippery slope without the “clout” she once collected by proxy. It’s only a matter of time until “studentsfirst” closes shop like Murdoch’s inbloom scheme.
http://www.salon.com/2014/07/23/education_reforms_new_ann_coulter_a_reeling_michelle_rhee_passes_the_lead_to_campbell_brown/
I have found the evolution of John Merrow ‘s positions on education to be very interesting. His articles often start out as if he finally gets it, but then he almost always stumbles…
“To some, Rhee is simply a well-compensated mouthpiece for those with an ideological interest in tearing down public education, an analysis suggesting she doesn’t believe what she is saying. I do not think she can be dismissed as a mere opportunist, although she certainly does know how to seize opportunities. She has–brilliantly–made the issue of “Last Hired, First Fired” her own, and the LIFO issue has legs. It makes absolutely no sense, in a skill-based profession, to adhere to LIFO blindly and inflexibly. Those who cling to LIFO guarantee that Rhee will find a sympathetic audience.”
He spends the entire article explaining why she is a fraud. But then, almost at the very end, sides with her. Why? Because John Merrow doesn’t feel it necessary to get the facts when the issue agrees with his ideological views. It’s why he, and many others, can be completely fooled by “rheeformers”.
John, if you are reading this, please do some research on why seniority protections (lifo) are important. You are simply drinking more of Rhee’s snake oil.
I often have exactly this reaction to Merrow. His last post on parental involvement “Assets or Liabilities” asserts this gem:
“In my experience, most administrators and many teachers hold parents in low regard, and their behavior and policies reflect that.”
Rheally? Most administrators and many teachers hate parents because we’re so superior to them (despite that fact that a whole lot of us are parents ourselves):
“Perhaps that’s an inevitable consequence of attempting to elevate education to a high-status profession. ‘After all, you wouldn’t expect a heart surgeon to consult with a child’s parents before replacing a ruptured valve and saving the child’s life’, the thinking goes, as if the work of educating a child were the equivalent of complex surgery.”
For a lot of us, educating a child isn’t much less complex than surgery, and for a lot of kids, education does save their lives.
Even worse, he then goes on to tout an organization called the Springboard Collaborative which claims to know the secret sauce recipe for how to train teachers to group kids by reading level so they can “double students’ annual reading progress in just 5 weeks”. Springboard’s partners include da-da! TFA and M. Night Shyamalan.
These cross-profession analogies are rarely illuminating, and this one’s worse than most. The reason why I wouldn’t expect a heart surgeon to consult with a child’s parents in the situation Merrow describes is not because the surgeon has a “high-status” job or because heart surgery is “complex.” It’s because it’s an emergency and there’s no time to consult with the parents. If the situation isn’t an emergency, then yes, we absolutely expect the surgeon to consult with a child’s parents before deciding to perform open heart surgery. What this tells us about teaching, I have no idea.
Until she finally agrees to debate Diane (that’ll be in the winter, when the Chicago temperature climbs to 102!), I think we should simply do what would be our worst to her–that is, deem her “she-who-shall-not-be-named” & simply…ignore her existence. Like a petulant child who clamors for attention–even if it is negative attention (it’s still attention to that child, thus acknowledging her existence in this world)–ignoring that child should rid us of that behavior—or any behavior, period.
Except that in the case of speaking fees–if any of you readers, say, work for/attend/are affiliated with an institute of learning (or other) such as Kent State,gather your colleagues & make a STRONG statement of refusal–refusal to have her speak on your campus, at your foundation, at any of your events. It’s worked, with others, in the past, and I’m fairly certain that it can be effective now & in the future.
Then, like the Wicked Witch of the West, she will simply melt away in her own puddle of…insignificance, nevermore to make money on the backs of the very children she insists that she is helping.