Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee's report card doesn't add up
California gets an F for bucking corporate education reform
Related stories: Mayor Kevin Johnson and wife Michelle Rhee bring Students First education road show back to Sacramento The mayor asks, “Is education the civil-rights issue of our time?” SN&R, 02.02.12.  |
Like a lot of local folks, Bites tuned in to The Education of Michelle Rhee earlier this month, the Frontline documentary on Sacramento’s own self-styled education-reform badass, bride of the mayor, bee-murderer, etc.
The doc covered familiar ground, mostly Rhee’s tenure as der chancellor of D.C. schools. There’s footage of Rhee firing a school principal on camera and showing that if you scare just the bejesus out of educators, their test scores will go up, at least temporarily. Though they may cheat to do it. (Here is probably a good place for the usual disclosure that Bites is married to a public-school teacher and generally prefers not to see teachers terrorized.)
And the Frontline producers do leave their viewers with the impression that at least some administrators got away with some cheating during the dramatic (and short-lived) spike in test scores at some schools during Rhee’s tenure in D.C. And while chancellor Rhee presumably didn’t know about the cheating, Frontline suggests she sort of half-assed the investigation.
But the cheating scandal has already faded. Rhee’s StudentsFirst education organization, headquartered downtown on K Street, is still plugging away, trying to get state governments to
The doc covered familiar ground, mostly Rhee’s tenure as der chancellor of D.C. schools. There’s footage of Rhee firing a school principal on camera and showing that if you scare just the bejesus out of educators, their test scores will go up, at least temporarily. Though they may cheat to do it. (Here is probably a good place for the usual disclosure that Bites is married to a public-school teacher and generally prefers not to see teachers terrorized.)
And the Frontline producers do leave their viewers with the impression that at least some administrators got away with some cheating during the dramatic (and short-lived) spike in test scores at some schools during Rhee’s tenure in D.C. And while chancellor Rhee presumably didn’t know about the cheating, Frontline suggests she sort of half-assed the investigation.
But the cheating scandal has already faded. Rhee’s StudentsFirst education organization, headquartered downtown on K Street, is still plugging away, trying to get state governments to