St. Michelle's Tarnished Halo
Is here any reason to trust Michelle Rhee on anything anymore?
The following article by Professor Aaron Pallas explains how the DC state office of the superintendent posts the DC CAS “operational blueprints,” so teachers in the tested grades know in advance which standards will be tested and the number of questions on each of those tested standards. Thus, by process of elimination, they know which standards can be skipped. OSSE reportedly opposed this policy, but was pressured by DCPS officials to continue the policy. The 2010 blueprints were posted in January 2010, rather than at the
IN A nation as politically and ideologically riven as ours, it’s remarkable to see so broad an agreement on what ails public schools. It’s the teachers. Democrats from various wings of the party, virtually all Republicans, most think tanks that deal with education, progressive and conservative foundations, a proliferation of nonprofit advocacy organizations, right-wing anti-union groups, hedge fund managers, writers from right leftward, and editorialists in most mainstream media—all concur that teachers, protected by their unions, deserve primary blame for the failure of 15.6 million poor children to excel academically. They also bear much responsibility for the decline of K-12 education overall (about 85 percent of all children attend public schools), to the point that the United States is floundering in the global economy.
