Michelle Rhee Refuses to Talk...

[amborin]

Eager for Spotlight, but Not if It Is on a Testing Scandal



Michelle Rhee has refused to talk to USA Today reporters about a schools scandal.



Ms. Rhee.......

It’s hard to find a media outlet, big or small, that she hasn’t talked to. She’s been interviewed by Katie Couric, Tom Brokaw and Oprah Winfrey. She’s been featured on a Time magazine cover holding a broom (to sweep away bad teachers). She was one of the stars of the documentary “Waiting for Superman.”

These days, as director of an advocacy group she founded, StudentsFirst, she crisscrosses the country pushing her education politics:
she’s for vouchers and charter schools, against tenure, for teachers, but against their unions.
Always, she preens for the cameras. Early in her chancellorship, she was trailed for a story by the education correspondent of “PBS NewsHour,” John Merrow.

snip

And yet, as voracious as she is for the media spotlight, Ms. Rhee will not talk to USA Today.
At the end of March, three of the paper’s reporters — Marisol Bello, Jack Gillum and Greg Toppo — broke a story about the high rate of erasures and suspiciously high test-score gains at 41 Washington schools while Ms. Rhee was chancellor.
At some schools, they found the odds that so many answers had been changed from wrong to right randomly were 1 in 100 billion. In a fourth-grade class at Stanton Elementary, 97 percent of the erasures were from wrong to right.

snip

Ms. Rhee’s reputation has rested on her schools’ test scores. Suddenly, a USA Today headline was asking, “were the gains real?” In this era of high-pressure testing, Washington has become another in a growing list of cheating scandals that has included Atlanta, Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas.

snip

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/education/22winerip.html?src=me&ref=us


eta: schadenfreude is mean and all, but it's so gratifying to see this union-busting entity in the hot seat

[Karmadillo]

1. Maybe she's not talking because she put duct tape over her mouth.

nt

[amborin]

4. lol...that must be it....

[DireStrike]

8. Oh good, I'm glad that story got around a bit.

[CTyankee]

2. Yeah, something stinks here, doesn't it?

That news item riveted me! I loved it!

This lady is going down, down, down...

couldn't happen to a better person...bye, Michelle, your 15 minutes of fame has evaporated!!!

[amborin]

5. badly...

[CTyankee]

10. I'm pretty happy...you?

[amborin]

11. yes!

[indurancevile]

16. please god, let it be so! how long will the wicked prosper?

[MichiganVote]

3. Another know nothing pedaling more BS. Too many of these people about.

[amborin]

6. and

doing tremendous damage

[DireStrike]

9. "peddling" nt

[MichiganVote]

13. Oh really. THAT's what you're worried about.

A thousand pardons child star.

[DireStrike]

15. you're welcome.

[fishwax]

7. k/r

:kick:

[Riley18]

12. k/r. Could not have happened to a more deserving liar.

[Starry Messenger]

14. k&r