You may think that it’s tough being a liberal Democratic party activist and blogger in Orange County, what with having to put up with our electeds doing the likes of THIS and THIS and THIS. And then we have to defend a President who does THIS and THIS. But I always remind myself that it could be much worse. I could be a liberal Democratic party activist and blogger in Sacramento County, where the local big city Democratic Mayor, Kevin Johnson, is married to this woman:
Welcome to class, new students. Now take out your sharpened pencils and stab yourselves in the eyes.
That is “education reformer” Michelle Rhee, motive force behind the movie Waiting for Superman, prophet of standardized testing, and bane of public education wherever she might find it. She was, rather inexplicably, put in charge of Washington D.C.’s schools at one point, and cracked the whip (and narrowed the curriculum) to drive up test scores — which did happen. (Later, this was found to have involved some cheating by school employees, but is that her fault? Just because one lets employees know that their very jobs will depend on how well they get students to jump through certain standard hoops shouldn’t mean that one would have any reason to believe that, out of desperation, they might cheat a little to get them through those hoops, right? No one could have foreseen that!)
Anyhoo, Rhee left DC and is back in Sacramento, where she is sitting on large piles of cash that she is doling out to get like-minded “education reformers” — whom I’ve heard called “Rhee-publicans” — in power. (One notorious ally of her is the nominal Democrat Gloria Romero, author of what even-handed California Politics blogger Scott Lay of aroundthecapital.com described as winning the 2012 award for “Editorial Negligence of the Year“. It was published in — naturally (as well as unnaturally) — the Orange County Register. Read Lay’s re-editing of her editorial here; it’s incredibly funny — and even funnier that it’s still sitting there, uncorrected, on the Register’s site in its original form. Lay’s comment from Nov. 12, 2012 is still on that site too:
I’ve always liked Gloria, but this is factually wrong and the Register should not have published it. In fact, there are over 3 million votes to be counted, meaning total turnout will be greater than 13.3 million. That’s 74% turnout, which is about average for presidential general elections:
2008: 79.4% of registered / 59.2% of eligible.
2004: 76.0% / 57.0%.
2000: 70.9% / 51.9%.
1996: 65.5% / 52.6%.
1992: 75.3% / 54.5%.
1988: 72.8% / 53.5%.
1984: 74.9% / 59.1%.
1980: 77.2% / 57.05%.
Ah, good times, good times — made all that much better by twisting the knife again here.
(It suddenly occurs to me, by the way, that some people may think that I’m being unfair in using a cropped photo of Rhee that perhaps looks a mite unflattering. I respect that concern. The original photo comes from a fawning story about Rhee in her (and no less importantly her husband’s) hometown paper, the Sacramento Bee, which as might be expected gives them both good coverage — including flattering photos. So, just to be fair, the original uncropped photo is below.
There. That’s much better, isn’t it?)
Here’s how skewed the coverage is about Rhee and her political efforts: a couple of days ago a “Capitol Alert” blared forth in the Sacramento Bee entitled “Mixed bag for Michelle Rhee in Tuesday’s school board races.” The story explains:
Michelle Rhee‘s biggest foray yet into local politics in California yielded mixed results yesterday as voters in West Sacramento rejected the school board candidate backed by her education advocacy group while voters in Los Angeles handed a victory to one of the three candidates StudentsFirst supported.
Rhee, the former chancellor of Washington, D.C., schools who is married to Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, created StudentsFirst to counter the power of teachers unions in state and local politics.
… [In addition to a loss in West Sacramento,] StudentsFirst also supported three candidates for the Los Angeles Unified school board: Mónica García, Kate Anderson and Antonio Sanchez. García won the race for District 2, Anderson lost the race for District 4 and Sanchez is headed to a May 21 run-off against Monica Ratliff for District 6.
(In addition, two Rhee-publicans Charlene Tabet and David Dobson are on Burbank’s April 9 runoff ballot.)
Wow — sorta scary, huh? Well, look closer. A commenter named Allan Brauer helpfully points out:
Hmm. One-for-four is a “mixed bag”? You fail to note that the one Rhee-backed winner is an incumbent, and the one in a run-off came in second. Looks more like a rout to me.
Any time someone shows up in politics with a gigantic pile of money to toss around for a cause, it is important to note. But lots of people are apparently scared to death of what Rhee’s group — which is mostly interested in promoting “selective” charter schools that can save money by eliminating teachers’ unions — can do to a local race. They should take that seriously, but it’s important to note that Rhee’s track record in this past election is about as dismal as her views on education policy itself. She may think that her political organization can lift candidates up like the eagle, but it seems as likely that it will hang around their necks like the albatross.
For more on Rhee, this Frontline profile is quite good;
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/education-of-michelle-rhee
and not only did kevin have serious game, he is working hard to keep the kings in sacto
He did have game. But if he gives people crap for standing up to his wife’s crazed jihad, I may have to stand on my tiptoes and glare directly at his belt buckle.
Greg, did I not send you the info about how “P.B.S Frontline” was dependent and controlled by federal grants? It’s all Bullshit! Government- Private controlled “public” propaganda!
Get Use to it!
Yes, yes, double eye — Frontline is the ENEMY! It is part of the government! You don’t have to try to convince me anymore.
gotta protect your woman,,,,its part of the creed of the hood
Willie: Don’t push me ‘cuz I’m close to the edge.
the outta respect for my socialist homie, i will back off
I am not terribly familiar with Ms. Rhee, but is the issue with her goals, her measuring stick, her timing, or her methods (or something else)?
It certainly seems to me that it is a bad practice to have
-students who are not proficient at their grade level,
-teachers who are not getting their students up to par,
-administrators who are not motivating and overseeing appropriately,
-families who are not involved in getting their kids educated, and
-government powers who are not providing the tools for success.
Obviously, no one wants to ever lose their job (including Ms. Rhee, I presume) especially when they believe that they are performing well, but it sure seems that something should change. Having well educated children is a good thing, but it seems that the system right now may not be working as well as it should, so maybe some changes are needed.
Obviously, she must have some very over the top and outrageous ideas if someone is going to vote for someone without any knowledge of the supported person other than she is not associated with Rhee’s organization as Greg is indicating…I personally would probably not do that except in the very outrageous instances.
See my reply to Screech elsewhere in this comments section.
She’s also a shill for charter schools, from supporters of which she gets most of her money. Charter schools can be great, are often mediocre, and too often their greatness comes from being able to select the relative cream of the crop among the student body (or, at least to cull out the less creamy students before too long) and then claim that their excellent teaching methods are what led to higher scores.
But beyond that, charter schools are generally non-unionized. There’s ample money for the investors and for the administrators; there’s less money for the teachers. How do proponents of charter schools succeed? Get people to slag public education — such as by pushing for a destructive regime of narrow objective testing of a truncated curriculum. It’s cynical, it plays on prejudices against teachers that many people harbor since grade school, it deflects blame away from lack of parental involvement and lack of adequate funding, and I consider anyone taking their funding from such a movement to be part of the problem. (If it turns out that the opponent in question is truly awful for some other reason, like she supports human sacrifice of students, I’m sure that I’ll hear about if from someone at Tuesday’s meeting, and if so I’m willing to change my mind. I don’t expect that, though.
What is currently happening does not seem to be working though. If we keep doing what we have been doing with a twist here and there or think that just by throwing more money at the issue, I am afraid that will not produce much incremental improvement for the student…there should be a solution that is centered around the students- remember they are the ones that are supposed to be learning.
Testing just math and language skills are probably not the only measure, but it should be measured. We certainly want well rounded students, so testing for other disciplines certainly would not be out of line IMO. However, I doubt that by expanding the test to other areas will produce much in terms finding out that kids who test very poorly in math/language are great at all of these other areas.
Parental involvement is very important. Consistent teacher-parental communication increases the likelihood of improving the child’s performance. When the family is able to work on needed skills along side the teacher in class, gains can be seen.
There is a pretty good reality show on TV called “Blackboard Wars”…I think it may be on Oprah’s channel. It seems to give a pretty good glimpse of what a lot of people would say is an underperforming school down in New Orleans. It is now run by a charter. It seems half the battle is just baseline prior to any learning takes place…getting the kids in school, getting them in class, and getting them to listen to the teacher.
Is seeking the sort of primary educational funding and supplies that I grew up with the 60s “throwing money at the issue”? I think of it as “funding.”
You may want to familiarize yourself with the “Common Core” criteria, because that’s where we’re moving. No one is arguing that math and language skills should not be measured; the question is how much compared to other subjects and how so. The problem is that if you measure only a few areas, you encourage educators — especially if their own compensation is based on those scores — to focus disproportionately or even exclusively on those areas — and in ways that will be captured by those measure. For example: “language” becomes testing spelling and grammar to the exclusion of having students produce a single sentence of their own.
There are good charter schools. And some young girls do grow up to become princesses. It’s too easy to be blinded by extreme examples — especially ones that are chosen to be publicized. I haven’t watched that Oprah network show, but I’ll bet that students who don’t comply get shoved out the porthole to some other school, right? Public schools can’t do that as easily or as often — and if you’re at a low-performing school there’s no worse school around with which to threaten them. Beware of reality TV, my friend.
Beware of casting dispersions about a show without seeing it, my friend. I don’t believe that I have seen a student kicked out of school on that show- does not mean that it has not happened, just not highlighted. It certainly does show the struggles that a community has with a charter school, the administration has, the students have, and especially the tough time teachers have just getting their kids ready to learn. I don’t believe it to be putting the school up on a pedistal but certainly does show the struggles for multiple stakeholders.
I am familiar with Common Core…my kids utilize the curriculum. Problem solving…interaction…linking knowledge across disciplines….etc…
Good teachers will teach all skills in the curriculum when led by great administrators. Families will be involved. Students will learn. Students will also do better on tests, even if they are not being taught to the test…a well rounded education is definitely best and will result in better scores over a period of time. Even more important is that it will produce better citizens ready for our community and job market.
Teachers should not be allowed to teach to the test. This is short sighted. Should they have a goal to improve test scores? For sure. Long term success will be gained by a well rounded environment. The test scores will be raised if doing it correctly.
Should good teachers get rewarded- yes! Should bad teachers find a profession that they may be better suited for- yes!
I am now questioning my “Common Core” knowledge, so forgive me if I am off base on it. I think I have talked myself into thinking I don’t know what it is about now…maybe I do, but not sure now. My kids are definitely young and newer to school, but their teachers seem to emphasize the items I listed below (2nd Para).
It’s going to be phased in over the next few years — undoing some of the worst aspects of No Child Left Behind — and by replacing what will be tested, it will inevitably change curriculum.
Your children, like mine, probably go to “good schools.” Good schools — based in better-off communities — get to ignore a lot of demands made by reformers because, “look at their test scores, they’re good!” Teachers and admins who have a more difficult task are afforded less latitude.
In effect, this is imposing an informal caste system based on educational opportunities offered in different places. As you might suspect, it’s entirely avoidable — with adequate funding. In other words, it won’t be avoided, because the public’s taste for teacher-bashing is greater than its taste for educating lower-income students (beyond those who can be served by a few charter schools, ideally on reality shows that have good editors.)
I don’t know if it putting more money into the system is the best solution. I believe that parental involvement is more important than money once teachers are paid and lights are on (i.e. representing minimum funding standards). The caste system that is/has/will develop, from my point of view, is not simply due to funding…it is from the family. Often due to the pulls of parental work requirements, dual worker families, single parent families…the same as so many other items. Not sure if additional funding will overcome the place of family in the factors of success and therefore, I would disagree with your comment t6hat it is entirely avoidable with adequate funding.
If you took a child who is not performing well with parents who are not involved at a lower performing school and move them to a higher performing school with the “best” teachers, that same child will often not succeed there either.
If you take a child who is doing great at a higher performing school with parents who are highly involved and move them to a lower performing school with not the “best” teachers, that same child will often continue to succeed…due to family.
BTW, my child has gone to one of the charter schools that others don’t seem to like, but the parents that send their kids there sure seemed to like it…partly because of the required parental involvement, I am presuming.
Wasn’t there a 60 minutes piece on Michell Rhee and the DC schools?
Yeah.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57321031/rhee-todays-kids-must-learn-to-work-hard/
I remember that.
What I took away from that piece was she went in to the worst performing schools in America and improved them greatly, and without throwing money at them, which as far as I can tell *never works*.
So Greg, it seems to me we need to get schools performing, both from the standpoint of if we are going to have our kids going over to the school every day and spending all day there, we want that process to actually work. The kids are there to be educated. We want them to be educated. We are spending all this time and money, we want results.
And since this is tax money being spent, we demand results. We want those children to be given the knowledge and skills to succeed in life, and the failure the schools experienced in these areas before Michelle Rhee was wasting that money. That should be stopped as a matter of public policy.
The teacher’s unions naturally hate being measured on those results. That’s natural, they would prefer to be paid and have failure be irrelevant. But again, this is tax money and the taxpayers have a right to demand results. I for one am glad this is happening at least a little.
I guess I have no problem with Michelle Rhee’s methods and we want that more. We need student success and we spend so much money we deserve it.
So Greg Diamond, what’s the problem with Michell Rhee and her methods? Do you feel teachers should be paid to fail to educate these students? I sure don’t.
That’s an instructive challenge, for which I thank you. What you fail to do is to define what “good performance” and “education” are. Or, if you agree with Rhee that they can be encapsulated in objective measures of performance on a standardized test covering two academic areas, then I suppose that you’ve defined it, but you’ve done so very poorly.
STAR testing within California concentrates on English and Math. If your school is going to be evaluated solely based on English and Math scores, especially ones involving objective (and multiple choice) answers to questions, you will tend to focus both on those subjects and on fostering the skill of mastering multiple choice questions to the detriment (or even the exclusion) of everything else. If you’re a school administrator whose job depends on such scores, you’re going to do so even more energetically. If you’re a teacher who is suddenly being personally evaluated based on your own students’ performance on those tests, such that you could be fired ahead of someone with less experience or without tenure, then you’re going to do so ferociously — even though you know that it is not the best way to educate kids, which it is in fact not. (This isn’t really in doubt anymore, and as a society we are, happily, finally starting to move away from it with the adoption of “Common Core” standards which test a broader variety of knowledge in a broader variety of ways.)
The “results” that you say that we’re “demanding” are not results of good pedagogy; they’re in fact the opposite direction from which the societies that focused of them have been moving, in search of fostering the creativity, flexible problem-solving ability, and broad facility with more than rules of math and grammar than typified American education back when I was a child. (You know — when we were exposed to mind-altering substances like art and music and such.) Generating people to learn simple rules effectively and quietly is great if you’re trying to generate a nation of serfs, but not good if you want a nation of independent thinkers with analytic and creative chops.
Which is better? Well, gee, which do people with resources pay extra for in choosing a curriculm? Which do private schools and superior/select public schools provide? NOT what Rhee is peddling. People pay for that kind of drilling where it comes to SAT prep or LSAT, GRE, MCAT, etc. prep, but if you send your kid to an academy that’s not what you want from the school. (Who uses it? Poorer schools that have been known to drill kids ahead of time on the answers to the tests, which they hope they will remember when time comes to perform, rather than to a broad range of information that leads to a well-rounded and intrinsically interesting education.
I’m lucky enough to live in a relatively well-off school district (Brea-Olinda) in a well-off county where the public school teachers can actually teach other than “to the test.” Everyone, everywhere, should have access to the same level of enriched learning. Rhee stands against that and is willing to use lots of money to cow school board members into following her lead. (I won’t even get into who funds her, etc.) You are presumably well-educated yourself to draw your own conclusions from the above about why I dislike Rhee’s work. Lots of kids suffering from Rhee’s methods wouldn’t be — because it’s not going to be on the test.
Greg said:”Rhee stands against that and is willing to use lots of money to cow school board members into following her lead. (I won’t even get into who funds her, etc.) You are presumably well-educated yourself to draw your own conclusions from the above about why I dislike Rhee’s work. Lots of kids suffering from Rhee’s methods wouldn’t be — because it’s not going to be on the test.”
I don’t think those facts are in evidence at all.
I watched the Frontline piece that was linked this morning before I posted that.
What I took away was the teachers (union members all) were caught erasing the test answers and correcting them. If they hadn’t done that Rhee might have failed sooner, in the eyes of her superiors. But they allegedly did cheat. No one will ever know.
When you are dealing with a failing school system, like the one in DC, you have to make changes. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is a kind of insanity.
The schools in DC were proven to not be educating the children enough to pass the only yardstick they have: The standardized test. The taxpayers, on the other hand have a right to demand their tax money not be wasted. You say the test isn’t broad enough. Ok, make it broader. That will be even more difficult for the teachers.
Allowing weak teachers to be kept in classrooms for 30 years while their students are not being educated, while us taxpayers are paying for it, well that’s just unreasonable.
Rhee took a broad brush and swept away what she says were bad teachers. The teachers union objected, as expected. They advocate for their members, after all.
I am a product of public schools, I had bad and good teachers. No one did anything about the bad teachers, then or probably now.
But admittedly that was years and years ago and the problems of our society were nothing like they are now. Suburban OC was mostly well educated parents in nice homes, both parents there all the time- at least for me and my friends and neighbors. No divorce, no unwed mothers, no single parents, or not much. Flame away!
Clearly our country has changed and some at least no longer value that home situation that I enjoyed, and you probably did as well. I think that is a shame, and some would flame me for saying that.
The thing is, whether you like it or not we need our public education money to be used properly. We need some yardstick to measure that, and it’s a well known fact that teachers do not like being rated based on results.
But we taxpayers deserve it so they are going to have to suck that up. Figure out a way to get results. Pushing students on to the next grade and eventually out of school when they can neither read nor do simple math, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, well that has to stop.
having taught, yes i have molded young minds, performance is directly related to family support and the tests we are subjecting our kids do have no ability to incorporate that variable into the mix. add to that the refusal of many to acknowledge the benefits of head start and other pre-school programs. but than, as we have seen with rob reiner’s little program, there is much room for waste and abuse.
at the same time, we are punishing those kids who come from better neighborhoods and more stable families by expanding class size, dumbing down the courses and seeking parity as opposed to excellence or, worse yet, redefining excellence as parity.
and so while we have to provide solutions for the disadvantaged, we cannot hamper those who through fate, luck or talent have an advantage.
Political beliefs aside, this is quite unreadable.
If you’d prefer a multiple choice test, I can come up with one.