Are Missouri legislators recruiting lobbyists to sell education reform?
Michelle Rhee of StudentsFirst is coming to Missouri, as a lobbyist for education reform, and she is doing so at the request of the Missouri legislature. Rhee, a prominent proponent of charter schools, announced on the StudentsFirst website:
StudentsFirst members across the state and bipartisan leaders in the General Assembly have asked us to join their effort to enact essential education reforms in Missouri.
In a story published in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Scott Dieckhaus, a republican from Washington and House Chairman of the Elementary and Secondary Education Committee spoke to StudentsFirst leaders about coming to Missouri in the fall of 2012. Dieckhaus is quoted in the article:
"StudentsFirst has a very pragmatic and research-