Rhee creates advocacy organization to support nasty secretive education reformers

Michelle Rhee is part of Rick Scott’s education team and is generally considered not to be a friend of teachers. –cpg

By Mark Lerner

Michelle Rhee announced yesterday in Newsweek and other media outlets that she is forming a lobbying group that will raise a billion dollars to foster people who think exactly like her. Great. We can look forward to fights across the country (these are her words, "we cannot shy away from conflict") as she parachutes in to your neighborhood to tell you the way that you should manage your schools.

I'm afraid that Ms. Rhee and Mr. Fenty still have no idea why they lost their jobs. In her Newsweek piece Ms. Rhee is defensive about how secretive she was as Chancellor. Last night, at a conference organized by Education Pioneers, Mr. Reinoso demonstrated that he and his boss are in complete denial regarding why they were defeated in the recent Mayoral election ("Ms. Rhee held more meetings with parents than any previous school superintendent," Mr. Reinoso said with a straight face. "The problem was that if it is not covered by the press it didn't happen.")

Prepare yourself for more of the same. D.C. residents were incensed that Mr. Fenty announced his choice for Chancellor in the middle of the night while giving no prior hint of who he would name. I guess this is a best practice since New York's Mayor Bloomberg essentially repeated this procedure in revealing who would replace Joel Klein. The reaction from the public was identical. Now we get to see how the rest of the nation enjoys this treatment.

Taken from the Examiner.com: http://www.examiner.com/charter-schools-in-washington-dc/rhee-creates-advocacy-organization-to-support-nasty-secretive-education-reformers