Salon.com > Michelle Rhee

Michelle Rhee’s group stands by anti-gay honoree

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 20:59:00 +0000

In response to a recent report that Michelle Rhee's controversial nonprofit StudentsFirst named anti-gay Tennessee state Rep. John Ragan "reformer of the year," the group is standing by him -- responding with dubious claims about his record and scrubbing its website of a blog post hailing him for always voting "to do right by kids when it comes to education.”

Salon wrote on Monday that, per a report by Scott Wooledge at Daily Kos, despite receiving the award from StudentsFirst, Ragan has a notorious (and searchable) track record of legislation that specifically targets queer students for harassment by teachers, school counselors and their peers. He was the co-sponsor of the notorious "Don't Say Gay" bill, a measure that would have banned teachers from discussing sexuality that is not “related to natural human reproduction” in the classroom -- and would have forced educators and school therapists to “out” students they suspected of being gay to parents or guardians.

StudentsFirst dubs “Don’t Say Gay” bill sponsor “reformer of the year”

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 21:19:00 +0000

Michelle Rhee's controversial education reform nonprofit StudentsFirst recently selected a virulently anti-gay lawmaker as the organization's "reformer of the year."

StudentsFirst's honoree, Tennessee state Rep. John Ragan, is the co-sponsor of the state's shameful (and, thankfully, failed) "Don't Say Gay" legislation, a measure that would have banned teachers from discussing sexuality that is not "related to natural human reproduction" in the classroom. The bill was a barely-concealed attempt to prevent teachers from talking about the existence of gays and lesbians with their students, and would have enshrined anti-gay discrimination in Tennessee law and educational policy. Additional language in Ragan's measure would have compelled educators and school therapists to "out" students they suspected of being gay to parents or guardians.

Michelle Rhee: Wrong again

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:45:00 +0000

Most who are reading these words will probably agree that our country is facing a democracy crisis, thanks, in part, to the dominance of money in our political process. Many who read these words will also probably insist that our country is facing an education crisis (though many try to deny the actual cause of that crisis).

Getting past the denial stage and acknowledging both of these problems is certainly a step toward one day fixing them. However, there's another more subtle and self-reinforcing form of denial that makes getting to those solutions more difficult. That denial -- or perhaps cognitive dissonance -- evinces itself in an American psyche that tends to perceive the democracy and education emergencies as separate and distinct.

Michelle Rhee to actually be held accountable by press for once

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 21:51:00 +0000

Michelle Rhee is the subject of tonight's "Frontline" on PBS. Considering that Rhee, the former head of Washington, D.C.'s schools, is one of the most deified figures in contemporary American politics, you'd be forgiven for predicting another gauzy follow-up to "Waiting for Superman," the pro-"education reform" propaganda picture that made Rhee a national figure. But this interview with the episode's lead reporter, John Merrow (via Dana Goldstein), suggests a much more critical take than Rhee is used to. Because unlike so many other outlets, "Frontline" is going to report on all the cheating.

Michelle Rhee’s right turn

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Nov. 6 was a good day for Michelle Rhee. The former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor, through her organization StudentsFirst, poured money into state-level campaigns nationwide, winning 86 of 105 races and flipping a net 33 seats to advocates of so-called school reform, a movement that advocates expanding privately run public charter schools, weakening teachers' unions, increasing the weight of high-stakes standardized tests and, in some cases, using taxpayer dollars to fund private tuition through vouchers as the keys to improving public education.

Rhee makes a point of applauding “leaders in both parties and across the ideological spectrum” because her own political success -- and the success of school reform -- depends upon the bipartisan reputation she has fashioned. But 90 of the 105 candidates backed by StudentsFirst were Republicans, including Tea Party enthusiasts and staunch abortion opponents. And Rhee's above-the-fray bona fides have come under heavy fire as progressives and teachers unions increasingly cast the school reform movement, which has become virtually synonymous with Rhee's name, as politically conservative and corporate-funded.

Cheating runs rampant

Fri, 25 May 2012 16:26:00 +0000

On Thursday, Mitt Romney made a visit to a West Philadelphia charter school to tout his education platform, which, as it happens, looks pretty similar to President Obama's: more privately managed schools and a reliance on high-stakes standardized tests to evaluate teachers.

But on the 10-year anniversary of No Child Left Behind, the school-reform movement that both candidates have embraced is in crisis. Rampant and widespread cheating on high-stakes standardized tests has been uncovered in districts nationwide. The first big scandal erupted in Atlanta, where teachers and administrators are suspected of erasing wrong answers and filling in correct ones, or simply giving students the right answers, at nearly half of city schools. In Philadelphia, one in five district schools is now under investigation, including 11 of the city's top-tier Vanguard Schools. Cheating or score inflation is suspected in cities including Houston, New York, Detroit and Washington, D.C.

How did cheating become normal in America’s schools?

Reform beyond Michelle Rhee

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 22:26:00 +0000

Earlier today, Gene Lyons discussed several of the problems with the education reform movement and came to a familiar conclusion: that education reformers like former Washington schools chancellor Michelle Rhee are ruining the public school system in the United States. He uses the current teacher assessment system in Tennessee, where districts are assessing kindgergarten through 3rd-grade teachers based on a 5th-grade teacher’s student test scores, as evidence that the reform agenda has gone horribly awry.

No doubt the situation Lyons refers to in Tennessee is evidence of a botched reform strategy. Yet in other areas of the country, some education reformers are working to improve school districts in ways that are both effective and increasingly popular with unions and the public. Quietly, and with little national attention thus far, recently appointed Washington, D.C., public schools chancellor Kaya Henderson is attempting to do just that: set a standard for a more nuanced, second-generation brand of education reform.