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Monday, April 11, 2011

NYC Educator: "I’m going to fire somebody in a little while. Do you want to see that?"

NYC Educator: "I’m going to fire somebody in a little while. Do you want to see that?"

"I’m going to fire somebody in a little while. Do you want to see that?"

So speaks uber-"reformer" Michelle Rhee to a PBS camera crew. Apparently, this is something Rhee takes pride in. I guess I'm not made of whatever Rhee is. On the few occasions I've known people losing jobs, I found it deeply disturbing. For me, it really had nothing to do with whether or not the people deserved it--as a human being I can't help being upset by seeing others lose their livelihoods.

Rhee has no such reservations. That's a good thing, because under her tenure, almost half of the DC education staff either left or was fired. Diane Ravitch, in reviewing Richard Whitmire's The Bee Eater, points out that