Michelle Rhee: Why I'm Launching StudentsFirst.org

Newsweek:

After my boss, Washington, D.C., mayor Adrian Fenty, lost his primary in September, I was stunned. I had never imagined he wouldn't win the contest, given the progress that was visible throughout the city--the new recreation centers, the turnaround of once struggling neighborhoods, and, yes, the improvements in the schools. Three and a half years ago, when I first met with Fenty about becoming chancellor of the D.C. public-school system, I had warned him that he wouldn't want to hire me. If we did the job right for the city's children, I told him, it would upset the status quo--I was sure I would be a political problem. But Fenty was adamant. He said he would back me--and my changes--100 percent. He never wavered, and I convinced myself the public would see the progress and want it to continue. But now I have no doubt this cost him the election.

Read the whole story: Newsweek

Comments

[laborgrunt]

02:09 AM on 12/10/2010

Oh god, I wish this self serving narcissist would go away.

[27Reasons]

02:08 PM on 01/07/2011

Amen to that. She's a pretty girl, looking for the lime light at the expense of our nation's children. She's being celebrated by many who are either blind or clueless.

[plthomas]

10:29 AM on 12/09/2010

Rhee is self-serving, part of the new celebrity reformers who are misinformed and misleading: http://dailycensored.com/2010/12/02/the-education-celebrity-tour-legend-of-the-fall-pt-ii/

[Gregj]

07:06 PM on 12/08/2010

When I first heard of Michelle Rhee I was excited then I began to ask questions I can not get answered . What is her record with the most expensive children to educate something that those country with the best grads do not even attempt to educate ... the autistic handicapped,? (Read Below). . Why is she never asked about this suit ?

Lawyers for D.C. special-needs kids bringing city back to court
washington examiner
By: Bill Myers 08/11/09 11:00 PM Lawyers for thousands of special-needs children in the District of Columbia are taking the city back to court, alleging the Fenty administration is routinely violating their federal rights to a quality education.
Mayor Adrian Fenty has said publicly that he would risk "everything" to fix the city's $1 billion school system. He has laid his bet on schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and her pledge to bring accountability to the schools.
But Rhee's efforts have met spotty results. She y is on her third special ed director in two years, and her efforts to create a school for emotionally disturbed children called "a disaster"

The collapse of the special ed system has led to thousands of children being shipped to clinics and schools around the country, where some have been exposed to abuse or neglect.

[poeticjustice4all]

05:07 PM on 12/08/2010

Michelle Rhee wants to test everybody -- but is caught by surprise to find that she, herself received a failing grade.

Michelle is an extremely bright, competent and capable teacher -- yet she failed and was kicked out of the school.How did that happen? How does that feel? No student could ask for a more direct demonstration or prompt of what is to be learned -- but Michelle is still resisting. I don't think she gets it, even now.

Education is not a simple matter that can be manhandled through tests, tough talk and threats. Teaching and learning is tied to culture. Education is not an information management system. It is primarily a cultural process . . . and no community wants (or needs) to have their culture "fixed."

Michelle Rhee reluctantly offers that she could've "handled things differently" in DC, which tells me she has not honestly reflected on her bitter failure. I love Michelle and I totally support her Rhee-volution. However, based on what she has written here, she still has a great deal to learn.

[raechel]

01:22 AM on 12/10/2010

Interesting post. What do you think about Geoffrey Canada's frank mission to change culture in Harlem?

[teacher39years]

06:42 AM on 12/08/2010

A self-described Joan of Arc. I think that the Foundation shoud be called Rhee First.

[KaAp]

07:47 AM on 12/08/2010

Instead of a sword she can carry duck tape ... what a terrible disgusting horrible excuse for a human being she is ...

[raechel]

01:21 AM on 12/10/2010

Are there any teachers out there who can spell? It's 'should,' not 'shoud,' 39. And it's 'duct tape,' not 'duck tape.' Normally I don't split spelling hairs, but from teachers one would expect a little more ...

[martigras]

09:43 PM on 12/07/2010

When is the press going to wake up and really look into Rhee's bogus claims about what she did in the Washington DC school system? Look at her test results, folks. In many places, scores went down, not up. Rhee with her three years of teaching experience is no expert.
She demonizes teachers' unions as the enemy. It's all because the teachers are poor teachers.
Well, if you use that argument, hiring nothing but the best cops should end crime too. Teaching is a difficult job in the best of times. Most teachers are dedicated, hard working folks who are just trying to do the best they can with what they are given. Bad ones should be fired, tenure or not. If they are not, then its the lousy administrators people should be going after, not the teachers.

[pgutpgut]

02:09 PM on 12/08/2010

They are quite awake, thank you; and CHOOSE or are TOLD not to report what Rhee's legacy in DC really is (or for that matter just about anything else when it comes to public education). As Rich Gibson has often said, "The education agenda is a war agenda..."

[JDoorjam]

05:33 PM on 12/07/2010

These vitriolic comments would be hilarious if they weren't so disturbing. Everyone seems to have nasty things to say about Rhee (most of which seem to ignore her decades of experience in education), but no one can explain why we shouldn't be more diligent about guaranteeing excellence in the classroom, or why incompetent teachers should be protected by iron-clad tenure laws at the direct expense of children's educations.

[JerryJH]

06:33 PM on 12/07/2010

The "vitriol" is aimed at people who do not understand that "tenure" is what college professors get and "due process" is what K-12 teachers get. Teachers may be fired as long as administrators follow the same types of due process laws that protect all government employees from the abuses of politically motivated job-granting and/or retribution.

Rhee's three years of teaching hardly make her an educational expert. And, if you follow the excellent link posted by 'teacher39years' in which Rhee admits lacking classroom control, using tape to silence children, and taking kids out in her personal vehicle for after school treats without a second adult present or any knowledge of where the kids lived, you'd see see was unfit to be a teacher and is certainly unfit to judge them now.

[raechel]

08:59 PM on 12/07/2010

Theoretically an incompetent teacher can be fired. But in fact the process is so difficult and expensive that very few are ever removed. A larger percentage of doctors lose their licenses to practice medicine (after 10 grueling years of post-high-school education) than teachers are fired. A larger percentage of lawyers are disbarred, prevented from ever practicing law again.

If teachers want to be treated as professionals, then they need to behave like professionals. Admission to education degree programs needs to be more difficult. Educational requirements for teachers need to be increased (enough of this bottom of the class kids go into education stuff). And the principal should be able to remove any teacher he or she feels is not doing the job. That's life for most of us, and we learn to do our very best as a result.

[MardiGrasGirl]

10:14 PM on 12/07/2010

Great job explaining JerryJH. I knew there was a reason I fanned you a while ago. I guess I have no choice but to fav you now.

[EmmaNYC]

05:23 PM on 12/07/2010

So Michelle Rhee didn't think Fenty would lose. Poor thing was shocked. Wake up, Rhee, not only were you the cause of Fenty's downfall, but the main reason you are starting your own profit-making concern to steal education funds is because you are political poison with both parents and educators (and I mean real educators, not the Klein's and Black's currently playing school).

[Joseph Palermo]

04:56 PM on 12/07/2010

Liberals: don't fall for it!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/margaret-spellings-arne-d_b_637970.html

[jcgrim]

04:51 PM on 12/07/2010

Michelle, we know your reform agenda is a red herring, Admit it, you're starting your project to make money. You and Jeb Bush are cut from the same cloth- loot the public coffers for personal gain.

[ThinkTwiceWriteOnce]

04:43 PM on 12/07/2010

Not judging their policies, but both of them lacked the emotional intelligence to bring their stakeholders with them. Fear + loathing is a terrible formula for success.

[beachsandshuffle]

03:46 PM on 12/07/2010

What a ghastly attempt at journalism.

[InCircles]

02:11 PM on 12/07/2010

Am I missing something here? What in this post explains anything about her new website and why she's launching it? All I saw was a paragraph saying her boss lost the election because she thinks she did her job too well.

[teacher39years]

08:29 PM on 12/07/2010

Michee Rhee was also on Oprah yesterday. The Newsweek article , written by Michelle herself, portrays her as a modern day Joan of Arc, fighting for children despite all the incompetent people around her. This Media Blitz is to kick off a Foundation that she is starting, which will include lobbying for her methodologies.
She wants to raise a billion dollars and get a million signitures. It comes right out of Karl Rove's playbook-different faces, same game.

[raechel]

09:00 PM on 12/07/2010

It's not a website. It's a nonprofit whose purpose is to raise private money to effect education reform.

[traceydouglas]

09:56 PM on 12/09/2010

And how much will Rhee pay herself??????

[KaAp]

01:55 PM on 12/07/2010

Michelle Rhee is reprehensible: like the growing list of "foundational supermen," who know nothing about education, nothing about schools and seeks to demonize teachers, teachers unions etc etc etc while transforming a public trust into a privatized corporation to reap the rewards on the backs of our children.

[JDoorjam]

05:29 PM on 12/07/2010

.... what are you talking about? Rhee has been DIRECTLY involved in public-school educational ventures for decades.

Did you have something besides vitriol to share? Or is it just fact-free noise you've got for us?

[BonnieNesbitt]

02:58 PM on 12/08/2010

Decades? Where are your facts?

[timbeaux]

06:25 PM on 12/07/2010

This is unfortunately typical -- anything that threatens the educational status quo is demonized as the people who control public education turn out dumber and dumber kids and seem completely incapable of turning around a decades-long decline. But let anyone not in the club step up, and you get this defensive, hysterical chorus. Meanwhile today, AP reports that the US is no longer in the top echelon global educational achievement -- out of 34 countries in the study, American kids were 14th in reading, 17th in science, and an abysmal 25th in math.

By all means, don't bring in fresh blood Just pour more money into broken systems since these folks obviously know best.

[teacher39years]

10:55 AM on 12/07/2010

I wonder if Michelle Rhee, who is so concerned about children, would have fired herself during her three years of teaching.

http://www.examiner.com/ward-5-in-washington-dc/dcps-chancellor-michelle-rhee-talks-about-taping-students-mouths-video

[JerryJH]

06:38 PM on 12/07/2010

Thank you for the link. She is a classic administrator - couldn't handle her classes and moved "upward" where she could pontificate. I love how the worst administrators always brag about how horrible they were at classroom management. Based on her own statements, she should have been reprimanded, fired, or had charges filed against her.