Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee Responds to Cheating Accusations, Takes on Teachers Unions
Long considered a failing institution, the D.C. public school system was overdue for a shake-up when newly elected Mayor Adrian Fenty took office in 2007. Enter Michelle Rhee, a education professional who sparked interest among mid-career professionals who sought opportunities as public school teachers through The New Teacher Project– a non-profit organization she founded in 1997.
Though she didn’t have experience running a school system, Fenty offered Rhee the job and gave her carte blanche to make whatever changes she felt were necessary. Through an aggressive series of controversial reforms, Rhee took on teachers unions, fired administrators and principals, and closed several underperforming and underused schools. Though she became a target of critics, Rhee asserted that many of her changes led to dramatic improvement in student achievement.
Now, Rhee is once again in the spotlight after a claim surfaced last week contending there was widespread cheating on standardized tests during the embattled administrator’s tenure. Rhee responded to earlier rumors on cheating at a Commonwealth Club appearance back in February.
She also argued that teachers unions do a great job in defending teaching jobs, but at the expense of helping students receive a good education.
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Michelle Rhee Cheating Scandal: Partially Her Fault?
- Robin Lane
- in
- Politics,
- Education
- 24 hours ago
Michelle Rhee Cheating Scandal Partially Her Fault
Michelle Rhee is as controversial as ever when it comes to education. Supporters insist she makes tough decisions for schools and puts “students first.” Detractors argue that her emphasis on accountability does much more harm than good. However, both sides can agree — Michelle Rhee is a self-proclaimed data-driven reformer.
Her constant insistence on measures like tying teacher pay to test results is perhaps only slightly less vehement than her belief that her policies are the silver bullet to bring equity to public schools. But in a recent leaked memo containing details about initial inquiries into accusations of a D.C. cheating scandal in 2008, concerns have risen that her demands for transparency and her “no excuses” mentality don’t go quite as far as she would like us to believe.
In the memo, consultant Fay Sanford details suspicions that student test scores in 2008 were elevated due to high numbers of wrong-to-right erasures (WTR). For example, in one fourth grade class, 97% of the erasures made were WTR. In another seventh grade class, the average number of WTR erasures sat at 12.7 per student, compared to the district-wide average — less than one per student. The memo implicates 191 teachers in 70 DC schools — and even suggests the erasures could have been ordered by administrators. Despite Sanford’s request for a broader investigation, Rhee did not dig any deeper — in fact, denied having seen the memo at all — even