Ego, money and false promises: Michelle Rhee’s big secret and the collapse of education “reform”
There's big money in education "reform," and now it's flowing to tech companies that want to disrupt public schools
When Michelle Rhee left the center stage of the movement known as “education reform,” inquiring minds wanted to know why.
Was it because “she didn’t play well in the sandbox.” Was it to solidify her and her husband’s image as “the next Bill and Hillary Clinton?”
But here’s one theory that no one seemed to consider: It was a good business decision.
Regardless of how you feel about Michelle Rhee, you have to admit she has been an adroit business person – tapping into a growing market demand, using a clever publicity campaign to reach celebrity recognition, outmaneuver her competitors (such as teachers unions), and amassing significant amounts of capital to roll out a formidable new “product,” her organization StudentsFirst.
So it’s not beyond reasonable to wonder if Rhee got out of the business of “education reform” while the gettin’ was good and left StudentsFirst at a time when it has likely peaked in influence and may even be in decline.
If that’s indeed the case, is Rhee’s exit the first sign of a larger exodus from the reform movement soon to follow? Is the whole enterprise known as education reform starting to go south? And if so, where is all the big money behind it going to go to next?
Becoming the Bickersons
Perhaps Rhee realized, just in time, the reform venture was turning into a money pit, as forces and personalities dragged the effort down with inefficiency, contention and lack of productivity.
Take what’s going on in the saga of lawsuits against teacher labor contracts.
In their eagerness to lower the professional status of teachers and dilute their job protections, lead plaintiffs in two New York City lawsuits against teachers’ job protections are now squabbling with each other.
As Chalkbeat New York reported, a judge recently consolidated the two lawsuits into one, but the plaintiff in the first suit, Mona Davids, “made it clear that she wasn’t interested in forging a unified effort” with the person leading the second, Campbell Brown.
Brown, a “news-anchor-turned-activist” with a history of attacking teachers unions and challenging the due process teachers get when their employment is threatened, leads the group Partnership for Educational Justice. Her group contends, according to a report inThe Wall Street Journal, students suffer from laws “making it too expensive, time-consuming and burdensome to fire bad teachers.”
As Salon reported recently, Brown’s ventures are closely tied to TNTP, the group formerly known as The New Teacher Project. TNTP is another organization founded by Rhee that is strongly associated with attacks on teachers’ unions and job protections.
Brown may play well with Rhee and her colleagues, but the harmony appears not to extend to just any old “reformer.”
As the independent blog site Eclectablog recently explained, Brown appears to have forced out the attorneys representing the Davids lawsuit, so she can remain the figurehead. In an interview with the blogger, Davids, and her associate in the lawsuit Sam Pirozzolo, accuse Brown of acting “like a playground bully.” Davids and Pirozzolo contend Brown threatened “everyone who supported them to isolate them and leave them without resources so that she and her group could take over their suit once it was consolidated with hers.”
When asked why Brown would do this, Davids and Pirozzolo stated, “She wants to be the next Michelle Rhee … This is all about her.”
Brown’s antics have also been noticed by Gloria Romero – another mover and shaker in the education reform movement, credited with creating what have become known asEgo, money and false promises: Michelle Rhee’s big secret and the collapse of education “reform” - Salon.com: