Time for Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee to probe test tampering
Why do I still have hopes for Michelle Rhee, the leading symbol of education reform in America? It’s because of a call from her two years ago telling me she had said something stupid.
In March 2011, USA Today reported startling numbers of wrong-to-right erasures on the annual D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System tests in the three years Rhee served as D.C. schools chancellor. The evidence suggested educators had tampered with the answer sheets to inflate student proficiency rates, a crucial measure of school success
Former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee. (Gary Landsman)under Rhee.
Former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee. (Gary Landsman)under Rhee.
On the Tavis Smiley talk show that day, Rhee said the story meant “the enemies of school reform once again are trying to argue . . . there is no way test scores could have improved . . . unless someone cheated.” My cell phone rang at 7:30 a.m. two days later. “What I said was stupid,” Rhee
Revisiting Michelle Rhee
Michelle Rhee, right, handed a complicated legacy to successor Kaya Henderson. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
More than two years after Michelle Rhee left the helm of the D.C. Public Schools, D.C. just can’t stop talking about her. But then again, neither can the rest of the country. With a new memoir and a PBS documentary resparking the old debates, the Post’s Lyndsey Layton looks at how Rhee “transformed herself into an education celebrity, the likes of which the country hasn’t seen before” — using DCPS as a steppingstone to national prominence.
