Last night, I posted the commentary that I wrote after seeing a preview of the PBS Frontline show on Michelle Rhee.
This morning, I realized that my favorite paragraph was deleted, presumably to save space. It was this:
” She leads by threats and coercion, never by inspiration or example. She personifies the Ice Queen, a woman who is charming but cold, cruel, and heartless, even proud that she lacks even an ounce of compassion for those whose careers she is terminating. She is doing it all ‘for the children.'”
I am sorry this was cut. I think this is important because it goes to the heart of Rhee’s education policies. She believes that a good leader must be cold and hard and that leadership consists of making hard decisions with no regrets. She thinks that those who work for her can be frightened into compliance and, acting in fear, will produce the right results.
When the camera shows her firing a principal, we see a cruel, affectless face, a person utterly lacking in empathy. Yes, sometimes people must be fired, but should there not be some expression of regret? One should feel some regret about terminating another person’s career, cutting off their livelihood, sending them away without a job. Is kindness really such an obsolete character trait?
This is a poor model for leadership. Great leaders inspire, not coerce. It is also a poor model for educators, who can’t fire the children who don’t measure up.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Michelle Rhee and her cohort of deformers should read the MG novel WONDER, and “choose kind” as a moral stand: http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/choose-kind/pledge.php
I won’t hold my breath for that to happen.
I really believe Rhee is a phony. She will fade like the rest of them. Why and when?
Why? You cant continue to sell something that doesn’t work and does not coincide with laws of spirituality.
When? When we as educators stop giving her so much of our energy and our time.
Dianne,
Keep fighting for kids and when it is All about kids we will overcome.
Censorship is alive and well when someone DARES to question the prevailing orthodoxy, or what those at the power-levers would like us to think is “orthodoxy.”
Those who admire Michelle Rhee also admire Jack Welch and his brand of leadership… … low morale is collateral damage when you only focus on the bottom line.
She looked so confused when he asked her about compassion….she looked completely clueless as to why he would ask that. Compassion, what’s that?
I thought that was one of the more telling parts of the whole show. She acted like she didn’t even know what compassion was, or why she should have felt any. Is that pathological or what? And then to brag about firing so many teachers.
I am quite sure Michelle Rhee has some redeeming qualities. An effective educator is not one of them, however. She should know her place in the world. It is not working in the human growth & development profession. There’s bound to be a cubicle somewhere that she can hardsell a product no one needs or wants to make a decent living. Of course, if she doesn’t perform, maintain or exceed value added measures, she faces extermination, ridicule and defamation of character. At least she’s not harming children and destroying families. There’s such a thing as knowing when to exit a room. And leave a lady. Well, the latter is in question, but she could easily go and do harm elsewhere.
Isn’t she harming children every day by working to change the laws in so many states through Students’ First??? She is more powerful and destructive than ever before and children (and their families) will suffer the most.
Rhee has adopted the “business model” as a way to manage education and schools, with predictable results. Given the mess that the business model has created in our country recently, why don’t we try running our corporations like we used to run the schools? With kindness, compassion, understanding and nuance taking the place of coldness, cruelty, a slavish adherence to “metrics,” and a “black & white” approach to problem solving.
“You are the weakest link. Goodbye!”
“It is also a poor model for educators, who can’t fire the children who don’t measure up.” Ahh, but in the world of “reformerthink,” charters DO “fire” chidren who do not “measure up.” However, in true “reformer” fashion, most “reshape the language,” so to speak, so that the “firing” looks like “an opportunity to attend with conditions that the parent/student chose not to meet.”
The “reformer” movement is one of brutal agenda, reshaped language, and hidden facts.
IMHO Rhee is an *authoritarian leader* (see Bob Altemeyer). She has no scruples, no compassion, and will do or say anything she can get away with. One of the key lines in the PBS show, IMHO, was when Rhee related that her mother was worried about her growing up for not caring what others thought of her. For authoritarian leaders it is all about power. They’ll lie and cheat (and I mean those words) to whatever extent they can get away with.
Sadly, the principal at our neighborhood school exhibits the exact same leadership style as Michelle Rhee. She threatens, bullies and intimidates teachers into neglecting all forms of effective teaching. Test scores are all that matter, and if a teacher has something to say that goes against this ideology, she makes their life a living hell until they leave.
when this happens locally, which it has, we just use the comments blog to post the missing paragraph and the fact that it was deleted– not ideal but better than nothing Bizarre
Michelle Rhee truly enjoyed staging the firing of a principal, with witnesses and camera crew. Can’t imagine being paraded in front of a firing squad with cameras rolling for Frontline. Is there no decency? Even her mother described her void of compassion, which concerned her. M. Rhee saw this as a strength as dictatorship in DC. Of course, SHE’S OK, YOU’RE NOT OK!
Preoccupation with ONLY raised test scores: her skills are better suited for a quality control department on an assembly line, where she can slow down or speed up the conveyer belt. Speeding up belts too much, usually results in breakage and damaged parts. Draw your conclusion related to kids and educators.
Showing M. Rhee having a working lunch with a city counsel rep, was like watching a giggly 17 yr old girl on her first date. Surprising for a chancellor of school, but maybe not!
This documentary demonstrated that she orchestrated situations that would serve only her obsession with power, firing educators with glee, kicking sand in parents’ eyes, proving that she knows what excellent education is, and she alone is saving America’s children from bad teachers. Wow, what an ego trip!! Not a nice person!
Now she is the darling of Big$ and there is no stopping her. Anointed by Oprah. Put her on The Donald Show where she can fire people, make $, and look stylish while wearing a shipish grin and giggle like a teen with powerful bad boys.
Just my kind of role model to all educators!? Oh, please!
Check out Frontline web page. There is a live chat scheduled for later today.
Oops! Its Tomorrow.
In Michelle Rhee’s world, only competitive, obsessive, perfectionistic, logic-driven teachers and children are welcome. There is no place for the artistic, musical, divergent thinkers who learn and teach through rhythmic, intuitive, and yes, empathic modalities. There is no place for the learning disabled, cognitively impaired, emotionally impaired, or any other differently-abled individuals. What will she, and all of us do with the children and teachers who don’t fit her narrow little paradigm. Maybe like Mit, she has no interest in the lives of the 47% of us who are not just like her. I certainly hope this is not so, but actions will prevail. Michelle, do you really want to create a world in which absolutely everyone knows the standardized answer to every question? I remain grateful and wonder-filled that the world has the potential to nurture more people like John Cage, Isadora Duncan, Albert Einstein, and John Dewey. Let us all see and think more openly to preserve that potential.
Bravo! Your first four sentences are very perceptive.
For some time I have been thinking that data-driven [not data-informed] management and instruction were being used by clueless management-types to keep the objects of their managing as far away from themselves as possible. It is easier to demean, abuse, and ruin the lives of others if all you see and treasure are numbers. Rhee is a prime example of someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
IMHO, your words say what I was thinking but in a far more eloquent way.
Props.
I doubt it was cut to save space.
So Diane, do you think there was a major coverup of the investigation into cheating??
What investigation?
So glad you posted your remarks. I agree wholeheartedly! Keep on!
Sent from my iPhone
Rhee shares in common what most rheephormers miss. They miss the human aspect of education – the aspect that can change their lives and send them down a road they would not have gone down otherwise.
Education is about people, not about test scores or observing and harassing teachers. Teaching is an art – it is a craft. Observing and evaluating teachers should be minimized to expecting teachers to have a plan, carry out the plan, and assess students within the terms of the teacher. That is how we used to do it, and that is how Finland does it. This gives teachers the leverage and ability to create as an artist, and while some find Andy Warhol’s work quite fascinating – others find it meaningless. Such is the case with teaching. We should not be forcing teachers to teach within a box and limit to teaching to the demands of an observation instrument, other than to assess the very minimum of what we expect teachers to do – plan, carry out the plan, assess, and share the assessments with stakeholders WITHIN THE TERMS OF THE TEACHER.
Teachers are professionals – why don’t we treat them as such?
Rhee was not only cold, she actually smiled when asked about firing that principal. Makes me wonder about her. I’ve read Rhee’s bio and I just don’t understand her intense interest in public education or for that matter, her seemingly gleeful delight in firing teachers and principals. There must be more to her story than is being told.
Yes, there is something odd in taking pleasure in the pain of others, especially when you inflict it yourself.
As someone who has done some writing for publications, and had my ideas changed by editors, I think this must be called the censorship it is. How can a writer’s writing be altered by someone else and published under the author’s name?
PBS wouldn’t even publish my comments, that reiterate that Rhee remains under investigation by DC authorities not only for test score cheating scandals, but also for budgetary malfeasance on two fronts — the first, involving kickbacks to her ex-husband’s TFA knockoff which garnered MILLIONS — at about $5,000 per teacher supplied by them to DC schools to replace those fired by Rhee, as well as for the fakery involved in hiring people knowing of a mounting budget deficit. She remains in deep doo-doo…
But, more currently, she recently married Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, founder of St. Hope schools in Sacramento, who in the operation of the schools, incurred SEVEN allegations of child sexual abuse, all conveniently covered up through payoffs to victims, at least one of which was aided and abetted by Rhee herself when she served on the St. Hope board and in an HR capacity. THIS episode was covered up by local Sacramento pols and corporates and a stunningly corrupt police department with whom Johnson was quite cozy…
THIS story needs to be told.
Even the Sacramento Bee reported this in the late 2000’s as Johnson ran for mayor, with stories authored by then Bee reporters Dorothy Korber and Terry Hardy, both of whom were fired by the paper as ‘cost cutting’ measures…
Hmm, Sacremento Bee, the Bee Eater, ….
Diane,
Did you see what was published on Frontline’s webpage the same day the program appeared? It raises lots of questions like why did Frontline try to sell this program with highlights of the cheating scandal on the very same day Rhee was exonerated??
And why all these negative statements about the principal who reported what she saw??
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/education/education-of-michelle-rhee/education-department-finds-no-evidence-of-widespread-cheating-on-d-c-exams/
Um, call me paranoid, but saving space was not the reason that paragraph was cut. At least, not the only or primary one.
It’s called “making a charitable assumption”. Without proof, it would be gauche to automatically chalk it up to censorship.
I didn’t call it censorship. I received the edited version of my original piece, which was a few sentences too long, and failed to notice that the paragraph in question had been edited out. Had I noticed, I would have insisted on restoring it, and I believe it would have been restored.
Diane — Agree re your quoted description of Rhee.
However, a more fundamental criticism of the Frontline program was the implicit message that, absent cheating, the DC standardized test scores/IMPACT reliably measured teacher quality.
Frontline included a throw-away line to the effect that “some believe the low-income students have so many problems, it’s difficult to teach the students”. However, Frontline did not affirmatively argue that virtually all researchers who have addressed the issue conclude that VAMs are too unreliable to use for discharge or pay decisions. Similarly, Frontline did not affirmatively note the serious adverse side effects of high-stakes testing (other than the implicit message that high-stakes testing encourages cheating).
High-stakes testing is the core of the Rheeform agenda. Whether there was cheating on the DC-CAS during Rhee’s years is a hook to capture reader/viewer attention, but the huge national issues that Rheeform poses are whether student test scores/VAMs are sufficiently reliable to use for discharge decisions and whether the adverse effects of high-stakes testing outweigh any possible benefits. Frontline largely missed these issues.
I was thinking the same thing, but then again, the show was about Rhee and her persona more than her mechanisms of “change”. I do wish they had done some research and tackled ed. reform on a larger scale.
“No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.”
Emma Goldman
I feel confident in saying that Michelle Rhee sets a very poor example to the students she claims to want to “save”. She is a disgraceful leader.
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
Frontline “erased” alot of comments which focused on the duct taping her students’ mouth shut and the innappropriate behavior of husband Kevin Johnson. Also erased were comments about Rhee being rhee-jected in certain states.
This is a classic example of “Fixed Mindset” leadership in action: management by intimidation.
RHEE IS THE PROBLEM IN EDUCATION TODAY. NOT THE SOLUTION.
She want to make teaching positions like those of salesmen. Just hire teachers and burn them out in a few years. Then fire them and hire new warm bodies.
She has said on the record many times that teaching should be looked upon as only a three or four year career. It is a temp job people should take before going on to other careers.
This employment philosophy is never brought out in her bios.
Kindness is the lifeblood of our humanity, and Rhee’s incapacity for kindness identifies her as less than human.
I don’t know how anyone can be a teacher and lack the capacity for empathy and kindness.
They can’t. They might be “trainers” a la military style training where the lack of empathy and kindness are a prerequisite. Training is not education.
It was telling that they mentioned that Rhee’s mother worried about her social skills when she was younger. I worry about her social skills as an adult!
In what line of work is it valuable to be totally indifferent to what other people think or feel?
Her mother’s concerns were well-founded. However, Rhee responded with a smile and informed us that these same traits were an asset to doing her job of cleaning up and firing educators in DC. Spoken like a true sociopath. Remember the book ‘I’m OK, you’re not OK’? She lives by the motto!
“In what line of work is it valuable to be totally indifferent to what other people think or feel?”
Hitman.
Michelle Rhee is a corporate hitman (hitwoman?).
These traits are very much shared by the supt. of the district from which I just retired. His education is an MBA from Harvard, so you can imagine his perspective. The major difference is that he insulates himself and has others do his dirty work. First thing he did was remove about 8 principals from “underperforming schools”, which were almost all in low socioeconomic areas. Almost all veteran principals have now ebeen replaced (vice principals, also). This is in the fourth largest school district in California.
He has told site administrators to put stress on teachers (to increase test scores), and brags about all of the ineffective teachers and administrators he’s gotten rid of. He started his own (elementary) charter within the district, in which he does not allow union teachers, and it is believed he plans to expand this to as many as eight schools.
Morale is at an all-time low.
He’s a crook. How much money is he making off of children now? He’ll make a fortune soon. What a reformer!!!
Personally I’d say “What a prick!!”
This was brought up on a live chat (FrontLine). A response:
Andrew Rotherham:
To be blunt, that’s illustrative of how bereft of seriousness much of what passes for our national education conversation is. Of course it’s more complicated than that and everyone but the dittoheads gets that.
I should have said the response was to the comment that was omitted. It was quoted to the panel.
My former principal was a person had an affectless face as well; her modus operandi was to praise rarely, and if she did, a “but” always followed. After two years, I finally decided that falling on my sword every day for the students would eventually kill me. That’s why she’s my former principal.
The sooner we can get people like that out of our nurturing profession, the better. You don’t have to be a jerk to evoke excellence.