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Saturday, February 12, 2011

Not everyone's sold on Michelle Rhee, Gov. Scott's education adviser - St. Petersburg Times

Not everyone's sold on Michelle Rhee, Gov. Scott's education adviser - St. Petersburg Times

Not everyone's sold on Michelle Rhee, Gov. Scott's education adviser

Florida's lawmakers were starstruck.

Before them stood Michelle Rhee, the former Washington D.C. public schools chancellor recently featured on Oprah, on a Newsweek cover and in the documentary film Waiting for Superman.

"I am here today to ask you to keep being a leader," Rhee said, urging members of two education committees to tackle one the few reforms that Florida has yet to achieve: a streamlined way to get "ineffective" teachers out of the classroom. "There is so much more to do."

Senate Pre-K-12 committee chairman Steve Wise called her a movie star and even Sen. Eleanor Sobel, a more skeptical Broward Democrat, gave a nod to Rhee for "bringing new energy to the education debate."