The "what will she do next" guessing game came to an end this week when Florida's Republican Governor-elect Rick Scott named Michelle Rhee," the former chancellor of the District of Columbia school system, to an 18-member transition team on education.
Scott said the transition team would help him "find innovative ways to create a new education system for a new economy."
What Michelle brings to public education in Florida, according to Julie Young, President and Chief Executive Officer of Orlando-based Florida Virtual School (FLVS), "is a new perspective and drive for change."
"Michelle was controversial, but she has a clear passion for what is best for kids and making sure kids have the highest quality education and the highest quality teacher," said Young.
In Washington DC, Rhee fired 241 teachers, making them accountable for student performance and championed weakening the teachers union and closing low-performing schools. Some of Rhee's methods are being considered outside the District as the nation's education system undergoes change.
In October, she stepped down from her post as schools chancellor after Mayor Adrian Fenty failed to win the democratic primary for re-election.
Rhee gave no hint of her intentions to join Scott's transition team when she appeared Wednesday on Comedy Central's Colbert Report. Asked by Colbert, "What is next for you?" Rhee replied, "I'm trying to figure out what makes sense right now in terms of a next job."
So now we know. And we also know that Rhee's interest in public education transcends party politics. Having worked with a liberal democrat Mayor in Washington, DC, she's joining a republican and his Florida colleagues in the edTech space.
And Florida is positioning itself as a national leader as some of the state's education reforms are available outside the panhandle. Founded in 1997, Florida Virtual School was the country's first, statewide Internet-based public high school. Last month, an alliance between Florida Virtual School and Pearson Education Inc., an education, technology and distribution services company, announced a partnership. Pearson will offer more than 100 Florida Virtual School courses worldwide.
"Florida has had a very strong track record of education reforms over the last 15 years," said Michael Horn, executive director of Education of Innosight Institute, a Bay-area innovation and education think-tank and co-author of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns.
"In choosing her [Rhee], Scott's not letting that [education transformation] slide backwards," said Horn.
"You've got Michelle Rhee, Patricia Levesque, Executive Director, Foundation For Florida's Future and a Florida Virtual School World History Instructor [Mindy Lafevers-Hodge], "Wow! That's transformation in a bold way," he said.
Follow Susan Sawyers on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SuSaw
Craig Watkins: Why Low Performing Schools Need Digital Media
Sam Chaltain: Is Michelle Rhee Putting Students First?
Lawyers for D.C. special-ne eds kids bringing city back to court
washington examiner
By: Bill Myers 08/11/09 11:00 PM Lawyers for thousands of special-ne eds children in the District of Columbia are taking the city back to court, alleging the Fenty administra tion is routinely violating their federal rights to a quality education.
Mayor Adrian Fenty has said publicly that he would risk "everythin g" to fix the city's $1 billion school system. He has laid his bet on schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and her pledge to bring accountabi lity 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 emotionall y 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.
http://ourschoolsystemadhd.blogspot.com/2010/11/our-school-system-adhd.html
."here are the reforms and we just cannot afford to increase your pay this year ...maybe next time" ad infinitum....
It is all very sad......
http://www.examiner.com/ward-5-in-washington-dc/dcps-chancellor-michelle-rhee-talks-about-taping-students-mouths-video
“Education should be about the students. Their needs should come before the demands of special interests and big bureaucracies,” said Ms. Rhee in today's press release.
"Through the group, Ms. Rhee hopes to raise $1 billion to distribute to school districts nationwide to help boost student achievement. Ms. Rhee made her announcement on the Oprah Winfrey show and launched a new website, [http://www.studentsfirst.org/pages/our-mission] StudentsFirst.org," wrote Stephanie Banchero in the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire blog.
http://www.examiner.com/ward-5-in-washington-dc/dcps-chancellor-michelle-rhee-talks-about-taping-students-mouths-video
I am shocked that so many people find these methods of education 'reform' to be positive. Standardized testing is comparable to judging the success of a soup kitchen by how many bread rolls they distribute - ignoring the 98% of other measure-ables.
Isn't there something he can do to prevent this woman from promoting more educational malpractice there?
I seriously would physically block (by closing the door) this woman from coming into my classroom. She'd certainly have to pass a test of educational philosophy before I'd let her anywhere near my students. And I doubt she could.
http://www.examiner.com/ward-5-in-washington-dc/dcps-chancellor-michelle-rhee-talks-about-taping-students-mouths-video
Scott said the transition team would help him "find innovative ways to create a new education system for a new economy."
Scott admitted to 14 counts of Medicare fraud and paid the federal government more than $600 million dollars in fines for his fraudulent billing practices.
dont believe it teachers. she understands little about the systemic variables, systemic and special causes of variation as they apply to teacher performance and will implement merit pay which is another name for pay for performance. pay for performance is one of the biggest cons taught at our universities.
merit pay will create a whole host of long term problems but early on will look impressive ( ie test grades fudged) then when the problems arise she will move on like she did in wash dc.
read everything you can on deming's teachings and his understanding of sytems, analysis of processes and pay for performance. teachers you are going to be held responsible for systemic failures. welcome to the club organizations all across america have been doing this for decades and look at the results. third world coming to america yet we persist with this ignorance.
pay for performance is the cry on wall street and banks and look how that panned out. this lady is unaware that she knows not. teachers learn to teach to the tests and know how to deal with a person that understands little about the horrible side effects of pay for performance.
she will play right into the hands of those that want to privatize education like they have prisons and our medical insurance.
Jay Matthews? What is their problem? Basic, element understandings about the research on merit pay elude them. Yet, they work for national media companies.
"If merit pay feels manipulative and patronizing, that's probably because it is. Moreover, the fact that these programs usually operate at the level of school personnel means, as Maurice Holt has pointed out, that the whole enterprise "conveniently moves accountability away from politicians and administrators, who invent and control the system, to those who actually do the work."
post office you are next.
the capitalists are on the move like I knew they would be.
the one per centers are smiling all the way to their banks that cannot fail.
third world america is coming soon to your home town.
what it is already there. darn and we thought communism was the only failed economic ideology.
wait a minute we borrow hundreds of billions from the communists.
americans dont give up that love affair with capitalism while it takes all but the top five per cent to third world status.
michael moore they did not get it but then it appears you did not get it either with your new have a dinner with you for mega bucks. wake up michael people are hurting and you come up with that one. ie out of touch like wash.