Erasing the Rhee Miracle and Why the Venom -Gary Imhoff

UPDATED CONSTANTLY: Like every 10 minutes as more info on RheeGate comes in.
I just received Gary's follow-up to the Erasing the Rhee Miracle piece and posted it underneath - so even if you read this piece go on down and continue. And make sure to enjoy Failing Schools blog Dr. Seuss version of EraserGate.

• 
  GFBrandenburg's Blog

  DC Officials Once Again Covering Up the DCPS Cheating Scandal?
• 
  
  The Answer Sheet

  ‘Rhee the Reformer: A Cautionary Tale’
  
  Diane Ravitch: Shame on Michelle Rhee 

Erasing the Rhee Miracle

Dear Erasers:

Was the Rhee miracle — the rapid rise in standardized test scores in at least some DC public schools — in fact a miracle? Or was it a scam? Was it systematic cheating? Was there a scheme to erase incorrect answers on multiple choice questions and replace them with the correct answers? A well researched and well documented article by Jack Gillum and Marisol Bello in USA Today on Monday leads to the inescapable conclusion that DCPS, or at least several people who held power in positions within DCPS, told students and parents about improvements that students didn’t really make, told the people of this city about achievements that DCPS didn’t really make, and got paid bonuses from the DC and federal governments and private foundations on the basis of test scores that didn’t really improve.

Or at least that conclusion is nearly inescapable. DCPS is disputing it. Current Chancellor Kaya Henderson and past Chancellor Michelle Rhee are disputing it (though Henderson has now agreed to refer the matter to the Inspector General). They say that their internal investigation and the investigation by their paid consultant, Caveon, didn’t support the charges. So only the thing that supports the charges is the facts.

Mayor Vince Gray hasn’t taken a stand on this scandal yet, but he should soon. This isn’t his scandal. It happened under Mayor Adrian Fenty, Rhee, and Rhee’s deputy Henderson. Gray doesn’t need to claim it as his own and accept responsibility for it, though by hiring Henderson Gray has already associated himself closely with Rhee’s claims for the effectiveness of her so-called “reform” of DCPS.

It’s not the initial scandal that causes the most damage to a government or a politician; it’s the attempt to cover up the scandal. Gray can choose to defend Fenty’s and Rhee’s administration of DCPS over the past four years or to put some distance between them and him. He would be smart not to try to pass the investigation on to others, but instead to demand that his Deputy Mayor for Education and the State Board of Education conduct thorough independent investigations. (The city council and the State Board of Education have committed to hold hearings, but single hearings by either body will not be sufficient.) Besides, it’s the Deputy Mayor for Education who has the power and authority to supervise the Chancellor. Then the mayor needs to fire anyone in the DCPS hierarchy who is proven to have altered test scores, countenanced altering test scores, or known of the alterations and not reported them. Rhee fired teachers while making false, unsubstantiated accusations against them; the Gray administration should not duplicate that cruel carelessness. But the Gray administration should also not allow this scandal to be diminished or whitewashed. Let the die-hard Fenty and Rhee supporters try to excuse and explain away this scandal; it’s theirs.

USA Today article: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-03-28-1Aschooltesting28_CV_N.htm?csp=hf
USA Today follow-up article: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-03-29-dcschools29_ST_N.htm
DCPS response: http://www.dcpswatch.com/dcps/110328.htm
Caveon Test Security’s response: http://www.dcpswatch.com/dcps/110328b.htm
Rhee response: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/73991-day-three-documents#document/p76/a13060
Politico article, Ben Smith, “Rhee, DC Defend Test Investigation,” http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0311/Rhee_DC_defends_test_investigation.html?showall
New York Magazine profile of Rhee, March 20 issue, http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/michelle-rhee-2011-3/
Salon article, “Paranoid Michelle Rhee Blames Her ‘Enemies’ for Cheating Report,” http://www.salon.com/life/education/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/03/29/rhee_cheating
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

April 3, 2011

Why the Venom

Dear Erasers:
Last Wednesday, the Washington Post’s editorial board downplayed the extent of the DCPS scandal about cheating on standardized tests that was uncovered by USA Today by implying the problem was limited to one school: “The report centered on Crosby S. Noyes Education Center in Northeast Washington, credited with dramatic boosts in student achievement. There were extraordinarily high numbers of erasures for three years at the school. One Noyes classroom averaged 12.7 wrong-to-right erasures per student on a 2009 reading test when the average for seventh-graders in all DC schools on that test was less than one.” Then it went on to list all the possible innocent reasons for such a high rate of erasures at Noyes that were speculated on by DCPS’s investigator, Caveon. But in the same day’s Metro section, reporter Bill Turque had given a more accurate assessment of the scandal: “The issue emerged Monday when USA Today reported unusually high rates of erasures on answer sheets in more than 100 DC public schools from 2008 to 2010. At some schools, wrong answers were replaced by correct ones at rates too high to be random, according to statisticians consulted by the paper,” and also on that day Jay Mathews’s blog said one of the most convincing things about the scandal was that it was widespread through more than a hundred schools. Of course, it may be too much to expect the Post’s editorial board to read the whole long report and its supporting documents in a competing newspaper, but they should have been able to describe the extent of the cheating scandal accurately just by checking with a reporter and a columnist in their own paper.

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Mathews and Turque, however, were caught in the middle of Michelle Rhee’s contortions after USA Today’s investigation was published. Rhee’s original reaction was to blast the USA Today reporters as enemies of education reform. She then spoke with Mathews and told him her initial comments were stupid and that cheating may have occurred. And then she spoke with Ben Stein at Politico and claimed that Mathews misquoted her — so that both Mathew’s article and Turque’s, which was based on her interview with Mathews, were wrong.

#####
But the question is not how many reporters and columnists Rhee will run over on her way to spinning the story. Rhee is gone from the DC schools now. The issue is whether this will be a new day in DCPS. Kaya Henderson’s reaction to the scandals, in her E-mail to DCPS principals and administrators last Friday (which was reprinted in full by Turque on Saturday), was “The one frustration I feel as a result of the recent allegations is that it has sullied the reputation of our hard working teachers and principals.” Henderson has telegraphed the message that teachers and principals will be the targets and the victims of any investigation that she or her allies run. If DCPS controls the investigation of the cheating, no investigator will be allowed to look into any potential involvement of DCPS administrators or central office. Under Rhee and Fenty, the first priority of DCPS was to construct and protect a false narrative of educational wonders in order to build administrators’ careers and reputations, while ruining the careers and reputations of hundreds of teachers. Below, Richard Rothblum asks me why I feel venomous toward Rhee, when she “tried to shake the system out of the doldrums.” That’s why.

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Post’s editorial downplaying the cheating scandal, “Cheating Allegations Can’t Mask Real Gains in D.C.’s Schools,”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/cheating-allegations-cant-mask-real-gains-in-dcs-schools/2011/03/30/AFeh8Q5B_story.html
Rhee’s original response to USA Today article: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/73991-day-three-documents#document/p76/a13060
Jay Matthews column quoting Rhee as backtracking on test cheating issue:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/rhee-calls-her-remarks-on-test-erasures-stupid/2011/03/30/AFgUfe7B_print.html
Bill Turque’s article, “Rhee Now Concedes Students’ Test Answers May Have Been Erased,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/rhee-acknowledges-possible-cheating-on-school-tests/2011/03/30/AFBKaI5B_story.html
Jay Mathews’ blog item, “School List Reveals Size of DC Test Answer Erasure Issue,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/class-struggle/post/school-list-reveals-size-of-dc-test-answer-erasure-issue/2011/03/29/AF5j7xrB_blog.html
Politico article in which Rhee says Jay Matthews misquoted her:
Ben Smith, “Rhee, DC Defend Test Investigation,” http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0311/Rhee_DC_defends_test_investigation.html?showall
Bill Turque, “Henderson: Press Trying ‘To Knock Us Off Our Game,’”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-schools-insider/post/henderson-press-trying-to-knock-us-off-our-game/2011/04/02/AFZSr5OC_blog.html
New York Magazine (correction, in the last issue of themail, attributed to The New Yorker) profile of Rhee, March 20 issue, http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/michelle-rhee-2011-3/ Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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MUST READ AT NORMS NOTES. GEM'S JULIE CAVANAGH AND SAM COLEMAN WERE PART OF THE NYC DELEGATION

At Ford Foundation, a harsh critique of urban school closures

Rhee the Reformer: A Cautionary Tale

A brilliant piece of work from Sabrina at Failing Schools as Dr. Seuss does in Michelle Rhee.

by Sabrina

A ton of smart people have already written a lot of smart critiques of “Erase to the Top”– otherwise known as the unfolding story about testing “irregularities” in the DC Public Schools under then-chancellor Michelle Rhee. (RheeFirst has a collection of all the coverage here.) So I won’t do a whole big prose-y deal today– it’s been done. However, as far as I can tell, I am the first to tell this story in the style of Dr. Seuss. Enjoy

Direct you tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAc6bcMetDM&feature=player_embedded




See:
Erasuregate at Rhee First

Perdido Street School

Calling On The FBI To Investigate The DC Testing Scandal

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Live By The Sword, Die By The Sword Redux

A USA Today investigation calls into question "dramatic" improvements in student test scores in select District of Columbia schools due to an "abnormal pattern" of erasures. This occurred during Michelle Rhee's tenure as DC schools chancellor.

Among the 96 DC schools that were flagged for wrong-to-right erasures by the city's testing contractor in 2008 "were eight of the 10 campuses where Rhee handed out so-called TEAM awards 'to recognize, reward and retain high-performing educators and support staff'.... Rhee bestowed more than $1.5 million in bonuses on principals, teachers and support staff on the basis of big jumps in 2007 and 2008 test scores.

In 2008, to her credit, then-DC state superintendent (now Rhode Island education commissioner) Deborah Gist recommended that large test score gains in certain schools be investigated, but as USA Today reported, "top D.C. public school officials balked and the recommendation was dropped."

Such allegations and instances of cheating are not unique to Washington DC of course. In 2010, a New York Times article chronicled erasures in Houston and noted investigations in Georgia (including a criminal probe in Atlanta), Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, and Virginia.

This latest development, however, adds a new wrinkle to my 2009 post, "Live By The Sword, Die By The Sword."

Michelle Rhee and other education reform advocates have publicly argued that student performance as measured by test scores is basically the be all and end all....

Student learning, school leadership and teaching cannot be measured and judged good or bad based on a single set of test scores. Test scores must be part of the consideration -- and supporting systems such as accountability, compensation and evaluation must be informed by such data -- but they should not single-handedly define success or failure.

When such huge stakes are placed on a single metric, it raises the likelihood of monkey business. Although it is highly likely this is what occurred in DC, a former employee of DC Public Schools (who tweets as @EduEscritora) makes several smart observations on her blog:

[T]he fact that the number of flagged schools decreased so precipitously from 2008 to 2009 is encouraging, even if we don’t know why that happened.

The decreasing number of schools also doesn’t support the claim that the pay-for-performance system now in place under IMPACT has resulted in cheating; 2010 was the first year that IMPACT existed, and that had the fewest number of flagged schools out of the three years in the study and the fewest number of schools with over 50% of the classrooms flagged – only two!

The problem for an advocate like Michelle Rhee is that she has chosen to largely define success based on a single metric: the test score. If many of these DC test-score gains turn out to be illusory and succumb to what some are calling the "Erase To The Top" scandal, it may spell further trouble for Rhee as a spokesperson for the school reform movement. (Rhee has claimed the largest NAEP score gains in the nation under her leadership, although other analyses have shown that increases began and were larger under Rhee's predecessors.) Her credibility already has been questioned by some as a result of alleged embellishments on her resume about her own teaching record. Without credibility, it is impossible to sell one's wares to anyone but true believers.

From a PR standpoint, this erasure story would seem to call for a measured response that carefully chronicles whatever steps, if any, were taken by DCPS at the time to address the unusual frequency of erasures. Instead, through a spokesperson, Michelle Rhee chose to 'shoot the messenger,' bombastically placing USA Today among the "enemies of school reform." [UPDATE: From the Washington Post's Jay Mathews: "Rhee calls her remarks on test erasures 'stupid'"]

Given Rhee's rhetoric, her policies in DC, and her current focus as head of StudentsFirst (which increasingly appears to be working solely with Republican governors and legislators at the state level), Michelle Rhee has largely pinned her credibility to the test score. If she had chosen to sit on a stool with more than a single leg, she might be sitting more comfortably right now and might not be engaged in a such a precarious and delicate balancing act. No doubt by taking on teacher tenure, she would have made enemies no matter what else she said or did. However, if she touted a more nuanced view of school improvement and student success and didn't poo-poo collaboration, she might not face a growing anti-Rhee cottage industry and her new organization might have had a chance to be a true non-partisan force in education reform.

Live Blogging from Teach for America 20th Anniversary Summit, Part 1

A GEM TFA alum is in the house.

NOTE: Some people have been confused thinking I wrote this - note I'm a bit old to be a TFA alum.


Diary of the Summit by Summit blogger

On Saturday, Feb. 12, a Real Reformer member of the Grassroots Education Movement went down to DC for the TFA 20th Anniversary Summit. The blogs came through all day with extensive coverage from the perspective of someone who is not a true believer. Let me say that Summit Blogger is still teaching a self-contained elementary school class years after most TFA's have gone on to other things. Here are links to each segment.

Part 1: Live Blogging from Teach for America 20th Anniversary Summit
Part 2: Live Blogging from Teach for America 20th Anniversary Summit - Randi Weingarten

Part 3: Live Blogging from Teach for America 20th Anniversary Summit, - Afternoon Session

Part 4: Live Blogging from Teach for America 20th Anniversary Summit, With Closing Plenary

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Teach for America 20^th Anniversary Alumni Summit

8:00 AM

Arrived at the convention center to register. This is a seriously huge event—11,000 alumni (and some current corps members). At check-in we received a bunch of literature along with our name badges and tote bags—drink tickets for the evening reception (!), a Village Academies water bottle and brochure, as well as two flyers about LEE (an organization that claims to foster public sector leadership for TFA alumni.)  Village Academies is a charter school operator with two schools open in Harlem. Interesting (but not surprising) that TFA is promoting this school—they donated serious cash to TFA for this event (as is stated in the program brochure). I recently looked up Harlem Village Academies on the DOE website and found some interesting information about their enrollment. Their schools enroll students in grades 5 to 10 but not in equal numbers. As their students get older, the enrollment numbers drop drastically. What accounts for this attrition? Are they counseling out their students? Or are they simply leaving of their own volition? Either way, its clear they are not keeping their students.  Their brochure conveniently doesn’t mention any of this, and talks only about how great it is to work at their schools.

Village Academies, as well as many other charter school operators have booths set up here. Perhaps later, I’ll have to go and ask them myself. There are over 100 organizations tabling here at the summit, including: PAVE Academy, KIPP, Achievement First, Noble Network Charter Schools (whose teachers are all here in full uniform—their t-shirts are emblazoned with “BE NOBLE”), Success Charter Network, and the list goes on.  There are a few public school districts (D.C., L.A., Boston) here with tables too, but not nearly as many as are here to promote charters.

9:15 AM

The Summit has opened with a rousing performance by a high school marching band. Got to get the troops inspired and energized.

Opening remarks by Kaya Henderson, interim DC Chancellor and’92 TFA corps member. She’s well-received and calls DC the “hottest city for education reform.” Then she goes on to explain how DC’s education department is filled with TFA alumni, and that DC’s highest performing charters are run by TFA alumni. She claims that soon the person in the White House will be a TFA alum.

“DC’s school are tearing it up. We went through a bloody battle to get here.” Is she referring to Michelle Rhee’s tenure and inappropriate firing of teachers? I wasn’t aware that DC schools were now suddenly so successful? Did I miss something? I think the bloody battle is still going on and it sounds like she is planning to continue it. But the only people being hurt are those she is claiming to help.

She’s really going for it here. She closes with a “Let’s do this” mantra, followed immediately by the marching band again.

9:35 AM

Wendy Kopp takes the stage to a standing ovation, minus myself and my two friends.  51 people are here from the very first corps of TFA, 1,000 from the 2008 corps. And 3,000 from the current corps. 1500 of the alumni here are teachers. ONLY 1500?! That doesn’t include the 3,000 current members, but that is still 1500 out of 8000. 18%? Is that really success? Our education system needs people who stay and work in the classrooms.  

Her comments are quite generic. Sounds pretty much like what I heard here say when I was a corps member in training. She’s talking about how people “used” to think that ones socio-economic background determined ones possible educational outcomes. She is now telling a story about a Bronx teacher who got her 117 9^th graders to pass the Biology Regents test.  She then explains how there are not that many teachers like this one. “We can foster the impact of successful teachers by creating transformational schools.” She calls out three charter school leaders as playing a crucial role in education in our country. She is now talking about North Star Academy Charter School in Newark. Is this what the whole weekend is going to be like?! I expected some charter plugging, but this seems like a charter school summit completely.

“North Star’s leader has embraced a different mandate….she is working to put students on a different socio-economic path. She obsesses over hiring great teachers…and does whatever it takes to meet the end goal.”

Does that include firing teachers and/or students? What does it mean to do “whatever it takes”?

“We can provide children facing poverty with an education that is transformational….We don’t need to wait to eliminate poverty. We can provide them with a way out…”

She then claims that DC and New Orleans are home to the fastest improving school systems. Wow! I guess creating a two-tier educational system is what TFA is all about? There is such great inequity in education in these two cities. But almost everyone here is just nodding along with Kopp. I heard from another alum that last night at the New Orleans regional reception, people were talking about how TFA had single handedly helped the New Orleans schools recover after Hurricane Katrina.

She claims to know what we need to fix education in this country. She is talking about “transformational leadership” as the key in schools and school systems. What does transformational leadership mean? Is it such a vague statement, but it sounds powerful, so everyone is clapping.  

“Incremental change is not enough, we need transformational change.” She is now explaining how she wants to expand the program, but mentions only pushing people into leadership roles. No mention of the role of the classroom teacher.

10:00 AM

FROM TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE TO RADICAL CHANGE!

Next up, Walter Issacson, CEO of the Aspen Institute, a leadership/social entrepreneurship organization. He is up here to welcome the panelists to the stage. Rock music welcomes them:

1. Jon Schnur, Chairman of the Board, New Leaders for New Schools (moderator)

2. Michelle Rhee, former DC Chancellor

3. Joel Klein, former NYC Chancellor

4. Geoffery Canada, Harlem Children’s Zone

5. John Deasey, superintendent, LA Unified School District

6. Dave Levin, KIPP co-founder and superintendent of NY KIPP

*Klein is speaking now. “Is this our Egypt moment? Will we seize the moment? We will talk to each other and go home. I challenge this group to seize the moment. We no longer believe that poverty is permanent…Education…this is America’s issue. What will change it? Each one of you must insist that each school out there is one that you would send your kids too.” He takes it to a new level. He says “transformational change” isn’t enough—we need “radical change.” More empty statements from the former chancellor.

*Dave Levin is now speaking, with a KIPP shirt on (many KIPP teachers here are in full uniform as well). At KIPP, he claims to have quadrupled the graduation rate of kids from high poverty neighborhoods. But, just like Harlem Village Academies, KIPP has a history of high attrition. If you achieve 100% graduation but your class is only 30 kids when it should have been 100, are you really doing the true work of educating our children?!  I think not.

Michelle Rhee is up, and she seemed to have forgotten her masking tape. She is giving a speech pretty much on par with her usual--We need to be aggressive, some people might not like us, controversy will arise, opposition will arise, but we have to push past it. Meaning, we must squash it and cover it with masking tape.

Canada’s turn. He talks about this “revolution” and claims, “We can really win!” Everyone cheers. “As a nation we have become soft in terms of fighting for what we believe in.” He forgot to mention how our educational leaders, especially those in NYC, are working so hard to silence the voices of public school parents, teachers and students. He closes with “we need to ratchet it up.” So many vague statements from all of those on stage.

John Deasey. “This is an issue around courage. We have the skill. How courageous are we going to be? What if 11,000 people descended on LA to demand change.” Hmmm, didn’t LA teachers recently take to the streets to demand what they wanted? Maybe their message isn’t what he wants to hear.

He is now talking about how he needs people to come to LA and work?

Klein is speaking again. He is so well received by this audience. Every time he speaks the crowd responds. Where am I?!

Moderator: “How important is it to drive success in this country, to change parents, educators conception of this fact?” His questions are just plain confusing.

Canada: He is talking about how some people in our country simply accept that some children don’t learn because of poverty. He says he rejects this notion. All from a man who kicked out an entire class of students! The pure arrogance on the stage is hard to stomach. My palms are sweating. How do we counter this? “When any kid comes to me they are going to get an education.” I refer back to my previous statement—his schools also have serious issues with attrition. But this crowd doesn’t see it. How do we bridge these gaps?!

And why don’t his schools fill the empty seats in their schools?

Rhee: “The only issue isn’t parents lack of involvement.”

Moderator: “We see reasons for hope…Joel, what is is going to take to go from the KIPP schools and district school successes to system wide success?”

Klein: “It’s is going to take teachers who understand it isn’t just about good teaching. We cannot have the unions be the monopoly for teachers voice… Teachers need to have their own voice. “ Is he serious? Teachers need to use their voice? Clearly, he means if their voice is the same as his. We in NYC know how little he cared about teacher voice. How many PEP meetings did he preside over where he blatantly ignored the voices of teachers? He silences people who do not agree with him. He does thank the teachers from his new teacher group for speaking up. People are clapping for him again.

I think I have an ulcer.

Deasey: “I am tired of going to schools and hearing people say this is what I need and I am not being heard.” Wow, in just 10 minutes he has completely contradicted himself. He previously said he wanted teachers to have a voice.

Rhee: “ I have not demonized the teachers union. I have been trying to show people that the teachers unions are doing exactly what they are supposed to do.” What planet does she live on? Maybe it’s not really her? Nope, it is. We’ve just moved into the part of the session in which all the speakers are going to contradict themselves

She is plugging Students First, her new organization now, as the solution to the teachers union.

Candada: “ The union’s job is to stop innovation….”

Klein is offering his solutions. Here is what he says:

“First, We have to professionalize teaching and make it respected. We treat teachers like widgets and that isn’t going to work. Last in, first out is a huge problem. Excellence in teaching is the hallmark not senority in education…Second, we must stop monopoly providers. We must insist on choice…Third, we need innovation.”

Respect teachers? When has Klein ever done that? Widgets? He wants teachers and students to be cogs in a machine.

Moderator:  “KIPP schools don’t have the constraints of public schools. How scalable is your approach?”

Dave Levin” “This is the hardest work on the planet…the unit of change for an individual kids life…starts and ends with school…we need as many committed teachers and school leaders as we can get…”

He didn’t answer the question. Perhaps because even he knows that his isn’t a sustainable approach to education.

Moderator: He is closing with a “Ra! Ra! Let’s praise the people on stage. Join their schools and organizations.” These people are creating more educational INEQUITY in the name of equity. I need to redeem my drink tickets stat. 

NEXT SESSION: Randi Weingarten - my ulcer is pulsing in anticipation

rheeForm

Proposed education reforms that do not imagine that current and beginning teachers can become more effective while on the job should be considered null and void. This postulation, if accepted, would direct Michelle Rhee's new StudentsFirst agenda to the nearest paper shredder.

To be blunt, it is just plain naive and short-sighted to think that we can maximize teacher effectiveness purely by firing more teachers and marginally changing the cadre of incoming teacher candidates. Is supporting and strengthening the teaching practice of our veteran educators not worthy of our focus and investment?

StudentsFirst's "Elevate Teaching" policy objectives are limited to evaluating teachers and principals, reforming teacher certification laws, reforming teacher compensation, "exiting" teachers, and eliminating teacher tenure. Specifically, the objectives are:

• State law must require evaluation that is based substantially on student achievement. Evaluation tools should measure at least half of a teacher's performance based on student achievement, using a value-added growth model. The other aspects of a teacher's evaluations should derive from measures that align with student results, including high-quality observations and student evaluations of teacher practice.
• To avoid all teachers being ranked as effective without meaningful assessment, evaluations must anchor effectiveness around a year's worth of growth.
• State law must require principal evaluation that is based on student achievement and effective management of teachers. Districts should evaluate at least half of a school administrator's performance based on student achievement, and the remaining portion should mostly relate to their ability to attract, retain, manage, and develop excellent teachers.
• State law should give districts the autonomy to develop teacher evaluation systems apart from the collective bargaining process. Evaluations should be a matter of district policy.
• States must reduce legal barriers to entry in the teaching profession, including complicated credentialing or certification schemes that rely upon factors that do not clearly correlate with teacher effectiveness.
• State law should not be structured to penalize districts financially for recruiting teachers from alternate certification programs.
• States should adopt a clear process by which alternative certification programs are authorized, continually evaluated, and decommissioned if not producing high-quality educators.
• State law must facilitate digital learning by allowing certification for online instruction and modifying or eliminating mandatory "seat time" laws.
• State law must require pay structures based primarily on effectiveness. Teacher contracts must allow for individual performance-based pay.
• State law and district policy should not mandate higher salaries for master's degrees or additional education credits.
• State law should require staffing decisions (transfers, reductions, placements) be based on teacher effectiveness.
• State laws must prohibit forced placements and allow district control in staffing. Districts should ensure that teacher contracts require mutual consent placements. Districts should have the flexibility to offer defined grace periods, severance, or other options for teachers who have effective ratings, but do not find a mutually agreeable placement. Teachers rated ineffective should be exited from the system.
• State law should not grant, implicitly or directly, tenure or permanent contracts for PK–12 education professionals.

There is evidence (from sources such as IES and AIR) that shows that high-quality approaches to new teacher induction and professional development pay dividends in terms of student outcomes. Why would a "student first" agenda utterly ignore initiatives that work in favor of some that have a paltry or non-existent research base?

To keep it brief, please read some of my most relevant past posts arguing why a focus on teacher support and development makes sense and why it should be at the centerpiece of every education reform agenda.

• Teacher Quality: What You Need To Know
• Adding Value To The Value-Added Debate
• Positive Effects Of Comprehensive Teacher Induction
• State Teacher Policies Suck!
• Race To The Top: Under The Hood
• Research: Attracting New Teachers To Urban Schools
• Thoughts On Equitable Teacher Distribution
• Measurement Is Not Destiny
• Does Mentoring Improve New Teachers?
  

With regard to the StudentsFirst plan, to use a Twitter construct, #edreformfail.

Michelle Rhee Forms Student First Organization

Ding dong the wicked witch ain't dead

Why Michelle Rhee Isn't Done With School Reform - Newsweek

Click for Background article on ed notes:


Two things appall me about Rhee's speech. One - that she admits to putting masking tape on the kids' mouths to prevent them from speaking. Teachers are being brought up on charges these days when they do that.- Under Assault

Sexy time?

Amazing how sexy the education privateers find each other. In the NY Times , a few weeks ago, Joe Williams of the charter lobby group Democrats for Education Reform said that Joel Klein had made education "sexy" again.

In today’s Times, Joe compares Rhee to a “rock star” and Joel Klein says that “education has become sexy in America, partly because of Michelle.”

What a ménage a trois! ....next thing you know, they’ll be claiming Bill Gates is sexy too.

Funny, I don’t find them sexy at all, though I can see Michelle Rhee as an effective dominatrix.

I guess it takes all kinds….

Role Rheeversal

Last Update: Oct. 14, 11pm

I haven't seen Waiting for Superman yet because I don't want to give them my 9 bucks (senior citizen, ya know).

If you read my post yesterday (O Canada, So Inglorious and Untrue), it seems the movie is not doing as well as expected. I expect Broad/Gates/Murdoch to buy air time on every TV station in the world to show the movie in an endless loop for weeks at a time. Or have 10 billion dvds made and give them away in cereal boxes. Or have one mailed to every person in the world - and even to some of those new planets they are discovering. You wouldn't want any sign of life to miss the message that tenure has to end for anyone to learn anything in school.

If you find grammar or speling mistakes, that must be my problem - I was taught by tenured teachers.

When I get to see WfS for free, Michelle Rhee going down in flames will make the movie so delicious. As will the NY Times piece yesterday on Geoffrey Canada.

Inundated with Rhee speculation all over the place, we decided to do a small compilation from scattered sources.

Rethinking Schools

The Proving Grounds: School “Rheeform” in Washington, D.C.

Fall 2010
By Leigh Dingerson
Washington, D.C., is leading the transformation of urban public education across the country—at least according to Time magazine, which featured D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee on its cover, wearing black and holding a broom. Or perhaps you read it in Newsweek or heard it from Oprah, who named Rhee to her “power list” of “remarkable visionaries.”


GFBrandenburg's Blog

Rhee’s presence was extremely divisive here in DC, largely along class and racial lines. Many wealthy whites thought she was wonderful, because they thought she was ‘reforming’ a corrupt, incompetent, black-run and black-staffed school system, and because they saw her replacing black veteran teachers, staff members, and administrators with brand-new, young white and Asian replacements. (I am not exaggerating.)

 More at Rhee’s Legacy and the Future of Education in DCPS

Leonie Haimson on Rhee's performance compared to predecessors:

Pre-Rhee and Post-Rhee

For those of you who believe that Michelle Rhee’s resignation today will hurt the achievement gains experienced by the DC school system; take a look at these charts with DC NAEP scores from 2003-2009.

Read Leonie's entire post at:

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2010/10/pre-rhee-and-post-rhee.html

Candi is aways Dandy when it comes to Rhee

Breaking News!

Featuring Candi Peterson, blogger in residence and candidate for WTU General Vice President

The Washington Post reports that Chancellor Michelle Rhee will announce on Wednesday that she is resigning at the end of October. Deputy Chancellor Kaya Henderson will serve as the interim Chancellor. What do you think led to Rhee's abrupt resignation?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/12/AR2010101205658.html

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee to announce resignation Wednesday

Valerie Strauss (MUST READ EVERY DAY) at The Answer Sheet

Rhee’s big legacy: Being a whirlwind

She came in like a whirlwind, kicking up dust wherever she went, and now, Michelle Rhee, all-powerful chancellor of D.C. public schools, is leaving after three years, securing her place in the history of D.C. public education as, well, mostly a whirlwind.

Larry Cuban, the Stanford University educator and former superintendent, had it right when he predicted on this blog last month that Rhee would wind up being no more than a footnote in a doctoral dissertation, just like Hugh Scott, the first African American superintendent in Washington D.C., who served in the early 1970s.
Why?
Continue reading this post »

Posted at 1:41 PM ET, 10/14/2010

Michelle Rhee's greatest hits

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee gave us many reasons to remember her when she is gone.
There's the schools she closed. The teachers she fired. The contract she signed with the Washington Teachers Union. Her frequent use of the word “crap.”
Here’s some quintessential statements that Rhee made as chancellor. Thanks for many of these to my colleague, Bill Turque, who often stood alone in his strong coverage of Rhee’s tenure.
I think my favorite is the one about taping students' mouths shut.
Let me know what I’ve missed.
Continue reading this post »

Gary Imhoff in themail:

October 13, 2010

Severance Pay

Dear Payers:

Michelle Rhee resigned today. See her resignation letter at http://www.dcpswatch.com/dcps/101013.htm. This, of course, leaves us with the top question on our minds: how much are the taxpayers on the hook for; how much do we have to pay her to go away? Bill Turque, the Post education reporter, says he’s trying to find out. Is there anything we can learn from her contract, http://www.dcpswatch.com/dcps/070703.htm? Not much.

Rhee was hired on July 3, 2007, at an annual salary of $275,000 a year. She was guaranteed an annual cost-of-living raise, so her salary is now considerably higher than that. Paragraph 6 of her contract says that, “should you choose to terminate your appointment for a good cause, you shall receive a severance payment of up to 12 weeks of your base salary, plus any accrued leave, as well as an additional 12 weeks of administrative pay.” That’s about a half-year’s salary, give or take. So has she terminated her appointment “for a good cause”? Does her not wanting to work with Gray count as a good cause? If Peter Nickles really wanted to protect the taxpayers from being fleeced — which is the excuse he uses for fighting so hard to deny equitable settlements to DC citizens who have been mistreated by the city — he would argue that her contract doesn’t call for her to be paid any severance allowance, and he would fight hard against paying her an extra dime. But Rhee is part of the Fenty team; Fenty will determine what she gets paid in severance; and Nickles will rubber-stamp whatever Fenty wants, even above the contractual ceiling.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com


More from Gary, though I don't necessarily agree about Baltimore since Alonso is from the Kloth of Klein -and Randi is working with him - which we know means teachers will get screwed - and I'm betting kids will too. But on the other hand, Baltimore doesn't have mayoral control - yet.

NEW FEATURE- I'm inserting a jump break for the first time to cut down on the length of this post - so click to read on.

October 10, 2010

Cooperation and Collaboration

Dear Collaborators:
Why are you reading stuff on the Internet when it’s coming on to the third day of a three-day holiday weekend, and the weather has been beautiful? So I’ll keep it short.

You’ve read the poorly written and content-free argument published in today’s Washington Post as “How to Fix Our Schools: A Manifesto by Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, and other Education Leaders,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/07/AR2010100705078.html. Usually foolish education fads are abandoned only after they have miseducated one or two generations of schoolchildren; remember the “New Math”? But the manifesto raises my hopes that this fad may have already peaked and be on the way out. If the empty rhetoric that this manifesto represent is all that this round of “education reform” has to offer, it won’t be around much longer.

The sixteen “education leaders” who signed the manifesto write as though wanting to have good teachers in schools is a new, innovative, approach to education that they have invented, and that others oppose them because they are want to hire good teachers. Actually, all that is new in this movement is the belief that building good schools doesn’t come about through cooperation and collaboration with a dedicated teaching force but through confrontation, contention, and conflict with teachers. Valerie Strauss has already published a fuller takedown of “The Bankrupt ‘School Reform Manifesto’ of Rhee, Klein, Etc.,” http://tinyurl.com/3y4nwyh, and it’s well worth your time even on a holiday weekend.
Robert McCartney’s column on Thursday, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/06/AR2010100607123.html, compared Rhee’s reign as chancellor in Washington with Andres Alonso’s time as the chief executive of Baltimore’s school system. McCartney is no critic of Rhee’s, and in this column he sympathetically treats the argument for her methods. But he’s not blind to the stronger argument for Alonso’s cooperative style: “However, Baltimore’s experience demonstrates that Rhee’s tactics aren’t the only ones that yield results. Some experts say a more collaborative, low-profile strategy is more successful in the long run because it preserves trust and confidence with teachers and the community. ‘What Baltimore shows is that you can bring real change to urban schools without a lot of acrimony,’ said Jack Jennings, president of the independent Center on Education Policy. ‘The national foundations and some reform groups have made [Rhee] into a poster girl because they just want change, and she’s a highly vocal advocate for change. But others have brought about just as much change as she has, and I would guess that their reforms would last longer.’”

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

September 26, 2010

Waiting for a Superhuman Facade

Dear Waiters:
There will be a lot more discussion this week about today’s Meet the Press, which had a segment featuring Chancellor Michelle Rhee; Robert Bobb, DC’s City Administrator under Mayor Williams; US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan; and American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/#39368957). Courtland Milloy was quick to write a column about it, “Rhee Needs to Take a Look in the Mirror,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/26/AR2010092602992.html, which has a smart take: “She readily accepts credit for success while always attributing failure to the shortcomings of others. . . . DC residents who pushed back were just uncomfortable with change and would rather have ineffective teachers in the classroom. Such distortion is nothing new for Rhee. In fact, lots of young, hard-charging reformers in all fields find it easier to blame their clients rather than take responsibility for failures. The stakeholders really didn't want to change, they claim. The problem with owning up to a mistake is that it might cause the reformer's superhuman facade to crumble, revealing some emotionally vulnerable, in-over-their-head inner child.”

Rhee has nothing to complain about. She specialized in firing teachers on grounds that were arbitrary and capricious, and proceeded to fire and move teachers because they weren’t on the Rhee team, because they questioned her questionable educational theories and methods. Rhee’s one completely true rule is that teachers should be held accountable for their work; she ruined even that by pretending that she was the only person who ever felt that way. All employees are held accountable for their work. Teachers should hold students accountable, principals should hold teachers accountable, superintendents should hold principals accountable, and boards of education should hold superintendents and chancellors responsible. If there is no Board of Education that can hold a chancellor accountable, if the chancellor is accountable only to a mayor who indulges her and does not hold her responsible for her work, then both the chancellor and the mayor need to be held responsible by the electorate. If Rhee feels that the electorate’s evaluation of her and her job performance was arbitrary, capricious, and ill-informed, then perhaps she can finally sympathize with the teachers of DC Public Schools, and appreciate how they have felt for the past few years.


 Failing Schools Blog

Michelle Rhee’s newly created twitter account

October 13, 2010

by markfriedman1

While researching Michelle Rhee’s departure as DC School Chancellor today, I found something that was in one way expected and in another way weird. Immediately after announcing her resignation today, Michelle Rhee also announced that she had created a twitter account and a blog. While I’m confident someone with some social media experience is doing this actual work and not really Rhee, she undoubtedly is in the equation and effort to do some PR work there.


John Merrow - who gets funding from Ed Deformers - has focused on Rhee over the last few years. What will he do for content now? He may be right about altering the debate about how teachers are paid in the future. But the answer to his question "What will take its place?" is NOTHING THAT WILL WORK! But have fun boys ruining the next gen of education with schemes and gimmicks.  Go ahead! Take away tenure - return to the 19th century teacher scandals that brought tenure into existence – threaten teachers with firing over test results and see where you are.

Michelle Rhee Resigns: What’s in store for DC schools now?

by John Merrow on 13. Oct, 2010 in Michelle Rhee, media

The sudden resignation of Michelle Rhee actually makes perfect sense. It was inevitable, so why wait around? It’s easy to imagine Ms. Rhee coming to that conclusion once she recognized that she and the next Mayor, Vincent Gray, would not be able to work together the way she did with the current Mayor, Adrian Fenty.
What happens next in Washington is the big story, although most of the attention will be on Ms. Rhee. She’s a national figure, subject of much speculation. Will she go to California if Meg Whitman wins the gubernatorial race? What about New Jersey? Iowa? Funny how the Republicans love her to death now, even though she was chosen by an ardent Democrat and has been praised to the skies by President Obama.
We’ve followed Ms. Rhee closely during the three plus years she’s been in Washington, airing a total of 12 segments about the changes she’s made there. Scores and enrollment are up locally, but, make no mistake about it, she has altered the national conversation about how teachers are paid and evaluated. No one can defend the current system, which bases everything on years in the classroom and number of graduate credits, as appropriate or rational. That’s history, even though it may take years for it to be removed for good.
What is going to replace the old way is now the question. 

[READ THE FULL ENTRY]

More Rhee - NY Times, Oct. 14

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/education/index.html

Washington Chancellor’s Departure Isn’t Expected to Slow Public School Change

Pre-Rhee and Post-Rhee

For those of you who believe that Michelle Rhee’s resignation today will hurt the achievement gains experienced by the DC school system; take a look at these charts (click to enlarge), with DC NAEP scores from 2003-2009.

It appears that DC schools were improving in terms of test scores at about the same rate pre-Rhee (before 2007) than after she got there, in every subject except 8th grade reading, where the improvement was greater before. (The source for these charts is the Rutgers report released today on mayoral control ).

Of course how much of this is due to her or her predecessors' educational reforms and how much to other factors (eg gentrification) is hard to discern. And many of Rhee's policies, such as IMPACT, the new teacher evaluation system, really won’t have show an effect until the next few years, if they are ever fully implemented.

A chat with the oligarchy of corporate education reform

Check out this from "Aunty Broad", one of our friends in Seattle: the education oligarchy (Rhee, Broad, Bloomberg, KIPP and Kopp) "should be cloned because they are so smart." More brilliant exposes from Aunty Broad are here.

The Manifesto, Income Inequality & Credibility

On Friday, I wrote a blog item ('Misleading Manifesto') chiding a group of urban superintendents for misstating educational research in a 'manifesto' published in Sunday's Washington Post. Teacher quality *is* important -- but it does not matter MORE THAN family income and concentrated poverty.

I am convinced that too many educational reformers are happy to 'spin' the truth for rhetorical purposes. I think this is exactly what we saw in this manifesto. While this may help to simplify messaging, target solutions at a more narrowly construed problem, and focus in on what education leaders have direct control over, it carries an inherent policy danger along with it. That danger is two-fold: (1) teacher policy reforms may be set up for failure by overstating their potential impact; and (2) more comprehensive strategies desperately needed to combat rising income inequality and growing poverty in our nation may be discounted and ignored.

For me, this isn't an issue of setting low expectations for children from poverty. We must train and support our teachers to have high expectations and develop the potential in all children. But, from a policy perspective, which is the world in which I work, to not even discuss poverty and inequality -- even though the research evidence points to its preeminence -- is akin to taking it off the table as a policy priority.

Nor it is a lack of belief in the ameliorative benefits that sensible teacher reforms can have on student outcomes by expanding the recruitment pool of teacher candidates, improving initial training and on-going support of classroom teachers, improving teaching and learning conditions within schools, providing differential compensation to teachers for leadership roles, difficult assignments, shortage fields, and demonstrated effectiveness, and more....

For teacher quality specifically, as I argued in my previous post, playing fast and loose with the facts isn't necessary. There is a powerful argument to be made based on the fact that teachers are the most important school-based influence on student learning. That's exactly what my colleagues at the New Teacher Center have done. We've made careful and honest declarations about teacher quality being the most critical within-school variable, but haven't framed the issue in a way that would make us education-industry Pinocchios.

And this leads us directly to the question of credibility. While I am personally inclined to support elements of what the superintendents' manifesto calls for -- and inclined to support elements of broader education and teacher reform agendas -- I am disinclined to associate myself with a clarion call that is dishonest on its face and misserves the national need for a critical conversation and accompanying set of public policies to address issues of economic inequality. That need extends well beyond the education system and requires responses much broader than merely strengthening the teaching profession and overhauling human capital systems.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich recently has been banging the drums challenging policymakers -- and Democrats, in particular -- to address our nation's historic levels of income inequality and rising levels of poverty. As reported by the Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein, since 1976 "virtually all of the benefits of economic growth have gone to households that, in today's terms, earn more than $110,000 a year." Further, UNICEF reports that the United States has the highest rate of childhood poverty among 24 OECD nations -- over 20% -- and the second-worst rate (barely ahead of bottom-dwelling Great Britain) of childhood well-being in the industralized world. Further, as Walt Gardner recently noted, a September 2010 U.S. Census Bureau report showed that the percentage of Americans below the poverty line in 2009 was the highest in 15 years. And the rise was steepest for children, with one in five affected. Think this has any bearing on U.S. students' relatively poor performance on international student assessments? Uh-huh.

So, let's talk about how to strengthen teaching and its central importance to student outcomes. But let's not fence ourselves in with self-serving rhetoric. Let's be honest in our communications and expansive in our thinking about policies needed to improve the lives of American children.

It's about education -- and a whole lot more.