Rhee laid off teachers who were sleeping with students or hitting them, so she says.

[Anonymous]

I stopped reading the Washington Post along time ago. It is nothing more than something to scoop my dog's poop up with, as it no longer report the news. Unfortunately, too many people are still swayed by the power of the pen. The WaPo is no longer Katherine Graham's paper. I go online to get good news, if that is such a thing in this day and age. Frankly, I will be glad when they run their last paper and go by the way of the other dinosaurs.

[Anonymous]

The relationship is too cozy. There's not much gray here. (No pun on Council Chairman Gray's name intended here.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know how Catania lines up with this mess. I used to really respect this man. I had hoped he would run for mayor one day, but he is really disappointing me. He votes just like Muriel Bowser, yes Fenty, whatever you say Fenty, just tell me how you want me to vote Fenty. I am trying to figure out what happened to his tough independent streak.

I don't know about this but I wrote him about Rhee's possible attempt to move Ellington to substandard facilities. He wrote back saying that he had met with the chair of Ellington's board and was following it closely. I can't remember his exact words (so I may be characterizing it incorrectly -- politicians are so careful about what they say) but he seemed opposed to the move.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:What is most disturbing is the implication that Rhee, who has refused to talk to the Council or the Post's education reporter, took time to talk to the Post's editors. This continues a trend of the Post's editors acting as Rhee's PR team. All the way back to when Fenty first chose Rhee, the Post got exclusive access to her before the choice was announced. Indeed, her selection was announced in a Post article with an accompanying editorial (laudable of course). When Fenty and Rhee refused to disclose how Fenty's son's were able to gain entry as out of bounds students to a choice school, it was a Post editorial that provided the only explanation (obviously based on information provided by Fenty/Rhee). When the Council refused to approve the nomination of Ximena Hartsock, Rhee emailed the Post editorial board to let them know how to spin the story. Now, the Post editors are scooping their own education reporter and framing a story to be pro-Rhee.

Yes, this was quite upsetting this morning when I read it. I got the impression that the Washington Post Editorial Board was the only group of people that Rhee was talking to about this. Gee, I'm only a District resident who pays taxes and whose kid spent years in DCPS -- somehow I don't deserve to be told about Ms. Rhee's various initiatives and actions. And if I complain about it, then some Rhee cheerleader accuses me of supporting bad teachers and crappy administrators. The implication is that if I really cared about good teaching, I would just shut up about her failure to lead effectively and wait for her to tell me what she has in store for my family.

I was skeptical of Rhee when she was hired but I was still waiting to see what she would do. Now I am deeply unimpressed. But she doesn't care -- the national media will just continue to paint her as a heroine who is fighting an uphill battle against all the forces of the status quo and anyone who criticizes her (like me) will just be lumped in with all the crappy teachers who hit kids and have sex with them.

I will never vote for Fenty again.

[Anonymous]

Dc is clearly a stepping stone for Rhee or she wouldn't be such a national media hound. I jut worry what will be left in her wake, and that she will be picked up as secretary of Ed one day bcause her name appears uncritically in the press so much. She certainly has her fan put of state from those who think we dc critics are just whiny and threatened by change... That's why I hope this is challenged! It's just more self aggrandizing garbaggio!

[Anonymous]

Si si multo garbaggio!

[Anonymous]

I read the article in the City Paper and the Washington Post article, and I still think that her remarks may have been taken out of context. That's why I look forward to reading the ENTIRE interview from Fast Company. Let's look at some possibilities for putting her remarks in context. Yes, maybe it's a direct quote, but is it possible that crucial words just beforehand would have made the remarks more palatable? [brackets my own proposed additions]:

[Many of the teachers that were RIF'ed were highly qualified, and I regret their termination. But, due to union restrictions on suspensions rather than terminations, during the course of the RIF] "I got rid of teachers who had hit children, who had had sex with children, who had missed 78 days of school. Why wouldn't we take those things into consideration?"

I will get attacked for putting words into Rhee's mouth, but without the context of the full interview, isn't that what all of us are doing?

[Anonymous]

i do think that there has been an over-reaction to these comments. i think people are looking for any reason to jump all over her--and for good reason. a lot of folks think she should be gone and they need some momentum to achieve their goal.

i happen to agree that she needs to go, but this is a feeding frenzy. it's just the way things work these days. media life cycle.

[Anonymous]

Even if it was out of context, the statement is extreme and imprecise. She is not media savvy. She dissed her own daughters' teachers in TIME Magazine. She is not sensitive. She was describing a tiny fraction of teachers fired and now the entire lot has been smeared. Anyway, the frenzy's over. She explained herself. Now she can go back to her noble priority, keeping educated affluent people in the DCPS system.

[Anonymous]

i wonder if her children are impacted by these kinds of things. it must be pretty hard to have your kids in the system that you are in charge of, i would think.

[Anonymous]

I must be tough especially with her love life is all over the place. And her fiance has an unfortunate history with allegations involvling teenage girls. Her ex-husband writes for the Post now, he won that Next Pundit contest or whatever it was called.

[Anonymous]

He sounds sane in his pundit pieces; maybe he should be Chancellor? A little too TFA for my tastes though. I could use a big break from TFA and all their little money-making subsidiaries after Rhee.

[jsteele]

Wow, Bill Turque just wrote an amazing blog article that has much the same tone as my post above (about Rhee's comfy relationship with the Post Editorial Board). Check out the full article here:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcschools/2010/01/one_newspaper_two_stories.html

Turque discusses Jo-Ann Armao who writes the Post's education editorials. Some choice quotes:

"Jo-Ann, on the other hand, sits on an editorial board whose support for the chancellor has been steadfast, protective and, at times, adoring."

"Where this gets complicated is that board's stance, and the chancellor's obvious rapport with Jo-Ann, also means that DCPS has a guaranteed soft landing spot for uncomfortable or inconvenient disclosures--kind of a print version of the Larry King Show. This happened last September during the flap over the out-of-boundary admission of Mayor Fenty's twin sons to Lafayette Elementary in Chevy Chase."

"Are Fenty and Rhee gaming the system by using the editorial page this way? Of course. Is this a healthy thing for readers of The Post? Probably not."

Hats off to Bill. I hope he gets to keep his job.

[Anonymous]

It's gone! It's not a bad link, the headline is still up but the post is gone. Did you copy the entire thing?

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:It's gone! It's not a bad link, the headline is still up but the post is gone. Did you copy the entire thing?

No and I tried finding it in Google's cache with no luck. It's unbelievable that the Post removed it. Both the Washington City Paper and DCist linked to the article today. So, it's going to be hard for the Post to hide from this. The paper (more accurately, the educational testing service that publishes a newspaper on the side) will have some explaining to do.