One of our Marion’s leading experts on teacher evaluation, Audrey Amrein Beardsley, here evaluates Michelle Rhee’s efforts to promote her failed ideas in South Carolina.
Rhee trots out her familiar rhetoric about bad teachers and failing schools in one of the nation’s poorest states, urging them to buy her snake oil. Will they buy? Or will they do some research?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
BATS attack needed
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“Rhee trots out her familiar rhetoric about bad teachers and failing schools in one of the nation’s poorest states, urging them to buy her snake oil”
SC is not the poorest State..They just do not use their money on schools or roads..
Have you tried those roads to the Beach??? Hmm hmmm….
Every time we go through SC we have to get an alignment.
SC may fall for all as there are just a few with the $$$$$$$$ and they apparently do not share it with the common folk..
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She will succeed here in south Carolina, because she has the backing of the monied interests, including Gates, and Jeff Bezos and others. The newspapers will not print any criticism of this bunch, because they are in collusion with the goals of this movement to denigrate the teaching profession, and reap the money which is always there, in good times and in bad. I tried many times to warn the community here in Charleston about this fraud, to no avail. Here is a sample of the kind of letter to editor which they will not print. The truth from a veteran teacher will not see the light of day.
The Trojan Horse is here.
As we veteran teachers predicted, the death knell for public education is spreading slowly and inexorably throughout the country, and as the Post and Courier reported last week, Michelle Rhee and her for-profit destroyers have claimed two more districts with their fraudulent promise to improve the educational system. The State Board of Education, obviously with the blessings of the Superintendent, has approved the extension of the “non-profit” Teach for America program by placing two more districts here in the low country within their grasp. If the public believes that this is a non-profit agenda, I still have that Brooklyn Bridge for sale at a reasonable price. I wonder how much they promised the board, the Superintendent, and all the palms they had to grease to get this program on board? I am a 28 year veteran teacher who stayed the course, and is no longer intimidated by administrators and fraudulent educational leaders. What can they do to me, stop my social security check? It’s time that someone tells the public what is really going on in the school systems, and in these contrived fiefdoms known as districts, that not only abuse the teaching staff, but waste taxpayer money to fix what they have caused in the first place. Where is the outrage on the part of teachers to the article detailing the hiring of outsourced substitutes to Kelly Educational Staffing. The School District says that they want to expand the concept to the entire district this fall. Human Resources director Julie Rogers is quoted as saying that “They do a really good job of training their substitutes. It’s not just a warm body, they get in there and teach” This is proof positive that the present educational leadership is not capable of operating a school system. Where is the indignation from the educational departments of our local colleges that train teachers? I could rail for a long time, but you get the picture I’m sure. It’s sickening and it’s time to return the system to some normalcy, and discard these frauds posing as educational leaders, before the entire system implodes.
Ian Kay
West Ashley
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Albeit using coded language, again with that “merit pay” and test score nonsense.
So let’s just take a look at the lustrous cutting-edge bauble a shining star in the “education reform” firmament touts as part of her cage busting achievement gap crushing twenty first century program for advanced eduexcellence:
[start quote]
One of the longest lasting merit pay systems involved extra pay for better test scores in England (Wilms & Chapleau, 1999), and it lasted from 1862 to the mid-1890s:
As historical accounts show, English teachers and administrators became obsessed with the system’s financial rewards and punishments. It was dubbed the “cult of the [cash] register.” Schools’ curricula were narrowed to include just the easily measured basics. Drawing, science, singing, and even school gardening simply disappeared. Teaching became increasingly mechanical as teachers found that drill and rote repetition produced the “best” results. One schools inspector wrote an account of children reading flawlessly to him while holding their books upside down. [para. 4]
[end quote]
[Jim Horn and Denise Wilburn, THE MISMEASURE OF EDUCATION, 2013, p.60]
Forward into the nineteenth century!
😎
P.S. I couldn’t resist—well, I could have but I won’t. Michelle Rhee putting putrid old wine in gleaming new bottles reminds me of that Dorothy Parker classic: “You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks.”
😄
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LOL!!!
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Perhaps Ms. Rhee should adopt the new Ed Deformer costume, tin-foil hats as protection against sanity:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2014/02/the_latest_tool_in_defending_c.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS3
And so the Alternate Rheeality Erase to the Top Tour plows on! Come see the inimitable Ms. Rhee in person. Learn how to be a most excellent schools chancellor! Simply channel Lewis Carroll’s Red Queen:
Stomp about yelling, “Off with their heads!” and practice believing six impossible things every morning before breakfast.
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Reblogged this on 21st Century Theater.
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Postings on Rhee preach to the choir with well known arguments that have approached being self evident. We can clap and hoot at the ‘reformers’ and feel good. Regardless, there remains a central unspoken, unanswered question: is there an effective strategy that progressive forces can summon to mobilize its troops and stem the tide of Rhee and her cadre?
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