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Friday, March 22, 2013

A challenge to Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee | SocialistWorker.org

A challenge to Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee | SocialistWorker.org:


A challenge to Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee

Jesse Hagopian, a teacher at Garfield High School, where teachers have refused to administer MAP standardized tests, responds to the criticisms of a school deformer.
Michelle RheeMichelle Rhee
MAYBE I shouldn't have stood up and said, "Welcome to Seattle," while wearing my Garfield High School hoodie when Michelle Rhee took the stage at a recent town hall event in Seattle.
Rhee--the prominent corporate education reform advocate, former Washington, D.C., Public Schools Chancellor, and CEO of the ironically named "Students First" organization--now has Seattle in her crosshairs. In her March 5 op-ed for the Seattle Times, Rhee berated teachers at Garfield and other Seattle schools for their boycott of the district-required MAP test.
She began her piece: "Seattle public-school students should pay attention. They're getting a front-row, real-world lesson in how the actions of adults can distract from what's best for students." But don't get your hopes up--this wasn't a long-overdue acknowledgment of the events surrounding the testing scandal when she was commanding the D.C. public schools.
With only a little investigation of the facts of the MAP test boycott, Rhee would have