NYT: test cheating charges vs. Rhee in DCPS amid test cheating charges from Georgia to New Jersey

The New York Times this week ran a story (Michael Winerip), "Eager for Spotlight, but Not if It Is on a Testing Scandal") with this shamed-looking Rhee photo on how Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of District of Columbia Public Schools has been generous with her access to a range of news interviewers, yet she has refused to speak to reporters at USA Today. As the Times noted, the test erasure charges swirling around Rhee come at the same time as allegations of cheating in Atlanta, Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas.

Rhee's whole self-promotion campaign has come from her argument that her get tough methods of attacking teachers and stressing tests over everything were successful. Yet, erasure analysis raises plenty of suspicious red flags. Translation: Rhee's success is illusory, contrived:

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. Districtwide, the average number of erasures for seventh graders was fewer than one per child, but for a seventh-grade class at Noyes Elementary, it was 12.7 per student. At Noyes Elementary in 2008, 84 percent of fourth graders were proficient in math, up from 22 percent in 2007.

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.

It took the USA Today reporters a year to finish their three-part series. So many people were afraid to speak that Ms. Bello had to interview dozens to find one willing to be quoted. She knocked on teachers’ doors at 9:30 at night and hunted parents at PTA meetings. She met people in coffee shops where they would not be recognized, and never called or e-mailed sources at their schools.

USA Today: Feds sought for Rhee Erasuregate

USA Today for the past month has been giving attention to the ballooning test scandal of Erasuregate: very high numbers of answer choices on tests erased and changed to the correct answer, during Michelle Rhee's years as schools chancellor for Washington, District of Columbia (DC).
Thursday, May 5, 2011 "USA Today" gave front page attention, in Marisol Bello and Jack Gillum, "Inquiry sought into D.C. test scores." You know that things are bad for Michelle "Taped Lips" Rhee when school-killer comrade in chief Arne Duncan endorses a deeper investigation. (Rhee, power-protecting and defensive, refused to speak to USA Today reporters live; although she did deign to respond to a written set of questions.)
Meanwhile, the number of parent or teacher signatures demanding a federal probe into test scores during Rhee the First's tenure, or should we say reign. (See the fun Rhee-focused site, RheeFirst!, on Erasuregate and skewering Rhee's overall apple polishing.)



And you know things are bad for her when even conservative institutions and one of their staff publicly skewers Rhee.

Rhee's comments have shifted because she is trying to protect her national reputation, says Mike Paul, a crisis management consultant.

According to Rick Hess, an education researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, activists such as Rhee say they have all the answers and when one flaw is found in their approach, it can call into question their entire program.

"Your critics have good reason to try to re-examine your evidence — and if they find problems with it, then your case is dramatically weakened," Hess says.

Does Gray win in DC signify a "C" or "D" for Fenty/Rhee?

District of Columbia City Council head Vincent Gray soundly defeated Washington, DC mayor Adrian Fenty in September 14, 2010's primary.

To our headline's question, "Atlantic Monthly's" Natalie Hopkinson (a former Washington, DC "PTA mom") would answer, "YES!"

Hopkinson noted that Rhee politicized her fate earlier this year:

Rhee brazenly politicized her job as Schools Chancellor in a way that may be unprecedented for education bureaucrats. Back in the spring, the charitable arm of Wal-Mart and other corporate foundations threatened to yank millions they had donated to break the teacher's union if Rhee was not retained. Then Rhee not so subtly hinted to a reporter that she would not work for Gray. Finally, the weekend before the election, Rhee hit the campaign trail along with Fenty to round up votes in the wealthiest ward in Washington.

Voters' reactions? Hopkinson would say that Rhee was definitely a negative factor in their voting choice in the primary election:

A majority of black voters cited Rhee as a reason to fire her boss, while a majority of white voters cited Rhee as a reason to vote for Fenty. But the stink swirling around education reform in D.C. goes beyond race. The hundreds of millions of corporate dollars used to break the D.C. teachers' union have dangerous strings attached.

**The News Details**
Early news reports indicated Fenty's loss as stemming from voter anger with combative schools chancellor Michelle Rhee and a perception that Fenty cared more about the white, upscale Northwest Washington, D.C. neighborhoods than about the less advantaged parts of the city. The last paragraph of "The Wall Street Journal" analyzed preliminary reports of voting patters and has interpreted Gray as getting stronger support in the lower income, mostly African-American areas and Fenty as getting stronger support in Georgetown and Northwestern city neighborhoods.

It remains to be seen what this will all mean for chancellor Rhee. The media have reported that Gray will not announce the fate of Rhee's job until after the general election.

There has been the assertion by one commenter that Gray supports charter schools. But most of the news headlines don't seem to give that indication.

Hopkinson's description of Rhee's effect on students in Washington sounds a lot like the haphazard experimentation and constantly shifting policy in New York City under Joel Klein:

D.C.'s high-profile status as nation's capital means that for decades, our kids have been the subjects of virtually every passing education fad and experiment--like lab rats. But usually the meddling comes from Congress. D.C. is the only city where Congress pays private school tuition. About 40 percent of public school kids go to charter schools, also thanks to Congress. All of this "experimentation" and "competition" has destabilized the system so badly that the most competent D.C. school administrators rarely know how many kids are enrolled in public or charter schools on a given day.

Hopkinson said it best toward the end of her article, "How 'public' is it when Wal-Mart can blackmail D.C. voters?"