The false promise of 'education reform'
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Since her time as District of Columbia schools chancellor, Michelle Rhee has been the face of "education reform." Regimenting testing for D.C. kids, she fired 241 teachers in one day alone in 2010 for low test scores. She fired a principal on camera. In turn, D.C. voters fired her mayoral patron in 2010 and she resigned. She now travels the country denouncing teachers, visiting our state in February, and selling books.
As some would have our state rush headlong into embracing Rhee's agenda, the cheating scandal during her tenure is worth noting. A high-stakes testing reign of terror incentivized educators to erase wrong answers and substitute right ones in search of bonuses -- primarily funded by the Wal-Mart Walton family -- and simple job security. This "erase-to-the-top" begs questions about whether test scores really rose during Rhee's tenure; tellingly, Rhee didn't act on the evidence and cheaters were not fired.
Here, cheerleaders for "reform" ignore what's already in place, and unfunded, in our state. In 2009, a substantial reform passed with promised full-funding by 2018. In its McCleary decision, the Washington Supreme Court wrote approvingly of the 2009 reform -- finding, for example, it created one of the "best data systems in the country for studying the relationship between
As some would have our state rush headlong into embracing Rhee's agenda, the cheating scandal during her tenure is worth noting. A high-stakes testing reign of terror incentivized educators to erase wrong answers and substitute right ones in search of bonuses -- primarily funded by the Wal-Mart Walton family -- and simple job security. This "erase-to-the-top" begs questions about whether test scores really rose during Rhee's tenure; tellingly, Rhee didn't act on the evidence and cheaters were not fired.
Here, cheerleaders for "reform" ignore what's already in place, and unfunded, in our state. In 2009, a substantial reform passed with promised full-funding by 2018. In its McCleary decision, the Washington Supreme Court wrote approvingly of the 2009 reform -- finding, for example, it created one of the "best data systems in the country for studying the relationship between
