Archives for category: Rhee, Michelle
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Shameless StudentsFirst Tries to Buy Iowa

By dianeravitch
April 24, 2013 //
14

Even though Michelle Rhee suffered multiple embarrassments in the past few weeks–with John Merrow reporting her refusal to investigate the cheating scandal that occurred on her watch and the Broader Bolder Approach reporting the failure of her “reforms”—her organization continues to push her failed “reforms” on states across the nation.

StudentsFirst pumped over $317,000 into legislative races in Iowa to ensure that legislators would listen to its radical, anti-public education message. It was the single biggest contributor to state races in 2012.

Now it is filling the airwaves with ads urging the legislature to adopt changes that will advance Rhee’s personal vendetta against teachers and public education.

She demands that teacher evaluations be tied to test scores, even though research and experience have shown that this strategy consistently fails, as it failed in DC. She wants a parent trigger law, so that parents can be duped into privatizing their community public school and turning it over to one of the corporate charter chains.

Iowans should demand that StudentsFirst fully disclose the source of its funding so they can find out who is behind this campaign, other than the former leader of one of the nation’s lowest-performing districts. And Iowans should remember John Merrow’s conclusion that DC is worse off after five years of the Rhee-Henderson leadership by almost every measure: test scores, graduation rates, truancy, teacher turnover, enrollments, etc.

Categories Charter Schools, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Jersey Jazzman Says John Merrow “Created” Michelle Rhee

By dianeravitch
April 24, 2013 //
9

Jersey Jazzman deconstructs John Merrow’s post “Who Created Michelle Rhee?”

If you recall, Merrow spread the blame for her undeserved celebrity among four suspects:

1. Rhee herself, by inflating her resume

2. The media, including himself, for featuring her 12 times on PBS

3. Rightwing funders

4. The unions because of their intransigence.

JJ pins the blame for Rhee on…..read it yourself.

Categories Rhee, Michelle, Unions

Billionaires vs. Unions: Who Is David? Who Is Goliath?

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2013 //
20

Leo Casey, a long-time union activist, here reviews a recent report by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute decrying the immense power of teachers’ unions. Michael Petrilli of TBF described the unions as “Goliaths” battling the weak, underfunded “Davids” of the corporate reform movement.

Casey challenges the report and the characterization, pointing out that corporate reformers have deployed vast amounts of money–far greater than the teachers’ unions could ever muster–to destroy the last vestige of teacher unionism. This assures that teachers have no voice at the table when governors and legislatures decide to slash spending on education or to privatize it to the benefit of entrepreneurs and campaign contributors.

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Broad Foundation, Bush, Jeb, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Rhee, Michelle, Unions, Walton Foundation

What Michelle Rhee Told the LA Times About Teacher Evaluation

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2013 //
22

Michelle Rhee was recently invited to meet with the Los Angeles Times editorial board.

The interview occurred after John Merrow published his bombshell post about the mysterious memo, the one showing that Rhee was informed about the likelihood of widespread cheating and did nothing about it. Rhee forgot about the cheating memo or didn’t think it important.

In the same post on his blog, Merrow said that the public schools were worse off after the Rhee-Henderson years than when Rhee started, by every measure, like test scores, graduation fares, teacher turnover, truancy, enrollments, etc.

Nonetheless, the Los Angeles Times wanted to gain Rhee’s wisdom on teacher evaluation. Read the interview. It is clear that she doesn’t know the research, nor has she learned that the high valuation she placed on standardized testing (50% of a teacher’s rating) contributed to the cheating she ignored.

She has her narrative, and she is sticking to it. The Times needs to hear from other people, like David Berliner, who can explain what the research says.

Categories Rhee, Michelle, Teacher Evaluations

Being a Reformer Means Excuses Are OK for You, Not Students

By dianeravitch
April 20, 2013 //
12

Here is teacher Arthur Goldstein, at his sardonic best, explaining why reformers never make mistakes and if they do, it is not their fault.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Rhee, Michelle

Who Created Rhee? Don’t Blame the Unions.

By dianeravitch
April 19, 2013 //
36

Earlier today, John Merrow posted a blog in which he asked, “Who Created Michelle Rhee?”

From the context, I assume he means who was responsible for making her the face of the corporate reform movement? Why was she praised by both Barack Obama and John McCain in their 2008 debate only a year after she started work as DC superintendent of schools? Why was she featured on the cover of Time and Newsweek? Why was she lionized in the national media?

All this, even though as Merrow now says, “I am also reporting that, after five years of Rhee/Henderson, the DC schools are worse off by almost every conceivable measure: graduation rates, truancy, enrollment, test scores, black-white gap and teacher and principal turnover.”

How did the national media miss these developments? Why did they turn Rhee into a superstar despite the lack of any accomplishments?

Merrow puts the blame on four suspects:

First, Rhee herself because she inflated her credentials (no Ne in the mainstream media noticed).

Second, he blames himself because he aired twelve (12!) different episodes on national gelb
Vision chronicling her progress in “reforming” the DC schools. Now, he acknowledges that there was no progress but he didn’t know it at the time.

Third, according to “conspiracy theorists,” THEY, the funders of the far-right created her, by pouring millions of dollars into her one-woman campaign to smash the unions, tenure, and pensions, while promoting charters and vouchers. On the list of THEY, he includes the Waltons, the Koch brothers, ALEC, Eli Broad, and Joel Klein.

Fourth, he blames the unions. If they had not been so intransigent, then there would have been no Michelle Rhee to battle them. This seems to be a stretch. Fred Klonsky takes issue with Merrow here.

Categories Rhee, Michelle, Unions

Merrow: Who Created Michelle Rhee?

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2013 //
103

John Merrow asks the question: How did this woman with little experience and meager accomplishment and a penchant for braggadocio become a major media figure?

She did, by burnishing her resume.

The media did, by basking in her harshness.

Merrow did, by broadcasting 12 segments on national TV about her.

And unions did, by their intransigence.

What do you think?

Categories Rhee, Michelle

Rhee Discounts Merrow’s “Smoking Memo”

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2013 //
51

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Michelle Rhee responded to questions about John Merrow’s “smoking memo,” the one that showed that she and other top officials were aware of allegations of widespread cheating but failed to investigate.

Howard Blume of the Times reports that Rhee met with the editorial board of the paper.

When Merrow had asked her about the memo, she said so many memos crossed her desk that she couldn’t remember this one. Now she says the memo was not important.

“In an interview with The Times editorial board, Rhee said that although she “didn’t see the memo” at the time, consultant Sandy Sanford “was just writing a memo based on something that we already broadly knew.””

So now she says she didn’t see the memo, and even if she had, it contained nothing new. Everyone already knew there was widespread cheating, so there was no reason to investigate.

Categories Los Angeles, Rhee, Michelle

Puzzle: Hall Faces Jail Time, Rhee Does Not

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2013 //
31

This article asks the obvious question:

Why does Atlanta’s disgraced superintendent Beverly Hall face serious jail time for the cheating that happened on her watch–which she ignored or encouraged by demanding higher test scores–while Michelle Rhee continues to fly from state to state, urging legislatures to follow the DC model?

The article says that Rhee emerged–so far–unscathed because she has friends in high places.

As for the DC model, let us not forget that John Merrow documented that the DC schools are in worse shape now than they were in 2007:

He wrote to the Education Writers Association, introducing his post about the leaked memo:

“I am also reporting that, after five years of Rhee/Henderson, the DC schools are worse off by almost every conceivable measure: graduation rates, truancy, enrollment, test scores, black-white gap and teacher and principal turnover.”

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, For-Profit, Georgia, Obama, Rhee, Michelle

Breaking News! California Democratic Party Blasts Corporate Education Reform: UPDATE

By dianeravitch
April 15, 2013 //
26

The California Democratic Party passed a resolution opposing corporate education reform.

It specifically criticized Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst and the Wall Street hedge fund managers’ group called “Democrats for Education Reform” as fronts for Republicans and corporate interests.

See the story in the Los Angeles Times here. The headline repeats the “reform” claim that they just want to “overhaul” schools, when the resolution below correctly describes their agenda.

The message is getting out. The public is beginning to understand the privatizers’ game of talking “reform” and “great teachers” while dismantling public education and the teaching profession.

This is great news!

Here is the resolution:

Supporting California’s Public Schools and Dispelling the Corporate “Reform” Agenda
Whereas, the reform initiatives of Students First, rely on destructive anti-educator policies that do nothing for students but blame educators and their unions for the ills of society, make testing the goal of education, shatter communities by closing their public schools, and see public schools as potential profit centers and children as measureable commodities; and

Whereas, the political action committee, entitled Democrats for Education Reform is funded by corporations, Republican operatives and wealthy individuals dedicated to privatization and anti-educator initiatives, and not grassroots democrats or classroom educators; and

Whereas, the billionaires funding Students First and Democrats for Education Reform are supporting candidates and local programs that would dismantle a free public education for every student in California and replace it with company run charter schools, non-credentialed teachers and unproven untested so-called “reforms”;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the California Democratic Party reaffirms its commitment to free accessible public schools for all which offer a fair, substantive opportunity to learn with educators who have the right to be represented by their union, bargain collectively and have a voice in the policies which affect their schools, classrooms and their students;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the California Democratic Party send this resolution to all elected Democratic leaders in California, publicize the corporate and Republican funding of these groups and work with the authors of this resolution to dispel the false reforms and support the real needs of the classroom: trained teachers, adequate funding, safe and clean facilities, diverse and stimulating curriculum and access to pre-school and higher education.

Categories California, Democrats, Democrats for Education Reform, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst
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