Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee on Erasergate: No Biggie
LL didn't have room in his column this week for some highlights of former Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee's new memoir. One particularly interesting passage is Rhee's take on USA Today's investigation that found an almost impossibly large number of erasure marks on standardized tests.
Rhee acknowledges that her initial response to the story—attacking it as "insulting" to teachers after refusing to comment to the paper's reporters—was "misguided."
"Journalists will scrutinize school systems. It's their role. But our reactions shouldn't be to push back at every doubter or negative article. We have to welcome scrutiny," Rhee writes.
She goes on to say that the USA Today's story was much ado about nothing, noting that the District's Office of Inspector General conducted a "seventeen-month examination of testing procedures and results. It found problems in only one school. The report concluded there was 'insufficient evidence on which to conclude that there was widespread cheating.'" She also notes that there