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Monday, January 7, 2013

More bogosity from Michelle Rhee « LBO News from Doug Henwood

More bogosity from Michelle Rhee « LBO News from Doug Henwood:

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More bogosity from Michelle Rhee

StudentsFirst, the school “reform” outfit led by the notorious Michelle Rhee, is out with a state-by-state Report Card on the nation’s schools. Grades were awarded on the basis of states’ conformity to the standard reform agenda—ease of creating charter schools, ease of firing teachers, ease of hiring teachers who aren’t certified in the traditional fashion, and testing testing testing. In the past, there’s never been any evidence that this agenda actually improves educational outcomes—and this report is no exception. Despite Rhee’s love of testing, there’s no mention of how states that do well under her criteria do on standardized tests compared to those that score poorly. That’s no surprise, really, since states that get high grades from StudentsFirst do worse on tests than those that score poorly.
Rhee’s group gave letter grades to each state, along with a GPA that allowed them to be ranked from 1 to 51. (DC counts as a state here.) No state got a grade higher than a B-, and only two states made that grade. Eleven states got an F. Tough! But do 

ALEC INSPIRED 
Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee: 
If you can't buy it, Bad Mouth it!

Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee: If you can't buy it, Bad Mouth it!