Is Michelle Rhee Good for Students?
By M. Catharine Evans and Ann KaneRecently appearing with Bill Gates on the Oprah show, Michelle Rhee, former DC Public Schools Chancellor, has been traveling the PR circuit to promote her new program StudentsFirst.org. She has waged war against status quo public education and teachers' unions, and declares public education in this country has been "a bureaucracy about adults. We absolutely must look at education through a new prism. We must put students first."
Her words sound good, but after looking into her three year teaching stint as a Teach for America recruit at Harlem Park Elementary in Baltimore, her claim that "students performing far below grade level quickly achieve at the highest levels -- if they're exposed to a quality programs," left us wondering how well she did there. One chronicler of Rhee's term as a "miracle worker" in Baltimore