Mercedes Schneider pronounces an educational maxim to sum up the Rhee legacy in D.C.:
When the survival of a school system hinges upon test scores, that system will be driven toward corruption.
Case in point: DC public schools, beginning with the advent of mayoral control and the 2007 appointment of Michelle Rhee as DC chancellor under then-DC mayor, Adrian Fenty.
Mercedes says she wrote Amanda Ripley of TIME magazine to ask if she would rewrite the cover story about Rhee. Apparently not.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Rhee married a basketball player and moved out of education. I guess Michelle Rhee is where she really should have been along with a basketball player and as far away from education as possible. Hoop time!
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Well, if Rhee somehow prevents her husband from sexually abusing more teenage girls, and if he prevents her from abusing more students and teachers, then that’s a bit of an improvement.
That said, if there’s a Hell, they’ve both got a permanent reservation.
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Yes, lots of corruption when MONEY is involved and NO OVERSIGHT whatsoever….BLANK check(s).
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Rhee has darted from one fraudulent project to another. Then, she rode off on her broom with her morally bankrupt partner. What we have learned is that “reform” is mostly about privatization. High stakes testing and for profit education are the wrong “solution” to address the needs of vulnerable students. Testing and money lead to corruption. Here’s the link: https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2018/06/18/michelle-rhees-dc-legacy-a-monster/
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Whatever happened to Amanda Ripley? She was the world education expert what seems like 15 minutes ago. Every ed reformer in the country was repeating slogans from her book, but only those slogans that denigrate public schools and public school students and advance The Agenda.
It’s such a fad-driven “movement”, ed reform. They have celebrities they promote.
Rhee has disappeared too, along with DC as a miracle city.
Right now the city they all promote in lockstep is Indianapolis. That has replaced Cleveland- the Cleveland test scores weren’t so hot so ed reform dumped the city as a marketing tool.
When the Indianapolis Miracle turns out to be more smoke and mirrors they’ll find another model to all join in promoting, and Indianapolis will return to its former unfashionable status.
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Good question.
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I wonder if TIME magazine has any more cover stories planned celebrating reformers like Michelle Rhee or the Silicon Valley billionaires who were going to “save” American education by eliminating job security for teachers (remember Vergara).
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Can anyone say miracle grow? Imagine, this scorned cheating woman went from DC chancellors of schools to board member of miracle grow? Living in America 2018 is like living in the twilight zone
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I wrote a letter to Time magazine after the Amanda Ripley’s cover piece titled ‘A Call to Action for Public Schools’ in 2010, nearly a decade ago.
As I’ve said before, Ananda Ripley has written some awful pieces (factually inaccurate) on American public education. Yet, at her website she has the audacity to call herself an “investigative journalist.” She prominently pimps her book…click “learn more” and the reader finds that here book contains “groundbreaking research.”
In 2010, I said that Ripley’s article read much like a propaganda piece from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Ripley complained about American students’ domestic test score results, and alleged that the vast majority of students were not “proficient.” She claimed that American student scores on international tests were significantly “worse” than in comparable nations. Yet virtually every study of National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) proficiency scores calls them badly flawed and unusable. Moreover, on international tests (like TIMSS) American students have made the biggest gains in math and science, and a quarter of the highest scorers in math on the Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) are from the United States. If international test scores are disaggregated for U.S. students, there is nearly a direct correlation between family income and achievement. As a number of researchers have pointed out, there is a “strong relationship between poverty and test scores,” and the United States has one of the highest poverty rates in the developed world.
The “call to action” that Ripley promoted in 2010 is the similar to that pushed by conservatives: blame teacher unions, open more charter schools, and institute merit pay for teachers. But teacher unions are not the problem, and charter schools generally don’t improve student achievement. The rush to merit pay for teachers may sound like “commonsense to Ripley,” but there is little if any research to support it.
But what about Amanda Ripley’s education? What was it like?
She went to Cornell, whose founder said it was a place where “any person can find instruction in any study.” Any person, that is, with $70,371 ($52,853 for tuition,
$14,380 for room & board, $930 for books & supples, and and estimated $2,208 in “other expenses”).
She attended the expensive, private Lawrenceville School. Current tuition is $64,430, but only $53,290 for day students. Hold on, that’s not all. Add in “a required medical fee of $920 for boarders and $570 for day students, and a technology fee of $570 for boarders and $390 for day students.” Health insurance adds about $2000 and books and supplies another $1000.
The campus is 700 acres. It has its own golf course. It has a 56,000 sq.ft. science building, and a music center, and a visual arts center, and a history center. Multiple dorm buildings with their own dining halls. It has a field house that includes “a permanent banked 200-meter track and three tennis/basketball/volleyball courts.” But wait! That’s not all. “Two additional hardwood basketball courts, a six-lane swimming pool, an indoor ice-hockey rink, a wrestling room, two fitness centers with full-time strength and conditioning coaches, and a training-wellness facility are housed in the wings of the building as well as a new squash court facility, hosting ten new internationally zoned courts, which opened in 2003.” Not exactly cheesy.
So, what is education like at Lawrenceville? Small classes, “intimate…with a maximum of 12 students.” The guiding philosophy is one that “values discussion and debate.” Lawrenceville claims to help its students “develop high standards of character and scholarship” and “strong commitments to personal responsibility.
Amanda Ripley’s own education past indicates two things clearly:
She really has no idea what she’s talking about when it comes to public education, and “reform.” She’s a charlatan. An impostor. A poser. And, either Ripley was an incredibly slow student at Lawrenceville, or she didn’t get her money’s worth.
The “accountability” measures glorified by Ripley for public schools are more likely to undermine public education than to nurture and improve it. Finland abandoned high-stakes testing decades ago and it’s a top-ranking nation on most international assessments.
Finland also emphasizes egalitarianism. In Finland, the goal of education reform is equity, with all of the attendant policy programs aligned. Education is seen “as an instrument to even out social inequality.” That is simply not the case in the U.S.
Maybe that’s the real revolution waiting to happen in American public education.
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