Jeff Bryant wonders whether Campbell Brown will replace Michelle Rhee as the public face of “reform”? Bryant describes the movement as “Blame Teachers First.”
Bryant suspects that Rhee’s star is fading fast. Bryant describes her as “education’s Ann Coulter.” The lingering doubts about the Washington, D.C. cheating scandal never dissipate, and John Merrow’s latest blog about the millions that Rhee has paid to protect her image have not been enough to stop the slide. He notes that she never collected the $1 billion she predicted and that her organization is retreating from several states. Her biography bombed. She was unable to draw a crowd in many of the states where she claimed to have thousands of supporters. Bryant says she is yesterday’s news.
Campbell Brown is thus next in line to inherit the role as leader of the “Blame Teachers First” movement.
Bryant writes:
“With Rhee and StudentsFirst sinking under the weight of over-promises, under-performance, and unproven practices, the Blame Teachers First crowd is now eagerly promoting Campbell Brown.
“According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Brown launched the group Partnership for Educational Justice, with a Veraga-inspired lawsuit in New York State to once again dilute teachers’ job protections, commonly called “tenure.” The suit clams students suffer from laws “making it too expensive, time-consuming and burdensome to fire bad teachers.”
“An article in The Washington Post noted, “Brown has raised the issue of tenure in op-eds and on TV programs such as ‘Morning Joe.’ But she may be just getting warmed up.”
“Actually, Brown has already been warmed up and is plenty ready to take the mound and pitch. As the very same article noted, Brown started her campaign against teachers some time ago, claiming that the New York City teachers’ union was obstructing efforts to fire teachers for sexual misconduct. Unfortunately for Brown, the ad campaign conducted by her organization Parents Transparency Project failed to note that, as The Post article recalled, at least 33 teachers had indeed been fired. “The balance were either fined, suspended or transferred for minor, non-criminal complaints.” Oops.
“Further, as my colleague Dave Johnson recalled at the time, Brown penned an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal accusing the teachers’ union of “trying to block a bill to keep sexual predators out of schools.” It turned out, the union wanted to strengthen the bill, not stop it. Double oops.
“Nevertheless – or as The Post reporter put it, “undaunted” – Brown has now decided to take on teacher personnel policies on behalf of, she claims, “millions of schoolchildren being denied a decent education.”
Who is funding the new anti-teacher drive? Bryant describes the familiar organizations that promoted Rhee, such as TNTP, which Rhee founded, as well as Republican operatives.
He writes:
“What emerges from these interwoven relationships, then, is a big-money effort led by a small number of people who are intent on the singular goal of reducing the ability of teachers to have control of their work environments. But to what end?
“Regardless of how you feel about the machinations behind the Rhee-Brown campaign, what’s clear is that it is hell-bent on imposing new policies that have little to no prospect of addressing the problem they are purported to resolve, which is to ensure students who need the best teachers are more apt to get them.
“Research generally has found that experienced teachers – the targets for these new lawsuits – make a positive difference in students’ academic trajectory. A review of that research on the website for the grassroots group Parents Across America concluded, “Every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience.”
The new campaign looks very much like the old campaign, with only this difference. Brown does not pretend to be a Democrat.
Read this and see the closing, fast forward to 2024, her new motto: No More
Before Brown left CNN three years ago, her evening news show carried a memorable tagline: “No bias. No bull.” She can’t say the same for her foray into the education wars.
Who’s Really Behind Campbell Brown’s Sneaky Education Outfit?
The former CNN anchor says her nonprofit seeks to protect kids from predators in the classroom. Its real agenda may be union-busting.
http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/campbell-brown-new-york-schools-rhee
Typo…2014…
“It’s real agenda is union busting.” Isn’t that the agenda of all reform?
Just remember that all those tag lines on TV mean the opposite of what they say. If you are going to see O’Reilly, you are entering a “spin zone,” so it is called “the no spin zone.”
She was really bad at it, IMO. I watched one interview she conducted, where she was interrogating a woman from HHS on why flu vaccine hadn’t reached full distribution in neighborhoods.
The HHS rep explained that we have a public health system in this country that consists of a federal agency, state agencies and then county agencies so if there was a complaint that vaccine hadn’t reached a certain neighborhood, it would be much more productive to call the county rather than haranguing the person from HHS.
I just thought the whole thing was ridiculous. It was reality tv. Play-acting. Someone playing “tough reporter”.
It would have been more useful to the public if they had simply flashed a list of county health departments on the screen.
Here’s Jersey Jazzman’s takedown of Campbell Brown’s appearance on the “Stephen Colbert Report” : (which includes an embedded video of her entire exchange with Colbert):
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2014/08/campbell-brown-lame.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JerseyJazzman+%28Jersey+Jazzman%29
Some of this rival’s the great Edushyster’s wry sarcasm:
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“Let’s start with her detractors: apparently, some folks showed up to protest outside the show, which Campbell says they have the right to do. Except she also says what they’re really doing is silencing debate, which I guess is what happens when someone opposes Campbell’s point of view.
“So yes, let’s have a debate, except let’s not…
“Ooo, is that scary! I mean, look at these thugs, what with their magic-markered poster boards and their peaceful milling around on the sidewalk! No wonder Campbell won’t say who is financing her operation — clearly, these parents who are “trying to silence debate” are “going to go after people who are funding this”!
“And by “go after,” I guess Brown means “hold up hand-made signs”! Clearly, we must protect Brown’s plutocratic backers from this danger at all costs — including any normal standards of transparency. This also explains why Brown must raise funds to pay off a high-priced PR firm with ties to the Obama administration. I mean, when 20 people can show up at one of your many media appearances and do this – ”
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and on it goes with a detailed point-by-point rebuttal of everything Campbell Brown says… all of it leading up to this knockout finish”
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“And that is precisely the problem: the debate about tenure is now dominated by telegenic partisans who have no knowledge of education policy and won’t reveal their funders — all while the voices of teachers are excluded. Campbell Brown can be as illogical as she pleases, because no one, as of yet, has been allowed an opportunity to debate her on equal terms.
“She can make as many rambling, self-contradictory, and ignorant statements as she likes, because she is the only one at the table. She doesn’t have to make a lick of sense, because no one is there to call her out on her nonsense. My guess is she’s going to take the path of Michelle Rhee: refusing to publicly defend her positions against well-informed, well-reasoned critique.
“How lame.”
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Forget it..Campbell Brown is a lightweight…she a lightweight on CNN, which is saying a lot, and her appearances on Morning Joe, well, let’s say border on the bizarre.
Thanks Diane!
Jeff, thanks for your great articles.
Bryant describes the movement as “Blame Teachers First.”
Rather sinister message, isn’t it? This is how Hitler’s Final Solution started. To blame the Jews first. Then came the concentration camps and the gas chambers. However, the Jews will not be included in this Final Solution. The most at risk children and their families will. Their color or religion won’t matter.
A bubble test may decide who goes and who survives.
I agree, Lloyd. Some would say it is wrong to draw parallels between the “Final Solution” strategies of Hitler and that of current educational “reforms”. After reading extensively on this horrendous period of history, I have come to the awful realization that the similarities are unmistakeable.
Indeed, one should be able to point out the tactical and strategic similarities between them – their mutual use of The Big Lie, scapegoating and demonizing of political enemies, the convergence of State power and private economic interests, etc. – without having that disregarded because the so-called reformers merely seek to have teachers living on cat food in retirement, rather than murdering them outright.
Don’t forget that one or more of the oligarchs are fighting to do away with teacher retirement systems as they currently exist. If that happens, then cat food could be a luxury as teachers became homeless and resort to eating garbage as they slowly starve.
In time, the millions of teachers that are alive today could be eliminated by cutting them off from the money they need to survive. If those older teachers have adult children who don’t work in eduction to take care of them, they may survive as poverty stricken dependents.
But let’s not mistake the oligarchs and their puppets as Nazi’s or Bill Gates as Hitler. For want of a better tag: anti Christs or authoritarians or even fascists, yes, but they may not control enough of the government yet to be the de facto leaders.
That said, if they succeed, the final result may lead to a greater loss of life than World War II, if the historical dominoes that have already fallen signal what’s going to come next.
I think there may still exist enough time to slow, reverse and even stop what these oligarchs and their puppets have set in motion.
It isn’t over until it’s over and even then it’s never over until the last human stops breathing.
The parallels are eerily similar. Make teachers the problem, ensure they are portrayed as the Other and not one of Us, pass laws giving teachers less rights and restrict their speech, publicly blacklist and humiliate teachers, ignore reason and push propaganda, play to people’s fears and paranoia, ensure the force of governnent is enlisted against teachers when necessary. Brown takes it to a new low by, when all else fails, introduce depravity and perverse innuendo. Watch out if you question her, suspicion is then cast on you. Next, we’ll have teachers recruited to spy on others or paid to accuse colleagues.
There was a great play by C.P. Taylor called “Good”. A well-intentioned, uninformed Everyman is gradually absorbed into the Nazi movement. The final scene is chilling. He babbles on rationalizing his conversion while his wife blandly helps him get ready for another day at the office. Gradually, it dawns on the audience he is dressing in an SS black uniform while sipping his morning coffee.
“We must reduce workers salaries, and take away their right to strike”
-Adolph Hitler, 1933
People like Brown and the fascist corporations and think tanks that are of the same ilk must be acted against not only by educators, but by all workers, in the most swift and merciless manner.
Is Campbell Brown at all concerned about any sexual predators in private schools, religious schools or even charter schools? Is she at all concerned about teachers who are falsely accused of sexual contact with the kids. I guess in the universe of Brown, if a public school teacher is accused of being a sexual predator, there’s no need for a trial or due process, just bring on the torches and pitchforks and burn the teacher at the bonfires of hatred and intolerance.
Will Campbell Brown look no further than the husband of her main supporter, Mr. KJ
Johnson Rhee, who was attracted to and molested a teenage girl and fits the same profile?
Click to access Phoenix_Police.source.prod_affiliate.4.pdf
NO BIAS NO BULL
Michelle Rhee linked to Kevin Johnson sex scandal:
http://rokdrop.com/2009/11/23/michelle-rhee-linked-to-kevin-johnson-sex-scandal-cover-up/
All of us—parents, taxpayers, teachers, students, and especially journalists—should be asking Campbell Brown about this constantly: “If you’re so obsessed with sexual predators going after minors, why have you said absolutely nothing about your friends Michelle Rhee and her spouse, Kevin Johnson who had to pay off several underage girls to buy their silence, and protect himself from a lawsuit, after he had sexual activity with them?”
Repeating this question over and over will force Brown to either address it, or to run from it, just confirming her hypocrisy and confirming that her only REAL objective is to slander and vilify ALL teachers for the alleged sins of a handful.
What about it, Campbell Brown? Who are you protecting here and why? And why are you turning a blind eye to REAL sexual predators?
We’ve returned to the morals of Emperor Tiberius. Just blame affluenza.
Here’s a link to a great article by Arthur Goldstein that touches on tenure, Brown, Moskowitz and Duncan:
But Campbell Brown’s Law is different. Campbell Brown’s Law says whatever goes wrong in school is the fault of the tenured teachers. If you fail, it’s because the teacher had tenure and therefore failed you. Absolutely everyone is a great parent, so that has nothing to do with how children behave. Campbell Brown’s Law says parents have no influence whatsoever on their children. If parents have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, that will have no effect. If they provide no supervision because they aren’t around, that won’t affect kids either.
[snip]
It’s not Eva Moskowitz’s fault she doesn’t take those kids because she, after all, is not a tenured teacher and therefore earns every cent of her 500K salary. She can expand as much as she likes because NY Governor Andrew Cuomo says so, and not only does he not have tenure, but he also fires anti-corruption committees at will just because he can.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arthur-goldstein/teacher-tenure_b_5631096.html
“Absolutely everyone is a great parent, so that has nothing to do with how children behave. Campbell Brown’s Law says parents have no influence whatsoever on their children. If parents have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, that will have no effect. If they provide no supervision because they aren’t around, that won’t affect kids either.”
I think that’s weird as hell as a parent, and I agree with you, it is central to the ed reform message.
They take children out of context. It’s as if kids are dropped at the door from space and then return to a shelf until the following morning.
I think it’s bizarre. I think it comes from a “private school” mindset, where schools are simply service providers.
Rhee’s demise and Campbell Brown’s new celebrity status show big changes in the billionaire strategy to seize and undermine the public sector. Not long ago, vast resources were poured into promoting Rhee as a leading voice/face of ‘reform,’ the Superwoman, reminiscent of bat-wielding Principal Joe Clark of the 1980s in Jersey City. She was lionized in the mass media here and in the UK as well, represented as a “Deliverer.” Her Achilles heel of course was the cheating scandal in her DC schools; but she had notable faults which undermined her: lack of educational experience and knowledge(inane comments, and embarrassingly fled a debate with Diane Ravitch). Rhee also had an abusive, peremptory and inarticulate style; the cheating scandal was a coup de grace.
Rhee was destined to fail b/c she took on an impossible task: improving a WHOLE diverse, troubled, complex urban school district via standardized testing, firings, and brutal top-down management.(Diane Ravitch challenged KIPP and other privatizers to take their methods to whole districts with all the diversity and challenges such districts face b/c they cannot select students and/or expel problems(ELL, SPED, homelessness, impoverishment, unstable enrollments, under-financing, etc.)). Privatizers cannot improve whole districts and they know it; they can walk off with big profits and with spinnable outcomes only if they cream off a select student group, invest bigger resources than available to public schools, and send back to the public schools the kids who pull down their test scores(as Geoff Canada did when he fired the entire 8th grade in his Zone charter school rather than let this under-performing group be the founding grade of his spanking new Wall St funded high-school). Eva Moskowitz in NYC follows the Canada Model. Take as much money and facilities from public schools and private sources as you can and spend it on screened students in smaller controlled sites, individual charter schools and limited local networks that don’t rise to the level of an entire urban school district. This is the fundamental reason why this privatization-charter movement cannot possibly provide a model for improving “mass education” in general.
Rhee, Canada, Moskowitz, and privatizers cannot improve whole districts; Duncan already failed at that in Chicago when he corporatized schools there before Obama chose him to do it to the whole nation. Privatizers do best when they segregate their charters from the reg pub schools’ diverse student bodies, seize public sector buildings for their own free space, capture pub schl tax levies to add to the subsidies raised from private sources. So, Rhee failed as did other corporate agents trying to undo whole school systems, like Duncan, like Tony Bennett in Indiana, etc. The Canada-Eva Model is working best for the billionaires, not the Rhee model, but something big is still missing, and this is where Campbell Brown comes in.
Brown is a media celebrity; Eva Moskowitz is not; Rhee was created into one without the skills Brown brings to the task. Eva M keeps a low public profile compared to Rhee or even Canada, and certainly to Brown. Campbell Brown is camera-ready in voice and appearance as the new tough look of ‘reform’–well-schooled in public speaking, a fluid delivery unlike Rhee’s laboring utterances; Brown knows how to frame sound-bites and messages for mass consumption. And, Brown is not head of a whole urban school district for which she she must display metrics of improvement. Campbell Brown is Privatization 2.0–that is, the “billionaire boys’ club” are unable so far to mobilize a mass of people for their plans–not for ‘Parent Trigger,’ not for “Won’t Back Down'(a box-office flop). They are re-positioning their war on the public sector through litigation to undermine teacher unions, wage scales, teacher tenure, etc. It’s far easier to fight and win a lawsuit like Vergara than it is to mobilize millions of parents to support handing over the public schools, budgets, and buildings to private hands.
We will see how far photogenic Campbell Brown takes this new front in the war on public schools. Our job is to keep building opposition from the bottom up.
I think it’s great we’re going to see more education activists in media.
I look forward to all the pro-public education folks who will now be invited to Morning Joe to offer a different opinion than Ms. Brown and Ms. Rhee.
That will happen, right? 🙂
If we push and press and pressure—in a polite and professional way—with no acrimony, nastiness or vilification, I wouldn’t be surprised if we eventually break through.
Obviously with someone like Joe Scarborough, we’ll never see the types of regular guests we’d ideally want, but we CAN make a difference and get them to yield a little.
MSNBC’s management has some say in this too, to say the least, and for all of their faults they’re not Fox “News”. We can get through to them, on some level, in some way.
Let’s keep pushing. We have a lot more power than we sometimes feel when we’re being constantly victimized.
Yup. Wait by your TV screen.
Campbell Brown is also yet another alleged reformer who send her own children to (surprise) private schools.
Such a drama queen; the same can be said for Rhee. Unfortunately, they’re both dangerous.
In an age where shameless self-promotion seems to help superintendents “make a name” for themselves (see Rhee, Duncan, Deasy, etc.) it is not surprising to see a vacuous TV celebrity emerging as a “reformer”….
It would be interesting to see how Ms. Brown’s income from her “corporate reform” activism compares to her predecessor Michelle Rhee, who makes more in an hour of bashing public school teachers & their unions as the average starting teacher makes in a year—while we have to read the outrageous stuff that her supporters claim about how self-less and noble she is..
Below, we can read as one of her backers blathers about how Rhee is now “shunning high salaries” to “improve the lot of our nation’s students,” and how she was targeted and victimized in D.C. because she “put students first.”
Check out what WAITING FOR SUPERMAN director Davis Guggenheim wrote in his blurb accompanying her page in TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Important People list:
(CAPS are mine… Jack… it’s in the last paragraph)
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2066367_2066369_2066128,00.html
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DAVIS GUGGENHEIM:
“She (Michelle Rhee) SET A GOAL TO IMPROVE THE LOT OF THE NATION’S STUDENTS, and she has stuck to that. And she PAID DEARLY FOR IT, stepping down from her D.C. post in 2010 after Mayor Adrian Fenty lost his bid for re-election, a public rejection that some saw as A REPUDIATION OF THE TOUGH STEPS to raise the standards of the city’s public schools.
“Subsequently, SHE SHUNNED ANY HIGH-SALARY OFFERS that resulted from her high-profile tenure and INSTEAD FOUNDED HER OWN ORGANIZATION.
” ‘PUTTING KIDS FIRST’ could be a pithy slogan. For many it is.FOR RHEE, IT’S A LIFELONG COMMITMENT.”
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Hey Davis, you know who else has to “pay dearly”? The folks who have to pay to have this woman speak for an hour or two!
Ms. Rhee may have “shunned any high salary offers” after the voters of D.C. ran her out of town, but she sure isn’t shy about lapping up her $50K / hour speaking fees!
(NOTE: her 2013 STUDENTS FIRST tax forms indicate she currently makes $350,000 annually… isn’t that “a high salary?)
It’s nice that her “lifelong commitment” to “putting kids first” pays so well.
Here’s Hollywood agency CAA’s promo blurb for her:
http://caaspeakers.com/michelle-rhee/
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“In the ever-evolving landscape of education in America, Michelle Rhee has been working tirelessly for the past two decades to give children the skills and knowledge they will need to compete in a changing world.
“From adding instructional time after school and visiting students’ homes as a third grade teacher in Baltimore, to hosting hundreds of community meetings and creating a Youth Cabinet to bring students’ voices into reforming the DC Public Schools, Michelle has always been guided by one core principle: put students first.”
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Wow, Rhee has “been guided by one core principle: put students first.”
How touching and noble of her? Given that moving statement, I’m sure that—like Dr. Ravitch—Ms. Rhee probably donates her time to give speeches and make appearances… at most only asking to have her expenses covered.
Wait a sec. I just found something on-line. It says that… Ms. Rhee… NO, I DON’T BELIEVE IT… SOMEBODY’S LYING OR MAKING THIS UP TO HARM HER REPUTATION…
No… it says that… she actually CHARGES MONEY (???!!!) for her speeches?
Say it ain’t so!
And that, when giving speeches, she is represented by the top Hollywood agency C.A.A., Creative Artists Agency?
Well, I’m sure her pay is just a small honorarium… as, like you, Dr. Ravitch, her true motives are to improve the educational lives of children, and to make sure every child has a great teacher at the front of his or her classroom, and, as Davis Guggenheim puts it, her mission to “put students first,” while “shunning high salaries.”
What’s that? It’s NOT just a token honorarium. Let me guess…
$1,000?
$2,000?
Higher? You gotta be kidding!
$5,000?
$10,000?
Get outta town!
$15,000?
$20,000?
What? She gets more than that just for an hour or two of speaking and answering questions?
Really? It’s actually higher?
$25,000?
$30,000?
Okay, someone’s just winding me up here. There’s NO WAY she charges more than THAT!!!
$50,000!
BINGO!!!!!
$50,000???!!! I don’t believe it.
Somebody’s gotta be making that up to discredit Ms. Rhee. It’s probably some evil, corrupt defenders-of-a-failed-status-quo teachers union thugs who put adult teachers’ interests ahead of children/students’ interest that hacked into C.A.A.’s website and created… yeah, it’s probably them who are making up and spreading these lies in an effort to harm Ms. Rhee’s reputation, and protect those teachers’ own selfish interest and cushy jobs-for-life.
Apparently not.
Some enterprising writer named Molly Bloom at the on-line publication STATE IMPACT actually got a copy of the contract that Rhee uses for her personal appearances and posted it on-line.
Oh, will you just shut up and gimme that link!
http://stateimpact.npr.org/ohio/2011/10/10/michelle-rhee-to-speak-at-kent-statestark-prompts-faculty-to-organize-counter-event/
What’s that? Just scroll down and you can see
a scanned copy of Rhee’s boilerplate contract? Hmmm….
Yep! There it is… In the contract posted, $35,000 is indeed what she’s getting paid to speak at Kent State, plus a bunch o’ FIRST CLASS expenses. .. (She claims here that she was discounting her usual $50,000 / hour fee because the venue, Kent State, was “a school.)
The contract posted is the actual one used for Ms. Rhee’s appearance at at Kent State University,
Why, that’s SECOND worst atrocity ever associated with that school’s history. (“Tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming… Four dead in O – hi – o… “)
(Watch this whole video… it’s pretty well done!)
I like how the “Purchaser”—the entity or person who hires her— sends the payment to:
“Rhee Enterprises, LLC” (PAGE 2)
Helping improve the education of children and “putting students first” is a lucrative Big Business, apparently.
There’s more on PAGE 3:
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“a. Purchaser shall provide the Artist with one (1) First Class round-trip, unrestricted, fully-refundable airplane tickets, or cash equivalent, at Artist’s election;
“b. Purchaser shall one (1) VIP hotel suite; Purchaser to make and confirm reservations in consultation with the Artist; Artist reserves the right to choose hotel;
“c. Purchaser to provide the Artist with meals and all reasonable incidentals;
“d. Purchase shall provide Artist with a towncar and Professional Driver for round-trip transportation from the Artist’s home to the airport, airport to hotel, hotel to engagement, or any combination thereof;”
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Yes, that’s right… Rhee demands not just a hotel room, but a “VIP hotel suite” at a hotel approved by her, as well as a towncar with a chauffer to drive her around???!!!
Come one. Be fair. Don’t beat up on Rhee because of this. You need all that if you’re going to be “putting students first.”
Item 6 is telling. Michelle or her agent crosses out the following:
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(CROSSED OUT WITH A PEN)
“6. RESPONSIBILITY for EVENT-RELATED TAXES. Purchase agrees to pay any and all local, State, and/or Federal rental, amusement, sales or other taxes as required by law.”
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Next to the crossing out, Michelle or her agent scrawls,
“TAX EXEMPT”…
… as Students First is a non-profit organization.
Awww, that’s too bad. That money would have gone to the state’s general fund for education, as Ohio schools are hurting for cash right now.
Item 9 is interesting:
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“9. ARTIST’S MERCHANDISING RIGHTS. Artist shall have the right, but not the obligation, to sell souvenir programs and other merchandising items on the premises on the place of the presentation without participation by the Purchaser, subject to local venue’s contract requirements, if any, of which the Artist is notified in writing.”
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(INSERT JOKE HERE… it’s too easy… i.e. Michelle Rhee T-shirts, action figures, etc.)
There’s also a pay-or-play clause, which means that if the event is cancelled for any reason, you have to pay Michelle her $35K anyway.
Reading this I feel like I’m watching a final scene of “THE WOLF OF WALL STREET”, where the slimebucket and convicted Wall Street felon Jordan Belfort now makes a cushy living as a “motivational speaker.”
God save us all!