G.F. Brandenburg has covered the reign of Rhee for years.

Here he explains the key insights in the memo leaked to John Merrow.

His summary:

“(1) Rhee gave lots of money to adults who cheated

(2) She put impossible pressure on principals to cheat; they, in turn, put that pressure on their teachers

(3) The achievement gap between white and black students, and between poor kids and wealthier kids, increased on Rhee’s and Henderson’s watches; any increases in NAEP scores are continuations of trends that began under her predecessors; and DCPS students’s scores are still at the bottom of the nation

(4) Rhee, Henderson, Kamras, and IG Willoughby have steadfastly refused to investigate the cheating seriously and to do the sort of analysis that actually shows malfeasance

(5) Turnover among administrators and teachers in DCPS has turned a revolving door into a whirlwind

(6) The idealistic principal who followed Wayne Ryan at Noyes, and who was originally a great admirer of Rhee, found a lot of evidence of cheating there, but her whistleblower suit was dismissed, and she now runs a cupcake store

(7) Despite noises to the contrary by Rhee, the number of highly-paid central-office administrators has jumped; DCPS has the highest administrator-to-student ratio anywhere in the region

(8) Funds that should have been used to help students who were behind were, instead, used to pay illegitimate bonuses to dishonest adults.”