Michelle Rhee issued a report card yesterday that graded states by whether they satisfied her.
What she wants is privatization of public education (charters and vouchers); high-stakes testing by which to judge teacher quality; an end to teacher tenure; and the weakening if not outright elimination of teacher unions.
Here is what we can say about her agenda:
THERE IS ZERO EVIDENCE THAT HER POLICY PREFERENCES PRODUCE HIGHER TEST SCORES OR BETTER SCHOOLS.
To the contrary, the states that follow her advice tend to have the lowest test scores!
The public schools of Massachusetts are unquestionably the most successful in the United States. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, they are number one in the nation, by far. When Massachusetts students took part in the latest international assessment, they were ranked among the highest performing nations in the world in math and science. Black students in Massachusetts performed as well as Finland. Rhee graded Massachusetts D+.
Rhee gave a D to Connecticut and New Jersey, which are consistently among the top three on NAEP.
Rhee gave Louisiana one of her highest marks, even though the state is among the lowest ranking states in the nation on the NAEP. But it scores high with Rhee because Bobby Jindal is following the ALEC playbook on vouchers, charters, online learning and for-profit schools.
Rhee rated Washington, D.C., #4 among all states even though it is one of the nation’s lowest performing districts with the lowest graduation rate and the largest black-white achievement gap and Hispanic-white achievement gap of any big city. Having shifted nearly half its pupils to privately managed charters, it is a success by Rhee’s metrics, even though the students do poorly and teacher turnover is among the nation’s highest at 20% annually.
This much is clear: Rhee has no regard for evidence. As Richard Zeiger, the deputy superintendent of instruction in California told the New York Times, the state’s F rating was a “badge of honor.”
“This is an organization that frankly makes its living by asserting that schools are failing,” Mr. Zeiger said of StudentsFirst. “I would have been surprised if we had got anything else.”
It amuses me that the 9 states comprising the Chiefs for Change group rank an average of 11th on this list. None is worse than 26th.
As proud as I am of Connecticut’s D from Rhee, I am hoping to get an F next time. Poor scores from Rhee and her ilk are an indication that somebody is doing something right, as far as I’m concerned.
Why does the Tokyo Rose of education get any attention at all?
I agree! Rhee’s degrees aren’t even in education; therefore, she has no credentials in this profession. It would be helpful if she actually knew something about education. We aren’t out there trying to have influence over fields in which we have no legitimate qualifications, so why is she?
Because Rhee’s bachelor’s degree was in government (hardly an appropriate degree for teaching 8 year olds) and her master’s was in public policy, so it would seem that influencing government policies was always her aim.
If Rhee had done a two year stint as a missionary temp at Insure for America after finishing her BA, we’d probably be talking today about her trying to dictate policies in the insurance industry and health care instead.
Too bad, too, because everyone in education could have been spared, and also because the president might have been more likely to recognize how anti-ObamaCare and anti-Democratic the right-wingers Rhee allies herself with are.
I think the thing that’s gets my ire about Rhee, is her outrageous annual salary she gets berating hard working teachers who will NEVER see anything close to that, when she has proven to be an inadequate teacher herself who has admitted to using practices that at least could be considered child abuse, at most be considered criminal. Why doesn’t The Reform movement hire Jeffrey Dahmer as a spokesperson?
Correction : Jeffrey Dahmer was bludgeons to death in prison, which makes him overqualifed to do Rhee’s job 😉
Rhee’s “rheeport” and the media frenzy around it needs to be condemned by those who know the truth about public education and the “rheeformers. This “rheeport” is portrayed as if it is actually based on sound educational research. There is no questioning of its basis. Every single media source that has given Rhee’s propaganda free advertising needs to be inundated with letters and phone calls asking..no demanding…that the do actual research into the issues instead of just accepting “rheesearch”.
We have to keep focused in Rhee’s three-card-monty game. The evaluation is not about school quality; it’s about the implementation of the GERM-ALEC reform agenda. But the language is couched in terms that sound like it’s about education quality. This is a degree of cynical and psychopathic behavior that only Josef Göbbels or Leon Trotsky could love.
And don’t forget the attack on local control. Rhee wants to close the local school boards and have all state education directed centrally from the state houses, where ALEC can easily dominate the corporate GERM agenda.
Here in Maine, our Gauleiter Governor Paul LePage used this report card to push to end the limit in new charter schools. He and the state GOP had agreed to that limit in their original charter legislation, but now that the Democrats have retaken control of both houses the charters are desperate to push as hard as they can. Fortunately, I understand we have some counter-reform legislation in the works to (start to) bring sanity back to public education here in Maine.
Of course, when you understand that Herr LePage ran as a Tea Party GOP candidate the irony (or cynicism) of his agenda to destroy local control and have all education spending run from the state government gets pretty thick. That is, of course, until you realize that his policy is to carry water for Jeb Bush and ALEC. Case in point: LePage recently announced and “unexpected” state budget shortfall that will necessitate serious cuts to state school funding; that is for “public schools”, not the new charters that receive the same pro rata share of state student funding. Of consider that recent reports indicate that LePage is intervening on behalf of a corporation in a local taxation dispute.
The upshot of this is the hidden, malicious, corporatist agenda that is being inflicted at all levels of our society and culture; and agenda that seeks to divert the vast wealth of Americans to a very few. Public education is just one target.
Wow! Rhee has developed her own dystopia. She makes all the rules and then publishes a ranking of states based on her own inventions. Now, does she really expect the rest of the world to accept all this without question? I truly wonder if she is well.
I think I have finally discovered Michelle Rhee’s purpose. People who actually know and care about education can look at what she does. Then we do the opposite!
We should teach the test to students, increase teacher’s salaries 3 fold (at least) and let the teachers rate themselves in effectiveness. Then and only then will we have a … oops, wait a minute, we’re doing that now….never mind.
I guess your cleverness was lost on me. Would you mind please explaining what in the world you are talking about?
I love the answer by the California bureaucrat. The truth is that California has gone in head first for most of the destructive practices. LAUSD alone has about 260 charters. Even if they do not perform they do not care and let them go on except in a few instances. The biggest offender is Mayor Villaraigosa’s PLAS who has Roosevelt High School and about 20 other schools. PLAS has broken every part of their MOU and Matrix and yet he is the education mayor. How can that be? Just because he says so? Does anyone check out facts anymore? After all who needs those pesky facts right?
Whenever Massachusetts comes up, I always feel the need to mention that Massachusetts also has the highest percentage of college graduates. These people meet and get together. They fall in love and one thing leads to another and they make little future college grads. These kids tend to do better academically.
I know. My wife and I both have advanced degrees. Our own children are pretty smart cookies. They were raised around books. We check their homework. We contact their teachers. We chose the town we live in for the schools.
What is sad about Massachusetts is that they gave up the great standards they already had for the Common Core State (sic) Standards for Race to the Top money. I taught for a year in Mass back in 2005 and was impressed that they had a rule of no eduspeak in their standards. They (the district- not sure of other districts) didn’t want lofty objectives full of jargon that students wouldn’t understand (and shouldn’t understand). Nope. Our objectives were to be written in plain English kids could understand.
I wonder if some day people like Michelle Rhee, Jeb Bush, Tony Bennet, and Deborah Gist will be exposed for what they really are. Maybe the mainstream media will go back and check their freshman journalism class notes and review that lecture when their professors told them to follow the money. It took Nixon down.
I teach in Rhode Island and live in Massachusetts.
I can’t wait for an inservice training I have tomorrow. It’s called “unpacking the Common Core Standards.” Unpacking… I s–t you not.
Unpacking.
Yes, everyday is Christmas in my district!
Excuse the exclamation point. This is in honor of Rhode Island’s Commissioner of Education, Deborah Gist, who loves using them. She loves to make everything look exciting. She needs a copy of Strunk and White.
I have this fantasy that every teacher in the country, at noon on ______, all walk off the job singing “We’re Not Going to Take it.” by Twisted Sister.
DET,
I can’t wait for tomorrow’s monthly after school meeting where we will be making college pennants to display in our rooms. I may have to leave early for some family business and catch the makeup meeting tomorrow morning when I hope they will have forgotten about the pennants. Who thinks of this kind of crap? F%$&ing waste of time.
“Who thinks of this kind of crap?”
They used to be called “Rah Rahs” in my neck of the woods.
We unpacked standards with Deborah when she was down here in DC. It appears some things never change. Google her for the recording breaking kissing contest she participated in. If you and your colleagues need a laugh.
Florida parents beware. Your Governor and Republican Legislators all drank the Michelle Rhee junk science Kool-aid. Unless you make big changes in Tallahassee, your students will not learn what they need to succeed in life.
Richard Ziegler needs a grammar lesson. What’s wrong with the following sentence? “I would have been surprised if we had got anything else.”
Michelle Rhee – The famous former Washington DC School District Chancellor
Michelle Rhee on OPRAH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPsqO17f6Lw
Michelle Rhee on abc’s ThisWeek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nep1mcaFthU
Michelle Rhee on The DailyShow with Jon Stewart
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-february-4-2013/michelle-rhee
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-february-4-2013/exclusive—michelle-rhee-extended-interview-pt–2
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-february-4-2013/exclusive—michelle-rhee-extended-interview-pt–3
pbs.org FRONTLINE: The Education of Michelle Rhee
http://video.pbs.org/video/2323979463/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/education-of-michelle-rhee/
Why Teach For America works – Michelle Rhee
A Two-Tier Proposal for Teacher Pay – Michelle Rhee
Time Magazine: Rhee Tackles Classroom Challenge
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1862444-2,00.html
Michelle Rhee Discusses “Waiting for Superman,” Charter Schools And Sch… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLih24QdwH8
Stanford University: A Conversation on “Waiting for Superman” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzrjo7Fvs1A
“Radical” Fighting to Put Students First should be a must read for all studentsfirst.org members! Michelle Rhee’s new book, “RADICAL: Fighting to Put Students First,” is now in stores! For more information about where you can find it, to read an excerpt from the book, and to share your story about education in America visit the official site at http://www.edradical.com/ or http://www.facebook.com/edradical.
http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/michelle-rhee/510ff3b02b8c2a138f000747
Michelle Rhee at the ACE 2011 Spring Luncheon https://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=mO9F-amHDuw
Michelle Rhee and Kevin Johnson (4/20/11) https://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=OCcNzh7C_Tk&feature=endscreen
Michelle A. Rhee 03.17.11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD0g8Jb9l78
Cornell Alumni: Olin Lecture 2012: Michelle Rhee ’92https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwFD-wkAEi8
Harvard Public Health: Michelle Rhee, Former Chancellor of Washington D.C. Public Schoolshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH0twXcxNUY
http://fora.tv/2013/02/07/Michelle_Rhee_Fighting_to_Put_Students_First
Geoffrey Canada – Conversations at KCTS 9
Geoffrey Canada interviewed by Julian Bond: Explorations in Black Leadership …
“Waiting for Superman” the documentary and Bloomberg documentary “Risk Takers” Michelle Rhee should a required screening for all studentsfirst.org members. I saw them on Netflix and became an instant member of studentsfirst.org and Michelle Rhee follower.
“Won’t Back down” the movie is another example to screen to all studentsfirst.org members.
Share the reasons you fight for education reform. Your story will inspire others to get involved. So tell us: Why are you working to put students first? http://www.studentsfirst.org/facebook-story
Check out today’s blog by StudentsFirst staffer Charity Hallman, “One size fits all, or so they said,” on The Fordham Institute’s “Education Gadfly Daily: FLYPAPER” blog.
To view the Fordham study, “When Teachers Choose Pension Plans: The Florida Story,” visit http://www.studentsfirst.org/fordham-study-on-fl-teacher-pension-reform
Watch MAKER videos on StudentFirst Founder Michelle Rhee visit http://www.makers.com/michelle-rhee
The Voting Rights Act (VRA) must be upheld by the supreme court:
The numerous despicable attempts to restrict voting made during the last election cycle are proof of that. Anyone who truly believes the VRA is obsolete needs to recognize, given last year’s voter suppression efforts, the Jim Crowe era is biding its time.
Now even if you are dumb enough to believe that all is OK with the world and there are no reasons to have the voting rights act on the books. Then why are the the parties at opposite end’s on this? Why are the Republicans in America trying to keep people from the poles ?
The argument is that VRA is discriminatory against Southern states to require them but not other states to seek pre-clearance for voting laws; I actually agree. The Voting Rights Act should require *ALL* states to seek pre-clearance. After what we’ve seen the GOP try to pass in states all across the nation prior to the last 2012 election, I see no reason this safeguard against voter suppression should be limited to just Southern states as suggested by VRA of 1965 but now should be expanded to apply to ALL 50 states.
Ajay Jain
ajain31@gmail.com
1209 Creekwood Drive
Garland TX 75044-2421