Washington Post's blind allegiance to Michelle Rhee: Rhee's "reform" a failure

[Hannah Bell]

There is a larger story overshadowing the report on DC test score achievement gaps in the Washington Post dated Aug. 27, 2010 by Bill Turque: Michelle Rhee's "reform" program is a failure.
DC test scores, which began to improve under Mr. Janey's tenure, have flattened.

The Post struggles to defend Ms. Rhee by pointing to the nationwide pattern of lagging test score gains; quoting Ms. Rhee's spokeswoman (Jennifer Calloway) cautioning against drawing broad conclusions from single-year test data; and in a last desperate line of defense, suggesting that perhaps there was "some anomaly in the tests."

I would like for the Post to stop cheerleading for Ms. Rhee and look at the facts: her "reform agenda" is not working. Demonizing veteran teachers, relentless teaching-to-the-test, imposing a flawed and overly-subjective evaluation system (which, hypocritically, places strong emphasis on single-year test scores) have not succeeded.

Ms. Rhee, Mayor Fenty, and the Post cannot have it both ways: if test scores determine whether a teacher receives a raise or loses his/her job, then they should rightly redound on our city leaders in the same fashion... Increasingly it seems she and the Mayor have succeeded in firing alot of teachers and building some new schools while achieving little educational impact.

http://realeducationreformdc.blogspot.com/2010/09/washington-posts-blind-allegiance-to.html

[Vincardog]

1. I am SHOCKED. Shocked that mindless adherence to a flawed and overly-subjective evaluation system

does NOTHING to benefit the STUDENTS.

The only thing the 'race from the top' does is break the power of good teachers to educate the students and
replace them with poorly paid interns and maybe computers running on DOS machines.