This just in:
“http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/4/prweb10586920.htm
Federal Judge Orders Michelle Rhee Suit to Go Forward, will Broaden to Concealment and Fraud Claims
A US federal judge has denied a Motion to Dismiss by former DC Public School Chancellor Michelle Rhee in a wrongful termination lawsuit over the mass firings of DC Public School teachers back in 2009. Case to be amended to add concealment and fraud claims against Rhee and her CFO Noah Wepman.
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Washington, D.C. (PRWEB) April 01, 2013
For nearly three years, efforts by hundreds of DC Public School teachers who were victims of the much publicized mass firings by former Chancellor Michelle Rhee- herself hailed as a reformer and darling of major media- have failed to gain any traction in the courts.
However, in what may be a turning of that tide, US District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras has denied Rhee’s motion to dismiss claims by a music teacher that his firing was concocted by using a misapplied or non-existent job title to enable his poor evaluation and subsequent firing.
The suit involves Willie J. Brewer Jr., a 53-year-old teacher who worked for DCPS for 28 years before being terminated in October of 2009 due to “budgetary constraints” under a RIF (Reduction in Force). Under this circumstance, the pecking order of teachers to be terminated as determined by Rhee, were first those with poor performance evaluations. However, Brewer claims he was an instrumental music teacher and that his RIF competitive standing was erroneously governed by the standards for a vocal music teacher, a position that required a skill set different from his own. As a result, Brewer claims he scored a poor evaluation and was terminated.
Brewer has set out to prove that his circumstance was not the result of mere error but an illegal systematic effort by Rhee to replace teachers en masse- perhaps supported by Rhee’s own public statements regarding her ideology to aggressively fire, en masse, teachers she deems as failing.
(Read Judge Contreras’ Memorandum and Order for US District Court for the District of Columbia Civil Action No. 11-1206http://www.leagle.com/xmlResult.aspx?
page=1&xmldoc=In%20FDCO%2020120921E21.xml&docbase=CSLWAR3-2007-CURR&SizeDisp=7)
Along that line, it has been learned that Brewer will now amend his original complaint to broaden the scope of Rhee’s alleged actions into possible civil fraud and concealment claims. This has developed as a result of videotaped testimony by the former DCPS CFO Noah Wepman before the DC City Council on November 30, 2009. In that testimony, Wepman appears to admit that he willfully concealed, with the knowledge of Rhee, the true accounting figures which indicated that the DCPS had no budgetary shortfall at all- the pretext for the RIF to be instituted and the mass firings to take place.
The alleged scheme indicates that after the mass firings occurred, Rhee and Wepman then reported the true accounting figures and the money re-appeared in the DCPS budget enabling them to hire an entire flock of new teachers.
If Brewer prevails, with the case now in its discovery phase, Rhee’s- and now presumably Wepman’s- ideological experiment, which has been widely heralded by an entire nation, may quickly unravel.
Yes–fraud. I thought so.
This lady needs to sit in jail until she masters every standardized test this nation and these CC states have to offer….That would be a life sentence.
Neanderthal100, I love it. Isn’t it fun to imagine this as a sentence? That really gave me a chuckle.
The illegal dismissal of teachers appears to be a tactic used by corporate reformers across the nation. Last year a Judge in New Orleans ruled that the mass firing of teachers after Hurricane Katrina was illegal. In her ruling Judge Ethel Sims Julien listed 45 Reasons for Judgement which explained not only the illegal scheme to get rid of over 7500 school employees (4500 teachers) but also how calculating state education officials were in illegally taking over the public school district in New Orleans.
Click to access reasons-for-judgment-june-20-2012.pdf
This is great news. They are so arrogant I thought something like this would throw a wrench in their works. Credability is the coin of the realm. They have none. How do you crash the finances of a district with about $29,000/student? You have to work hard that is for sure and they sure do to accomplish their ends. If the judge in New Orleans found this in that situation how is this continuing down there? Does anyone know? In L.A. we now also have a chance to have the superintendent, Deasy, and General Counsel, Holmquist, charged under breaking the child abuse laws of California. Maybe we get lucky and their smoke and mirrors stop and the “Emperor has no clothes.”
Does anyone know what money was behind Rhee from step one? A person like Rhee doesn’t accidentally put in an obligatory mini stint taping mouths of little children to then suddenly land in the national spotlight as an authority on good teaching. A teacher like that would usually quietly disappear. I understand the coalition and connections that exist NOW, but what we need is a Scientology type expose on the cult of TFA, Who is the TFA deity with an office neatly kept waiting for the return? Who chose Rhee as one of the faces to promote-and what were they thinking?
You will find some clues here:
“Who is Eli Broad and why is he trying to destroy public education?”
http://www.defendpubliceducation.net/
Philaken: I like the DefendPublicEducation.net website, but it provides no information about it’s ownership and a Who Is search indicates it’s a stealth website, cloaked by GoDaddy’s Domains by Proxy, so I can’t contact them directly about the matter.
If you happen to know the owners, could you please ask them to change the characterizations of “liberal Democrats” to “neoliberal Democrats,” since those are very different animals but that’s not explained on the web page? Too many Americans don’t know that the Democratic party has been taken over by this neoliberal faction (which includes the president). Please see: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=376
Thanks!
George – do you think there’s a possibility LA Unified exaggerated or outright fabricated its current budget deficit in order to RIF over 3,000 teachers? How could we determine whether it has?
Zorro, I have done a lot of analysis on LAUSD. When I compared the students lost which is a combination of lost enrollment of 156,000 since 2002 and an increased amount of students who do not come to school everyday which has gone since 2002 from 14,500 to over 112,000 I have found that as a percentage of lost students and teachers without a job they match within .7%. government accounting says 5% is good. There is a definate relationship. If teachers and their union, UTLA, got off of their butts and did a little 5th grade math and analysis they would understand the dynamics behind this. Their futures are dependent on students being in the classroom not on the streets getting into trouble and ending up in the criminal justice system in which we at CORE-CA are also seriously involved especially with AB 109.
When you do not have students you do not need employees. It is just that simple. Then there is the fact of the LAUSD lies about their budget/student. Superintendent Deasy and Board President Garcia recently lied while testifying at an Assembly Select Committee on Preventing School Districts from going into Receivership or Bankruptcy. They testified that LAUSD only had $4,800/student when in 2010-11 it was $11,233/student. They were only off by 250%. And do not forget that Deasy has a phony PHD, 0% ethics. What they did not know at the time is that the committee had the data CORE-CA supplied to the committee to show these false statements. All this data came from the Calif. Dept. of Ed. (CDE) website. I have also found that in 2010-11 the difference between the CDE and LAUSD superintendents budget on ADA varied by 72,000 students. How can this be credible? There is much more and it is voluminous. The bottom line is that LAUSD lies about everything and operates in an organized crime manner. Just read the Federal RICO law.
Thank you for wanting to know. Knowledge is Power and that is not KIPP.
Thanks, George. I’ve watched you at board meetings over the years and admire your tenacity in the face of the opposition. And I agree – UTLA has dragged its feet when it comes to scrutinizing the LAUSD budget. They both have a lot to answer for.
Zorro, so glad you watch. Have you seen Deasy run from the podium when I get up to speak? How about Arne Duncan in Pico Rivera when I embaressed him and half of the people walked out. One thing they are afraid of is documented facts presented by someone who knows what to do. They call themselves the “Reform Board” I call them the “Deform Board.” It is now becomming common knowledge about Deasy’s phony PHD. I want Deasy and Holmquist in jail for breaking the child abuse laws. Would that be a wonderful day and send a message nationwide “You too can be touched when you are corrupt.”
Michelle Rhee involved in “an illegal systematic effort by Rhee to replace teachers en masse”? What next? Technology titans like Bloomberg, Murdoch and Gates suggesting we can use fewer teachers and make up the difference by buying the products they sell? Harvard ducation professors like Paul Peterson telling us that the history of American education has been leading up to the creation of virtual schools? A Democratic President pushing forward a program that would dismantle public education and create a segmented market? Publicly-funded, but privately run Charter Schools putting ‘Donate now’ buttons on their web-site?
All this strains credulity. After all, what did Michelle really do? Ms. Rhee, who has a reputation for bluntness, but she knew “doing it sooner rather than later made sense.” So in the fall of 2009, Ms. Rhee terminated 266 teachers and another 122 district employees.
Ms. Rhee called these Reduction in Force (RIF) firings, justified as part of a set of budget cuts. Many felt that Ms. Rhee just wanted to shake things up – get rid of teachers someone deemed ineffective as fast as she could, regardless of the process used or fairness on a case by case basis. This impression was magnified when the money was later restored to the budget but none of the dismissed teachers were rehired.
But let’s not jump to conclusions. She had not choice but
to fire those 266 teachers without due-process (or good accounting)
because they were, hitting children or having sex with kids or had been absent 78 times. That is what she said, almost word for word.
Of course, there was a grain of truth there – a small grain.
There were 9 out of the 266 who had some sort of disciplinary hearing
pending, 1 of whom had been charged with sexual misconduct.
As for the other 257, they seemed to just have had poor luck.
Having seen principals due this on a smaller scale – letting go less favored staff because of a temporary budget glitch and then hiring others they preferred once the budget was corrected – I am sure the technique is well known to administrators.
Relying on the assumption that the new teachers will be better, more effective and reach more students (something my own experience suggests is an iffy proposition) the administrators feel themselves justified because of the end goal. Or maybe they just don’t want their judgment questioned.
Ms. Rhee’s justification was that she could not give “ineffective teachers more time to improve” because she could not answer the question “Whose children are we going to put in the classrooms of ineffective teachers next year?”
Yet, considering her own history as a teacher, this seems odd. At first she had no idea how to teach. Richard Whitmire’s biography of Rhee, The Bee Eater, tells how badly she did at first – the kids ran wild as she attempted to use a free-style approach based on Montessori techniques. She has admitted publicly that she could not keep control of her second-grade classroom, one time using masking tape to keep her students’ quiet, something that would normally be grounds for dismissal. “I sucked,” she said.
Correction: When Ms. Rhee said “doing it sooner rather than later made sense,” she was referring to her 2010 firings, not 2009.
As for the 2009 firings, the process used to pick out the 266 teachers? “I got rid of teachers who had hit children, who had had sex with children, who had missed 78 days of school,” Rhee says. “Why wouldn’t we take those things into consideration?” [note 1]
As one teacher-friendly web-site put it, “Michelle Rhee is claiming, with NO support/proof, that she fired teachers not for the reasons given at the time but because now, with no substantiation, she has decided to say that these teachers did horrible things to kids–with no proof.” Due process was ignored while Ms. Rhee, in her own words, decided which teachers would be let go during a reduction in force necessitated by a budget cut.
“I was describing the kind of conduct that was appropriate to take into account in implementing the reduction in force. The examples I gave involved a very small minority of teachers who were terminated in the budget reduction”. [note 2]
The budget cut wasn’t necessary, so that may have been a lie, but who’s counting? Certainly not Ms. Rhee — just take a look at her resume. By the way, her ‘small minoriity’ was, in fact, quite a small minority: 9 of 266, less than 4 %.
Note 1 — Source: Jeff Chu, “Update: Michelle Rhee vs. the D.C. Teachers’ Union.” Fast Company, February 1, 2010. [http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/142/update-dc-report-card.html]
Note 2 — Michelle Rhee, Letter to DC City Council, 26 January 2010.
The real losers in this are the 257 teachers who didn’t hit or molest kids and whose attendance was acceptable. They were lumped in with the less than 4% who were poor teachers… The “less than 4%” number keeps coming up, eh? That’s how many teachers were rated unsatisfactory by the fancy new evaluation system that was going to ferret out “the bad teachers”…
Rhee is very careful about how she labels teachers that she wants to get rid of and chooses to generally characterize them as “ineffective” rather than as “bad,” as she notes at around 2.37 in on this youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9v8_ofFGRY
The whole country is now being run by those “I sucked” people including the president, his wife and the Sec. of Education, Duncan. Only democrat presidents like Clinton and Obama could get away with destroying the entire country for the corporatist privatizers who want to own and control everything including us. Joke on us. Democrats wake up, you have been sold out. Time to raise hell and give Obama and the corporate democrats a wake up call and make their life miserable. Just look at this trailer GMO that Obama just signed. Almost nothing he is doing and promoting is for the common good. By the way I am what I call “A Real Democrat” which means that I think that the common good is more important than a few billionaires in this now fascist country. By the way the defination of fascism is corporations and govt. together. Here corporations are the government. It has been raised to another level and is being promoted worldwide wherever possible.
This is actually in response to Philaken’s “Who is Eli Broad?” link way up there, which refers to wealthy people having more money than they know what to do with. Eli Broad encapsulated:
Chairman of the Bored (Billionaires Boys’ Club). (But don’t forget all the wealthy, bored women, as well…Penny Pritzker comes to mind, & that woman who ran for office & lost–Christine Whitman-?)
Good news for a dreary morning!
Watching the ivory tower tumble down
I am not surprised. She bends the truth to fit her agenda
Couldn’t happen to someone who deserves it more
Ditto on that, & couldn’t happen to a meaner person.
Music teachers…fighting the good fight!
We lost a music teacher though RIF with no promise of hiring her back since they simply cut her position and put more schools/students on the backs of the remaining music teachers. They cut a year of eligibility (one grade level) out of the program in an effort to reduce workload. Those remaining music teachers are working a convoluted schedule with less time and attention for the students than they need since the district combined two major programs that used to be split between two teachers. For three years, the other teachers have struggled to keep the instrumental program afloat while the district “recovered” enough financially to hire back all the other positions and even increase the administration staff to accommodate all the new evaluation regulations. They are exhausted, but the powers-that-be are talking about re-instating the cut grade level and hiring an additional music teacher, but only on a part-time basis. The administrators tell us how lucky we all are to have jobs in this financial climate, as if we caused the economic downturn for having the audacity to be teachers.
Meanwhile, all the new and existing supervisory staff are spending the bulk of their time “training” themselves in how to do their jobs “more effectively,” i.e. watching evaluation videos.
Good luck, Mr. Brewer
This was always about Rhee making a name for herself. That is the TFA “leadership” style. Sacrifice anyone and anything to establish your rep as a “reformer”. She is a fraud through and through. I wouldn’t let her walk my dog. There is a special place for Michelle Rhee.
Yes, and it is at a huge polished banquet table surrounded by her, Murdoch, Bloomberg, Duncan, Obama, the Koch brothers, Gates, others…and they are laughing. The food is fine and the wine is finer. Their children and grandchildren are safe. Their world and their security is guaranteed. They have assumed and/or been given positions of influence and respect.
The children are safe in private schools.
The tide is turning. Doing the happy dance before starting my day with my 8th graders!
DC will probably settle it. And Rhee will probably be removed as a individual defendant (see footnote 1 of the decision).
Thanks for the tip, Flerper. Here’s the footnote, which DOES seem to be a big deal, so I hope Brewer’s lawyers take action immediately and indicate Rhee is being sued in an individual capacity –or it looks like she will be off the hook:
1. The plaintiff’s complaint does not make clear whether former Chancellor Rhee is sued in her official capacity or individual capacity. If sued in her official capacity, her successor must be substituted as the appropriate defendant. See FED. R. CIV. P. 25(d). If sued in her individual capacity, the docket does not reflect that service has been accomplished in that capacity. Moreover, because more than 120 days have elapsed since the filing of the complaint, defendant Rhee will be dismissed from this action if proof of individual capacity service is not filed within 14 days of this opinion. FED. R. CIV. P. 4(m)
Flerper, How would one go about proving individual capacity? This woman clearly has a mission to get rid of older veteran teachers and replace them with young teachers.
Yikes. If Rhee wasn’t served in her individual capacity already, it might be too late for plaintiff to serve her now. Any lawyers out there familiar with federal civil procedure? Flerper?
A plaintiff has 120 days to serve a defendant. If that doesn’t happen, the court has the discretion to extend the time. If the court doesn’t extend the time for service, it’s a mandatory dismissal of the complaint. My reading of footnote 1 is that the court is not considering extending the time for service. But any dismissal would be without prejudice, so the plaintiff could re-file against Rhee if he did intend to sue her in her individual capacity.
Public officials have qualified immunity for actions they take as public officials. That basically boils down to whether the public official violated “clearly established” federal constitutional law. That’s a higher standard than just showing that the public official broke the law.
Yeah, Flerper, please help!
I’m no lawyer but as best I can tell, that document is dated Sept. 20, 2012 and 14 days were given from the date of the decision to provide proof of individual capacity. I was only just now able to access the final page and see that the date provided there is the same, so that date last fall was the date of the decision. Why would this decision just be coming to light now –and shouldn’t there be something more recent available, like after those 14 days transpired?
TeacherEd — now that is odd, I didn’t even notice that. Nice catch. This appears to be a press release that should have gone out six months ago. No idea who put it out or why. But it’s a great reminder never to treat a press release as news.
Presumably the question of service, and of what capacity Rhee’s being named in, has been resolved one way or the other by now.
What a beautiful development! I guess that criminal lawyer will come in handy after all.
From Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, 1596:
LAUNCELOT: Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of
the knowing me: it is a wise father that knows his
own child. Well, old man, I will tell you news of
your son: give me your blessing: truth will come
to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man’s son
may, but at the length truth will out.
(http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/390200.html)
I hope Rhee goes to jail–what a lying and manipulative witch/b (rhyming word) ! All U.S. teachers have suffered from her actions. She can Rot in a HELL of her own making. EXPOSE! YEA!—-CRush L.A. teacher
I hate to deflate everyone’s hopes, and, again, I’m not a lawyer, but I noticed that It’s a civil suit, “Civil Action No. 11-1206,” so whatever happens (or maybe has already happened, since that decision was dated Sept. 20, 2012), I believe the result would not be a jail sentence, because it isn’t a criminal suit.
Certainly the public exposure could lead to criminal charges being filed. This suit is timely; it comes on the heels of the Atlanta cheating scandal sentencings.
It could be beneficial if the exposure garners concern and results in criminal charges, but so far that woman has been like Teflon. The decision on the civil suit is not new; it’s dated from last fall. (Please see dialogue above with lawyer Flerper.) I tried to locate more recent documents at the website where the decision is posted, but trying to access search results just caused my computer to hang. Maybe others can find something there: http://www.leagle.com/
And so it begins … thanks to the relentless and painstaking work of so many to right the many wrongs that Rhee has wrought.
Not only does Rhee need to do prison time, but the Broad Foundation who funds her craziness. They took democracy and tossed it aside, because they felt they were superior in their thinking. How “Third Reich” of them.
Interesting that a judge would adjudicate this in a fair way and not cave to the powers that hold sway so often to the detriment of teachers! Rhee’s brazen flouting of teachers’ rights, and sinking to fraud, concealment, etc. seems to be a pattern across the nation’s major schools. Sure has been in Denver with that public school system. The destruction of “older teachers”careers, to be replaced by baby or TFA guinea pigs was hidden by them, even when the EEOC demanded the facts related to the dismissals and forced that federal department to seek or obtain legal options to finally get them to adhere to the EEOC’s repeated requests. The pandemic of ruinous behaviors by schools will lead to the total destruction of what remains of public schools.
Time to look at her taxes, would bet the IRS could find all kinds of problems.
Even though we all know who has been pulling the strings (Broad, Koch & the rest of the Evil Empire) to undo all civil rights that U.S. citizens are to enjoy under the protection of our Constitution, this woman has chosen to make a name for herself by being the public face of all that has been foisted upon our public school children, namely chaos and despair and withholding of their education. She has caused irreparable damage to the American people. She has wreaked an overabundance of suffering upon hard-working, caring and more than decent individuals (as well as to their families) who have devoted their lives to the proper education of children. And, in totality, she has been a person whose constant telling of lies indicts her in our eyes, minds and hearts, inasmuch as she has the responsibility–as the public spokesperson–for creating a domino effect on our great cities–Philadelphia, D.C., New York, Detroit, Chicago (but still fighting!!!).
Michelle Rhee needs to be tried for crimes against humanit, for she is guilty of all of the above.
Oops–that’s humanitY.
I just can’t say this enough. The fundamental issue and problem that we have to tackle is Neo-Liberalism, the doctrine shared by Democrats and Republicans alike which promotes privatization and benefits only the 1%, in our already highly stratified society, where 400 people have more wealth than the combined wealth of 155 million people.
Neo-Liberalism is the basis for our current government’s support of privatizing public education and stripping us of our rights to democratic representation in education, such as by buying local school board elections, replacing public schools with unregulated charters that have no elected school boards, and ceding control over school districts to mayors who appoint unqualified superintendents that see their roles as dictators, as stated by Rhee, “No, it’s not a democracy.”
Rhee is only one of the loose cannons that could bring down Neo-Liberalism and its attack on public education. There are many others who’ve made comments that have been very revealing and whose policies and practices could result in deleterious outcomes as well, such as Bloomberg: “Cut the number of teachers in half… and double the class size with a better teacher is a good deal for the students,” Klein: The K12 market “is ripe for disruption,” Emanual: “25% of CPS students won’t make it anyway” etc.
Meanwhile, everyone in the 99% should familiarize themselves with the Neo-Liberal agenda that is dominating both parties, spread the word and take action to support candidates who are not aligned with Neo-Liberalism.
Please read up on Neo-Liberalism, such as these articles, and share with others:
What Is Neoliberalism?
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=376
Can Democratic Education Survive in a Neoliberal Society?
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12126-can-democratic-education-survive-in-a-neoliberal-society
Neoliberal Education Restructuring
http://monthlyreview.org/2011/07/01/neoliberal-education-restructuring
I was a victim of Rhee’s mass firing. My case before the office of employee appeals failed as did most my other colleagues. Although, I had evidence to prove that I was targeted to be terminated. I wish Mr. Brewer well on his case.
Maybe there is a class action in this. D.C. has revenue of around $29,000/student the highest in the U.S. This is warfare and until people think of it that way they will continue to be screwed and stretched on the rack just like in the inquisition.
Isn’t there also a whistle-blower lawsuit pending against Rhee? Wasn’t there an educator who was harassed or fired because he reported cheating? Does anyone know the status of that case?
I will say again “Class Action.” Then you have some real power and enough to get the heavily financed firms in on the deal.
Yes. please sue and also put her in prison. Will she be a fall guy for the reformers?? Will they visit her in prison? She was a disgusting bully and fraud in DC
The puppetmasters will just go get another replacement. Many wannabees are waiting in line to sell their soul to the devil for a few dollars more or less, who cares, give me the job and I will do whatever you want me to “Massa.”
Does anyone know Barbara Adderly? How does she work with Rhee?
I’d like to see her pay reparations for the damage she did to the D.C. schools. Hey, they give people who leave their campfire burning the million dollar bill for a forest fire. Rhee’s actions were more than negligence, it was deliberate flouting of process and mayhem.
TC, I am with you all the way. That would slow down this mayhem now wouldn’t it if it cost them large amounts of cash which is their God.
this would be a good start to taking her out.
CT, not just her but the puppetmasters also. You cannot just cut off the end of the tail, you must eliminate the head, then the monster dies.