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Friday, August 3, 2012

Campbell Brown and Michelle Rhee: Another Odd Couple « Diane Ravitch's blog

Campbell Brown and Michelle Rhee: Another Odd Couple « Diane Ravitch's blog:


Campbell Brown and Michelle Rhee: Another Odd Couple

Leonie Haimson is a leading parent activist in New York City and a co-founder of Parents Across America, which keeps tabs on the depredations of the corporate reformers.
Here is Leonie’s take on l’affaire Campbell Brown. One would think that Michelle Rhee and her organization StudentsFirst would be wary of getting too deep in the weeds with the issue of sexual misconduct. Yet they seem to want to exploit it to the full in a fact-free fashion.
The text of Leonie’s commentary follows, in full:
Campbell Brown was the first witness chosen to testify at the Cuomo Commission hearings last week,  all about 



What Happens Now in Detroit?

The Michigan Supreme Court decided that the petitions for a referendum on the emergency manager law are valid, and the referendum will happen in November.
In the meanwhile, the judges said, the EM’s powers are suspended.
Detroit has an emergency manager. What happens there, this teacher wonders:
(I’m a teacher in Michigan.)  It also leaves hanging what will happen to Detroit Public Schools, which are currently being run by an Emergency Financial Manager.  The EFM fired all teachers (requiring them to reapply for their jobs), imposed a 10% pay cut on all teachers, removed class size maximums from the contract (allowing up to 60 students per class at the secondary level), and more.  Since these measures were imposed under a law which has now been suspended and whose fate won’t be decided until well after the new school year