G.F. Brandenburg asks what the differences were between the cheating scandal in Atlanta under Beverly Hall and the cheating scandal in D.C. under Michelle Rhee.
He can’t find any other than the powerful protection extended to Rhee by the Obama administration. She was the poster child for Race to the Top. They couldn’t let her fail. Arne Duncan even campaigned with her on behalf of Mayor Fenty, a most unusual act for a member of the Cabinet. Fenty lost, and Rhee left D.C. to form StudentsFirst and raise campaign funds for mostly rightwing Republicans who were pro-voucher, pro-charter, and anti-union.
He writes:
“But why is it that only in Atlanta were teachers and administrators indicted and convicted, but nowhere else?
“What difference was there in their actual behavior?
“To me, the answer is simple: in DC, officials at every level, from the Mayor’s office up to the President of the US and the Secretary of Education, were determined to make sure that Michelle Rhee’s lying and suborning of perjury and lies would never be revealed, no matter what.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
Teachers and administrators have been indicted in Philadelphia and are awaiting trial.
Yes, the powers that be in the city, federal and local, protected the higher ups and thereby the teachers. We can’t ignore racism in this picture and the fact that authorities in Atlanta did not support any of these administrators or teachers. The fact that this society would jail teachers and admins is chilling while white collar criminals who steal public monies and break the law ever see a day of prison. It’s sick and it’s wrong. What would you do to save your job? Should you go to prison for this?
Oklahoma principal just posed this same question. Great blog about what should really be on trial. http://www.viewfromtheedge.net/?p=5824#comments
I wonder if the bonuses like the one Cuomo is trying to offer in NY are money that is invested in defaming the teaching profession. Offer a big bonus or tell teachers they will lose their job and you will eventually have cheating scandals available to feed the public the line that teachers are corrupt.
I
It is sad with what has happened to the educational system. Google Deliberately Dumbing Down.
Well one person WAS caught – here in Indiana. Tony Bennett our illustrious head of eduction in the state got caught with his hand in the “kookie” jar. Maybe Indiana “ain’t” as bad as I thought. LOL
But then, on second thought our GREAT legislature just proved me wrong.
Good point. If only Bennett and Rhee could suffer the same consequences as these Atlanta educators…
Both Rhee and Bennett are darlings of Eli Broad. This shows how extensive his power is in even keeping crooks in education out of jail.
It’s good to see somebody naming and blaming Obama himself; he is responsible for hiring the likes of Arne Duncan and for implementing RttT. This is Obama’s education policy at work, and it’s been quite a shock to those of us who had hoped he would alleviate the suffering experienced under Bush’s NCLB, not exacerbate it.
Easy answer.
Michelle Rhee is a corporate education reformer with protection from the CCSS mafia that moved into the White House and runs the Department of Education with finical support from Bill Gates and the Walton Family Foundation.
The teachers in Atlanta were all public school teachers and targets were painted on their foreheads and over their hearts and backs. All they had to do was sneeze to be found guilty. Public school teachers have no Bill Gates to protect them.
Quite possibly the biggest reasons why charges were filed in Atlanta were:
1) Two Republican governors (Sonny Perdue; then, Nathan Deal) versus a Democratic controlled Atlanta;
2) A white majority state (governor and legislature) versus a black-majority city.
Even then, Gov. Perdue was under tremendous pressure from Atlanta’s corporate interests to tread lightly.
One of the key players was the Atlanta Public Education Fund. In 2007, Arne Duncan’s former chief of staff in Chicago. Like the DC PEF, it was designed to funnel money from corporate and foundation donors to favored projects in the Atlanta PS. Susan O’Hanian described the connections:
http://www.susanohanian.org/show_research.php?id=451
So, finally we have an example of James Madison’s “republican remedy” (note the small “r”) of factions (now, “parties”) actually working – very imperfectly and with gaps and unexplained omissions (you have to read the 2011 APS Investigation Report to know what I mean. One example: During a faculty meeting, a teacher ordered by her principal to crawl under a table. Many examples: repeated, examples of overt threats and intimidation.
Diane and all, Let’s bury the term “educator.” That’s a politically convenient and very slippery term that conflates everyone from the superintendent down to teachers and classroom aides and blurs the rigid hierarchy of power relations and their arbitrary and extremely capricious implementation.
I, in fact, would have liked to see Supt. Hall fined and placed in prison. The same for her Deputy Supt. Kathy Augustine (who disappeared from ), “Team Executive Directors” (aka Asst Supts) Michael Pitts, Tamara Cotman, Sharon Davis-Williams, and Millicent Few (who copped a plea).
Yes, the business and pandering community is getting off without blame.
Someone asked, whether those who didn’t cheat should be praised. Those who were found to have RESISTED pressure to cheat and, most especially, those who REPORTED CHEATING AND SUFFERED RETALIATION should be acknowledged and compensated.
And who would ever have thought that a commission appointed by a Republican governor and continued by his Republican successor would publish a document that describes the culture in this urban school system in the following words:
“In sum, a culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation permeated the APS system from the highest ranks down”
See my comments, when the scandal first broke in 2011:
Click to access v7n7.pdf
And read the Investigation Report, all 4 volumes. It’s an incredible slag heap, full of nuggets:
Click to access Volume-1.pdf
Click to access Volume-2.pdf
Click to access Volume-3.pdf
Click to access Exhibits-to-Report.pdf
Erich
The elites are allowed to cheat and get away with it. The regular people are not privy to that kind of protection. I am not saying that I agree with what these educators did, but I do believe in whats fair for one is fair for all and many of the very people that make the laws and stand out against cheating are the biggest cheaters themselves. Until everyone pays the same price for cheating I do not believe these educators should be jailed. There are people in education who are getting promoted this second who did far worse to the children then the ones going to jail!
Michelle Rhee belongs in the same prison as her child predator husband. The woman is a total fraud–but she remains protected by the powerful. There is no doubt that her cheating was as bad as the Atlanta situation. Let’s keep beating the drums. Expressions of indignation are needed now or the statute of limitation will protect Rhee from what she deserves for her fraud.
Race