Mercedes Schneider wonders why Kira Orange-Jones was chosen by TIME as one of the nation’s most influential people. She is executive director of Teach for America in Louisiana.
She is also on the state board of education, where Schneider finds no evidence of her influence.
Schneider concludes that TIME wanted to salute both TFA (its former executive editor was president of the TFA board) and to bolster Néw Orleans’ inflated reputation as a successful experiment in reform by eliminating public education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Unfortunately influential doesn’t mean a positive influence for students, families or education.
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Kira Orange-Jones does nothing. She is product placement.
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We must have many dollars for them to make from us or they wouldn’t fight so hard.
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Influence, like influenza, can be deadly …
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Time is also deadly (inevitably so)
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It is obvious to me that Common Core reformers have an influence over the several mainstream magazines. Even more worrisome is their influence in prestigious education journals. I am in no way affiliated with publishing or journalism. I am a reader and consumer of these magazines and it is very obvious that the slant is generally in favor of current reform efforts. This is an alarming organize orchestrated effort to push through an agenda that is undemocratic. The money behind this “Education Takeover” is astounding and undoubtedly had been successful in reaching the right operators in journalism. We should all be worried but let our worry fuel our steadfast vigilance!
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TIME. Is that a magazine or something?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsBwBct0_5U
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Bob Dylan, on Time, in 1965:
“It’d go off the newsstands in a week if they printed the real truth … [like] a plain picture … a tramp vomiting, man, in the sewer. And next door to the picture, Mr. Rockefeller … Just make some kind of collage, which they don’t do. There’s no ideas at Time magazine.”
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Surely Kira Orange-Jones must realise she is not one of nations most influential person – what does she say to herself to justify doing it?
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Birds of a feather flock together.
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My students don’t even know about Time magazine. I teach 200 urban students in Nashville, TN. They have limited opportunities to reading. I buy magazine and newspaper subscriptions with my own money. I won’t be buying Time.
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The real question is why anyone takes TIME seriously. I read it to know what the latest ruling class narrative is. I guess I learned my lesson when I was a kid growing up in New Jersey and TIME was cheer leading us into the Vietnam War after failing to get us deeper into the Korean War. Reactionary history; reactionary present.
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In its “100 Most Influential List,” TIME Magazine has all the credibility of O.J. Simpson or Melvin Dummar (look it up).
When it put Michelle Rhee on this list, TIME editors enlisted WAITING FOR SUPERMAN director Davis Guggenheim to pen the gush-fest portrait of Rhee.
NOTE: Guggenheim was paid a multi-million-dollar sum to make the union-busting, pro-privatization propaganda screed WAITING FOR SUPERMAN. In WfS, Guggenheim portrayed Harlem-based Charter guru Geoffrey Canada as a noble and self-less, Albert Schweitzer-in-the-Harlem-ghetto hero dedicating his lives to uplifting and educating vulnerable and neglected urban poor.
A quote from Canada even gave WfS its title. As a little boy, he despaired of the the problems of the inner city and its schools, and thought maybe Superman—Canada loved watching the old SUPERMAN TV show as a boy—could come and fix schools. Alas, his mother told him, Superman was not real… so urban poor children are still “waiting for Superman” like Canada—and others—to fix their schools.
Sheesh!
However, just as in his Guggenheim’s loving portrait of Ms. Rhee in TIME—BELOW—Guggenheim failed to include in WfS that (at the time—2010), Geoffrey Canada pulled down a whopping $550,000 annually as compensation—a number sure to have increased since then. Guggenheim was fully aware of this fact—as Canada’s critics in NYC had brought it up relentlessly during and before the time frame when WfS was made… but hey, let’s not facts get in the way of some good propaganda.
Canada’s a poverty pimp, and a useful idiot doing the bidding of the profiteers who want to privatize education, essentially eliminating public education.
Any-hoo, Davis knowingly gave the same treatment to Ms. Rhee in his “TIME’s 100 Most Influential List” hagiography, as well as in WfS.
Here’s a post from the Ravitch blog that I made on this topic on this article:
Here’s the comment:
————————————————————
————————————————————
Michelle Rhee 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..
However, before considering her sky-high speaking fees,
first 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.
all 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
—————————————
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.”
—————————————
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/
——————————————————————-
“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.”
——————————————————————
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, say, Dr. Diane 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 this… 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 Michelle Rhee to
give an anti-union speech— 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:
——————————————————————
“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;”
——————————————————————
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:
——————————————————————
(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.”
——————————————————————
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:
——————————————————————
“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.”
——————————————————————
(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
(or $50 K, which is her regular quote… she charged $35 K in this case
because Kent State is “an educational institution.)
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!
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This mindset is hardly surprising from a magazine that put Michelle Rhee holding a broom on the December 8, 2008 cover with a caption of “How To Fix America’s Schools.”
Jump ahead to last fall’s “Rotten Apple” controversy and we can see a pattern. Perhaps a better use of Time magazine would be as that of a surrogate for Cottonelle.
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Or one for Angel Soft! (a Georgia Pacific {owned by Koch Industries} product).
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