John Merrow’s bombshell investigation of cheating in DC is seeping into the mainstream media. There is no way that polished statements and well-honed rhetoric will stop the suspicions and speculation. It’s time for a thorough and professional investigation.
Here is a blogger for Esquire magazine, who goes to the heart of the matter. What did Rhee know and when did she know it and what did she do in response?
The money quote as written by the blogger:
“And, of course, there is the inevitable Weaselspeak.
“As chancellor I received countless reports, memoranda and presentations. I don’t recall receiving a report by Sandy Sanford regarding erasure data from the (DC Comprehensive Assessment System), but I’m pleased, as has been previously reported, that both inspectors general (DOE and DCPS) reviewed the memo and confirmed my belief that there was no widespread cheating.”
“Yeah, there was this report right here on how much floor polish we needed, and this one right here about the possibility of changing dairies that supply our milk, and there’s the annual assessment on crayon-munching and paste-eating, especially among my own personal staff. I am a busy woman. I can’t be expected to remember every report, especially one that might indicate that the things upon which I have based my entire career, and which have brought me considerable fame and fortune, are the functional equivalent of swampland in Polk County.
“Who do you think I am? Superman?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Weaselspeak” is good. “Weaselsqueak” might be even better.
Nice piece in Esquire – great link to the film. The irony of this story is sweet, but its effects on children and families is bitter. If Rhee, Duncan, and Bloomberg choose to live by the “data” and die by the data, that’s one thing. But the affected children, parents, and teachers had/have NO choice. Profiting from our most vulnerable populations is not just wrong or criminal. It is evil. Whatever meager joy that these stories create is countered by anger – and hope that rage transforms into change that will reverse the trends of this deform movement.
Sorry for the typo – effects *are bitter.
Are people supposed to believe that the head of a school district wouldn’t remember getting info about possible cheating? I would think that would be at the forefront of all of your memories as head of a district. Totally ridiculous.
The data is the lipstick on the pig of poverty. Every eduphilanthropist knows this, but continues to pump money into the manufacture of data because that is how fortunes are made. Children in poverty suffer from the data demonization of teachers.
May I share your first line? So on point!
…and the last line …. “Children in poverty suffer from the data demonization of teachers.”
Brilliant first sentence, Pinepple Hare (as is your handle)!
Gotta love the way the media will accept brain-dead excuses to cover for the corporate
flunkies that couldn’t run a flea circus, let alone do anything but shred a school system. That “assignment” takes no more smarts than a pyromaniac who can connect a match to a fuse!
When parasitic, corporate America is feeding off another “host,” like the public schools,
the media will profess ignorance of their destructive plans, and champion the “termites!” Happens so often and yet the public still is loyal to the lies spun by these truly, anti-American money moguls. The post office is next in line for destruction. Wonder what a stamp will cost when the Romney Raiders take control? If we don’t wake up to the machinations of these Gordon
Geckos, we’ll have little but a corporate run state to the benefit of a morale minions whose ideological leader is Ayn Rand! Seems the wolves are circling and the sheep are blissfully ignorant.
I hope DC will eventually get the same media attention as Atlanta.
On another note:
Another disgruntled teacher story. When will the politicians wake up?
http://bgfay750.blogspot.com/2013/04/i-am-teacher-and-i-am-tired.html?m=1
NCLB became RTTT and now it has morphed into ETTT, Erase To The Top. We will not shut up. This woman…. This charade of a movement has destroyed careers, degraded teachers, marginalized a profession, used and abused our children and it MUST be stopped.
How shameful how easily our politicians, union officials and administrators fell into line to promote and carry out such ill conceived, damaging policies built upon a stack of lies and tactical ploys.
This IS a national tragedy and it is heartbreaking. She will most likely slither away and never face any criminal charges. Can we at least keep her far away from children and any policies affecting their lives?
Sorry for any typos. Traveling and on iPhone.
As long as we keep snipping (or at least trying) the dandelions blooms and not address the roots of the problem, we are just spinning our wheels. The root is CORPORATE AMERICA, whose goal is our country run by them, for their greed and our collective loss!
“Erase to the Top” is ingenious! Fierce call, Linda!
Lol at the EttT quip! Nice one!
“Erase to the Top” is brilliant.
Is anyone reading the Ravitch blog interested in starting a petition online to demand that the investigatino reopening this case go far beyond the walls of the DC school system?
She warrants as professional and thorough an investigation as Beverly Hall.
Let’s petition the USDOJ and the USDOE.
We MUST put pressure on our elected officials to make sure this gets looked into properly. This is a pivotal, crucial fight, one that even can be a game changer, and rightfully so.
SIGN ME UP! The only way we’ll strike against such bad actors is with a united effort!
I’ll gladly sign, forward, and share!
I agree. I also think we should overload Obama’s basketball buddy with emails:
arne.duncan@ed.gov
Although it might be considered circumstantial, motivation is still a compelling case against all the players in the DCPS scandal. What exactly were the incentives for principals and teachers whose schools made big gains? Let’s not forget to point out these details, as when the entire picture is painted (memo included) it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what was going on.
We must keep this story in the media,and not let her off the hook. Rhee has been attacking teachers for years, now it is our turn to fight back. Make this story viral.
Charlie Pierce is a national treasure– and I just realized he is the one and same Charlie Pierce who hosts NPR’s sports show: It’s Only A Game.
Rhee’s deputy/successor has calmed up since the smoking- gun memo surfaced; she wasn’t always so tight-lipped:
WaPo 2/28/12:
…Henderson said DCPS took every conceivable step in response to questions about test security, including hiring a private firm, Caveon, to investigate high-erasure classrooms flagged by state authorities in 2009 and 2010. But Caveon founder John Fremer said last year that DCPS asked for a limited inquiry that didn’t involve all the forensic tools at its disposal.
“It was easy sport for the press to play the what-more-could-be-done game,” she said. “Couldn’t we have looked at right-to-wrong erasures in more schools? Wasn’t there more that our vendor could have done to identify inconsistencies? Couldn’t investigations have been more thorough? Can we release the information to the press so that press and the public could decide for themselves?”
Henderson said the answer to all the questions was “yes.” Caveon could have looked at patterns of answers within classrooms, annual score growth of students, or how results may have deviated from predictions based on interim tests.
“But there was no reason to believe that any of these actions would have yielded more reliable results or more accurate results,” she said. “It was clear to me it would be very easy for a district like ours to fall down a rabbit hole of testing investigations only to find out that because there are no widely accepted standards there is no agreed upon result that would have satisfied the press or the public.”
Henderson also referred to Monday’s column by New York Times education columnist Michael Winerip challenging the propriety of Education Secretary Arne Duncan sharing a panel with Rhee while the school system was under investigation. He also called the department’s selection of Henderson as one of the conference’s opening speakers “disheartening.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-schools-insider/post/kaya-henderson-national-standards-needed-to-guide-educators-in-detection-investigation-of-cheating/2012/02/28/gIQAF16RgR_blog.html
Henderson is incoherent. What on earth is she talking about?
If the tests are invalid or fraudulent then the “accountability movement” should be torn down, because it relies on the scores.
Many people thought it was incredibly stupid to measure schools soley on test scores, but that is the metric the reformers chose.
Now she wants to be judged on something other than test scores? Or, are we all just supposed to accept these numbers without question?
If they’re losing credibility, how is that anyone’s fault but theirs?
No one “tore down” their movement. They grounded it on sand, and it’s collapsing.
It is disheartening that Duncan appeared on a panel with Rhee while his agency was investigating Rhee.
It’s completely innapropriate and it discredits the investigation.
Henderson may not like that, but it’s a fact.
“Appearance of impropriety” is a phrase that’s used because it describes something real that occurs. That’s why responsible, thoughtful people avoid lauding someone
their agency is investigating.
Duncan should be asked why he chose to promote Rhee during an investigation.
Dang auto correct: meant “clammed up”
I wonder how Arne Duncan is going to play damage control. He has used her “success” to justify his own. I hope the momentum to hold Michelle Rhee accountable, also pulls him in as well. I’m probably stating the obvious.
http://www2.ed.gov/news/photos/2009/0409/edlite-0409_3.html
Arne Duncan will have to deal with little to no damage control unless we keep this story alive and well in the mainstream media and if we get our elecgted officials to put pressure on the Feds and State to investigate it as thorougly as Beverly Hall’s investigation.
Duncan has as much nearly as much immunity as the President.
“f we get our elected officials to put pressure on the Feds and State to investigate it as thoroughly as Beverly Hall’s investigation.”
I think the difference here, and the problem is, that there is no state and the feds means Arne et al.
Both Rhee and Henderson are implicated and they were each appointed by the mayors who were in place at the time. Is this another city where the City Council just goes through the motion and then rubber stamps whatever the mayor wants? This is a primary issue with school districts that are under mayoral control, where mayors appoint both their own superintendents and their own school boards.
Anyone know who there is to turn to next, to make sure there is a thorough investigation and justice is served? Would it require filing a lawsuit in court?
Expect another gushing Michelle Rhee op ed from lovestruck Richard Whitmire trying to spin away the fact that the object of his unrequited love is a liar and a cheat.
Stick a fork in her???
Depends if this story gets national momentum or if the powers that be kill this story…
The more people we tell the better. It needs to get forwarded all over the nation…
I found today’s NYTimes piece on Rhee to do just that–spin!!!
However, the editorial in today’s Times was pretty interesting with one exception–the onus is still on teachers via bar exams, etc. Anyone can pass a test…and it will not prove any correlation between effective and ineffective teaching. This is why PAR is the better approach to judging a teacher. It should be about the quality of a teacher’s work rather than a score on some high-stakes test. Children are not widgets and they do not all learn at the same pace or with the same method. But good principals and teachers know when a teacher makes gains that are not “measured”.
Wasn’t she a backer of Superman the phony education film? We are looking at doing our own film on “School Fraud.” This will be real fun with the actual documented proof with people who know what they are doing. We know how to do a lot with not much. Be creative. I guess I have some advantage as I made my living for 37 years in the art world . I believe in the arts actually giving you the ability to creatively think outside of the box. Go ask those major corporations and organizations like Boeing, Northurp-Grumman and JPL how important they think the arts are. If anyone is interested I can give you the name of the point people there. They state that they can go out of business if they do not have people who can think outside of the box as that is what their industry lives on and they also stated they mean in the shop also. Do not let the educrats or corporatists privatizers control what you think. Just think.
George, Rhee was not a backer of the pro-privatization film “Waiting for Superman,” she was a star. The film included a clip from John Merrow’s PBS special in which Rhee fired a principal for the camera.
Yes, and Merrow later wrote of the shock he felt witnessing/reporting on that public display of casual sadism.
I’ve wondered if that event planted the seed of skepticism about Rhee that blossomed into the excellent investigative reporting he is now doing.
I’ve been critical of the credulity of some of his reporting about so-called education reform over the years, but he should get the Congressional Medal of Honor if this brings down Rhee.
Unfortunately the comprehensive review of Beverly Hall took over a year… and it took Sonny Perdue, a Republican governor willing to stand up to the Chamber of Commerce in Atlanta who didn’t want any bubbles burst about the screaming success of public schools. Who’s going to be Sonny Perdue in this drama? Arne Duncan? I don’t think so. Barack Obama? Doubtful. Somebody Like Senator Bernie Sanders (who’s on the Senate Committee that oversees education) needs to get on this ASAP… because in a few week’s time we’ll have forgotten all of this and StudentsFirst will continue to savage public education and advocate for the usual malarkey that privatizers love.
If you notice.
“I do not recall” was used by Cheney, Rove and any other banker or politician that gets subpoena for congress.
I am not sure why the reason is, but it must be used for some kind of defense so lawyers have to prove that they are lying on top of it too.