Team Rhee's response to yesterday's charges that her claims of raising student test scores were grossly inflated wasn't particularly exonerating to me. The study doesn't focus on just Rhee's classroom, sure, but she and her teacher partner taught half the class. It's hard to imagine how her kids could score as high as was claimed and yet the cohort totals come out so relatively low. And no, there's no conspiracy against Rhee, just a lot of angry people. But after talking with her on the phone last night I realized that's not really the point.
We need new people and new ideas and new energy. Our current reform-driven regime isn't good enough, and the educator-dominated era that preceeded it wasn't good enough, either. Fiddling at the margins or going back to the good old days just isn't going to cut it.
And yet, puffed-up preliminary results and ridgid adherence to a starting idea have become some sort of entry requirement to get funding and attention. It's as if reformers feel they have to be heroic and perfect and -- at least
