Michelle Rhee, a private school parent?
The outspoken Michelle Rhee appears to be uncomfortable talking about where her children go to school in Nashville. Public or private? And why does it matter?
Her reluctance is detailed in this Los Angeles Times piece by Michael Mishak headlined, “Michelle Rhee, ‘a public school parent?’ ” Mishak reports that Erin Shaw, a spokesman for Rhee’s StudentsFirst anti-union organization, told the Times, “She is a public school parent.” Based on that, the paper reported in an earlier story that her daughters attend public school in Nashville, where their father, Kevin Huffman, works as state commissioner of education. Rhee’s husband is Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson.
But the American Federation of Teachers, one of the two biggest teachers unions in the country — both of which Rhee has made special targets of her education activism — challenged the public-school claim, Mishak writes, saying that one of Rhee’s daughters goes to a private school in Nashville. And education historian and activist Diane Ravitch wrote on her blog that a daughter of Rhee’s attends Harpeth Hall, an elite girls school for grades