EduShyster has generously written a guest post for readers of this blog.
She has timed this post with the release of Michelle Rhee’s memoir, which makes its debut today. (No one knows who wrote Rhee’s book, but some Washingtonians think they know.)
In honor of the day, EduShyster has collected a recipe from Adell Cothorne, the brave principal who filed a whistleblower lawsuit about the cheating that she saw in the D.C. public schools. Cothorne is now baking cupcakes for a living, having temporarily stepped away from a toxic climate in education.
Here is EduShyster (click on her link to get her usual great graphics):
In case you’ve somehow managed to miss it, today marks the release of Michelle Rhee’s new advertorial, Radical: Fighting to Put Students First. So to mark this special occasion I’d like to propose a toast, although not to Rhee, whose ghastly edu-celebrity may at last be waning (see book sales, declining number of). Let’s raise our collective wine boxes in honor of the woman who has emerged as perhaps the sharpest thorn in Rhee’s side: former Washington DC principal and whistle blower extraordinaire Adell Cothorne.
If you are a regular reader of Diane’s blog, you are likely familiar with Adell’s story; it’s one we certainly haven’t heard the last of. Adell has spoken out, boldly and bravely, about Erasergate, the epidemic of answer changing on standardized tests that took place while Michelle Rhee was in charge of the DC public schools. Her story stings in part because it was Adell’s admiration of Rhee that drew her to Washington in the first place. But when she witnessed what she was convinced was test tampering by teachers at her school she spoke up, and when officials failed to act she filed a whistleblowing suit, alleging that the DC Public Schools were defrauding the government.
The details of Adell’s case are widely available; as she likes to say, for the first time in her life she can now be Googled. I’m interested in what it means.This story of cheating and what appears to have been an official cover up (which is why Michelle Rhee is now lawyering-up) has major implications, and not just for Rhee’s own ever more tarnished legacy. The corporate reform project that seeks to distill teaching, not to mention students, down to a single test score, also hangs in the balance. The teachers in Adell’s school were under immense pressure to raise test scores, so raise test scores they did. Here’s how Adell describes her own cause: “I sincerely hope that my telling the truth brings about a TRUE discussion about the impact that tying teacher evaluations to assessment has on public education.” I hope so too.
Taking on Rhee, Inc. hasn’t come without personal costs. Adell gave up her job as principal and abandoned, at least for now, the doctorate she was close to finishing, a study of the use of culturally competent instruction to eliminate the achievement gap for elementary school-age African American males. She says that she felt she had no choice but to walk away from her job and her studies because of a fight that felt more important than either. “I needed to do what was right for not only those kids in DC but all students. Testing is killing our education system.”
In the coming days we’ll be treated to endless news stories and puff pieces about Michelle Rhee. Thanks to the bravery of Adell Cothorne, much of this coverage will now include words like “investigation,” “tampering,” “suspicion” and “cheating.” So let’s toast to Adell and hope for better days ahead. And since a little something sweet is just the thing to accompany that toast, why not sample a fresh baked cupcake? Adell thoughtfully provided the following recipe, one of dozens of varieties that she bakes at her new shop, Cooks n’ Cakes. She named this one in honor of Michelle Rhee and Rhee’s successor, Kaya Henderson. It’s called “Let Them Eat Cake.”
Let Them Eat Cake Cupcakes
Preheat oven to 325
Place the following ingredients in your favorite mixing bowl:
2 sticks of butter
1 ¾ cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 large eggs
In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract.
In a separate bowl combine the following ingredients:
2 ½ cups of cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ tsp. salt
Add to mixing bowl and mix on low for 2 minutes
Add 2 cups of milk and mix on low for 2 minutes
Add 2 oz. oil to the mixing bowl. Mix on low for 1 minute
Pour batter into prepared pans
Bake for 20 minutes
Announce “Let them eat cake” before eating.
It will be my honor to buy cupcakes today from Adell for my family and friends. She is such an inspiration. Can’t wait to read Adell’s book, if she ever writes one.
She was promoting her book on The Daily Show last night and I felt that John was way to nice to her. I love the Daily Show but I was so disgusted watching her lie on the show and not being called on them. I hope John has Diane on the show soon to counter some of her claims.
the publisher of the “memori” is HarperCollins which is owned by News Corp which of course is the primary vehicle for Rupert Murdoch, who also owns Fox News.
Of course, that probably means nothing. After all, one of Rhee’s biggest boosters was the editorial page of the Washington Post, and while editorials are usually not signed, Jo-Ann Armao attended the meeting of the Education Writers Association to which I was one of a dozen education bloggers invited, and when I mentioned Valerie Strauss’s name made clear to me that the editorial board did not agree with Strauss’s perspective on education.
Perhaps the “memori” will have the same commecial success as films intended to promote the perspective of the Rhee-formers on education: both “Waiting for Superman” and “Won’t Back Down” bombed at the box office.
Rhee-formers might look for the sake of the children and past their own in the moment
quest for an elite world to exist in and consider the unintended consequences when things don’t always go right. An example might be the unexplained out racing us tsunami of Autism Spectrum children being born (across the board to rich and poor, intellectually elite and others). Theirs or someone else’s child that does not ask to be born and deserves to be recognized for a place in this world. Or would these
efficiency experts, tidy minded antiseptic thinkers wish them away or abandon them
to some underground bunker which is out of sight and mind with all the other disabled or less worthy by their standard and tests? Let them eat cake! What cake? Hmmmm!
CLOSER LOOK: Have you read the paper today?!
Is life happening to you or with you? Headline: Replaced by a computer (AP)
Really?!!!! Hadn’t noticed while you were filling out your unemployment forms, standing in line for a thousand openings to flip a pancake, fighting with the bank over your foreclosure, helping your elderly parent and unemployed child (yes! the one you paid for their college degree or helped to give them a leg up), sick but can’t afford to go to the
doctor, no television or heat because you can’t pay the bill this monthg, your Union was just busted and wages cut??? What was that you said? Probably won’t read this because you can’t afford your on-line service. Too busy looking to be busy that you missed that bit of news that you have been replaced!?!
If the world is not about people, and finding jobs for robots is better for the greed and efficient driven, then the wake up call to both the poor, no longer existent middleclass and those that stopped dreaming or never considered they were included in the American Dream, the one world global dream, have awakened!!! The reality check is to both. The efficiently advanced talking robot will be glad to enlighten you both. Oh! You say you can’t afford one? Really?!! They don’t even need you to help create or make them because they can create and produce themselves. So, the thumper brings the
worms and the dreamer awakens!!! (Oops! I forgot you sold your copy of Dune).
Ah! But therein lies the answer. Your memory in mass can still remember with inspiration what you have learned from life, school, books, parents and teachers,
etc. Tap into those traits that sustain hope and creativity, force them forward and the so called Rhee-formers back for the existence of people and hold these words to be self evident and true. If there is life there is hope and if there is hope there is a way to switch the key off on the greed ridden robotic race to the future and come back to humankind before it is too late!!! Maybe a little less efficient then robots but more fulfilling in the essense and reason for life and living. Just sayin!!!!!!!!!
I was surprised – pleasantly, I have to add – that her book wasn’t immediately flooded with fake positive reviews on Amazon. As of 9:51 Central time today, it has only one review and it’s a 1-star from someone who admits to not having read the book (not that I support fake negative reviews any more than fake positive reviews). HarperCollins usually releases its major, big-name books in advance through the Amazon Vine program to get advance reviews. They apparently didn’t this time. I wonder if that reflects some glimmer of integrity on the part of Rhee and/or her publisher (Nah!) or a recognition of how few people might be willing to sell their soul for a fake positive review that no one would believe anyway.
I’m sure Rhee’s book version of her twisted reality, complete with fictitious facts, glowing stories of her “successes” that only exist in her narcissistic imagination, and worst of all, ringing endorsements by talking heads, meant to distract the public from truth tellers like Adelle, who were there to witness her “Miracle.” Makes me think of the inquisition that “purified” the Catholic controlled nations by burning dissidents at the stake. Rhee doesn’t go that far, instead she just fires with abandon, demands test score results that Merlin the Magician couldn’t even conjure up. I’d bet this book’s main premise is an unmitigated and even more outrageous attack of the educational corporate vultures’ targets: teachers (especially older ones that might inform the public of the lunacy they witness by the edits of the true believers of education reform (make that ruination). Can’t forget the other target to complete the demise of the education of the young…unions. Unions are in the cross hairs across the nation and spectrum of workers. Hmm, might this all not be done by supposed “do gooders” OR is there a pattern and goal to these various corporate, political
attacks?
A dumb downed public, due to Rhee/Jeb and the Bush clan’s decades long, termite like
chewing away of the fabric of public education, unions demise that will lead us back to the “glorious days” (?) of the robber barons, total destruction of anything resembling of a middle class, and ruled by the military/industrial/congressional (that last group
WAS originally in Eisenhower’s warning, but he was persuaded to delete a vital part of the diverse threat that has proven to be so destructive of our economy, just as Eisenhower feared five decades ago. All these strategies have produced what is more evident every day. Fast forward another decade and where will these destructive designs lead us? If we view the corporate, scorched earth policy toward education as a part of the other destructive trends, it reveals an overall attempt to change what our country was and valued.
‘Cooks n Cakes’
rhymes with
‘Crooks n Fakes’
If you have digested your dinner, you might want to try and stomach this.
Maybe counting her lies will help pass the time. She appreciates us SO much..puhlease!
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/02/rhee-on-stewart-breakdown-part-i.html?m=1