Frontline doc about Rhee and cheating

[Anonymous]

At this point I'm pretty strongly suspecting the poster(s) most fervently criticizing Rhee are probably among the ones that she wanted fired for underperforming.

[Anonymous]

Well, I for one was extremely sad to see Rhee go and would be over the moon if we were able to get her back, and keep her. 3 years is hardly enough time to make a dent but she came out guns blazing, and it saddens me that we weren't able to fully benefit from what she could have done for our horribly broken school system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was teacher in a low performing DCPS school for several years prior to Rhee. Had she come into position while I was there I might have been able to stay. The culture of dysfunction is deeply ingrained. Trying to buck it at any level is suicidal. Teachers who sleep on the job, leave early every day, don't teach ONE. SINGLE. BIT. of the curriculum, teachers who sleep with students... my stories could go on and on. One biology teacher refused to teach the class and instead preached Christianity the entire year. No biology.
I never once had enough text books.
I bought ALL of my own chemistry supplies.
I was out sick with the flu for a couple of days and no sub ever covered my classes- they just roamed the halls.
The librarian locked the library and would only allow teachers she liked to come in and socialize and eat lunch. Students were not allowed in there.
The counselors routinely lost students' transcripts. I was contacted for 2 years after I left to recreate grades for kids.
The athletic director changed a failing student's grade so she could play basketball.
We had a homeless kid live in the stockroom for a month of two because he broke in every night.
We had a couple of building service personnel who pimped out a couple of girls in the chorus room in the evenings and weekends.
The principal embezzled nearly a hundred thousand dollars from a technology grant from AOL, held a gospel concert that lost nearly all the money and NOTHING happened to him- even after being investigated and the involvement of the mayor.

I have hundreds of other stories of the culture of dysfunction. I was told early on when I went to that school that I landed the perfect job where everyone wants to end up because it is the easiest place to ride out your last years teaching. And so it was for 2/3 of the building. The rest of us got so burnt out from picking up the pieces that we couldn't last for more than 5 or 6 years. It would have been nice to have someone, ANYONE look at the school and notice just how bad and useless most of the adults were in that building.

Interesting to me that you were a teacher and only found problems with other teachers. So the admin was fine? Parents fine? Thats amazing... and BS

I'm not sure how you got that out of my post. The whole system was broken and some of it was truly corrupt. One teacher had students carry her bags to her car EVERY DAY after lunch and she then left, leaving her afternoon students unattended. There wasn't a single person who worked there (or attended school there) who didn't know of her doing this. In my mind, that is a complete failure of the system and an indication of corruption in the administration.
I was told by an adminstrator that I had to dumb down my curriculum because I didn't have enough students getting A's. When I asked how I was supposed to do that and meet the standards I was told that "it didn't matter if I only accomplished one standard that year as long as everyone mastered it and got an A". But this was high school level and there were no standardized tests or any other measure of accountability for my subject areas (sciences).
One year, attendance records weren't kept for about 5 months. I'm sure someone somewhere got a report of attendance numbers for the school that year- or maybe they didn't? Again, administrative failure. And wondering about how to fix families in poor, urban schools is the million dollar question, now isn't it? When kids need to sell drugs to feed their brothers and sisters you end up with a more problems than any superintendent can fix in any amount of time.

Sorry about typos and grammar issues- in between classes at the moment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At this point I'm pretty strongly suspecting the poster(s) most fervently criticizing Rhee are probably among the ones that she wanted fired for underperforming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Several schools saw major improvements when the deadwood was cut loose by Rhee. Much more of that was and still is needed in many of the other schools. So if you want to say there were failings, IMO it's that it didn't go far enough.

Name them and please say how you describe "major improvements."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At this point I'm pretty strongly suspecting the poster(s) most fervently criticizing Rhee are probably among the ones that she wanted fired for underperforming.

At this point I'm pretty strongly suspecting the poster most fervently criticizing the people who criticize Rhee are probably DCPS employees trying to discredit any criticism of Rhee.

[Anonymous]

I'm a DCPS parent and I criticized Rhee in this thread. I'm also a parent who has a child older than PreK, so that probably has a lot to do with it.

I saw what was before Rhee and I can say she made nothing better for my child.

Sorry to burst your conspiracy theory though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, I for one was extremely sad to see Rhee go and would be over the moon if we were able to get her back, and keep her. 3 years is hardly enough time to make a dent but she came out guns blazing, and it saddens me that we weren't able to fully benefit from what she could have done for our horribly broken school system.

Kaya is carrying out all Rhee's programs. Don't no need to worry about our horribly broken system. If you trusted in Rhee, then you can trust that her work goes on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was teacher in a low performing DCPS school for several years prior to Rhee. Had she come into position while I was there I might have been able to stay. The culture of dysfunction is deeply ingrained. Trying to buck it at any level is suicidal. Teachers who sleep on the job, leave early every day, don't teach ONE. SINGLE. BIT. of the curriculum, teachers who sleep with students... my stories could go on and on. One biology teacher refused to teach the class and instead preached Christianity the entire year. No biology.
I never once had enough text books.
I bought ALL of my own chemistry supplies.
I was out sick with the flu for a couple of days and no sub ever covered my classes- they just roamed the halls.
The librarian locked the library and would only allow teachers she liked to come in and socialize and eat lunch. Students were not allowed in there.
The counselors routinely lost students' transcripts. I was contacted for 2 years after I left to recreate grades for kids.
The athletic director changed a failing student's grade so she could play basketball.
We had a homeless kid live in the stockroom for a month of two because he broke in every night.
We had a couple of building service personnel who pimped out a couple of girls in the chorus room in the evenings and weekends.
The principal embezzled nearly a hundred thousand dollars from a technology grant from AOL, held a gospel concert that lost nearly all the money and NOTHING happened to him- even after being investigated and the involvement of the mayor.

I have hundreds of other stories of the culture of dysfunction. I was told early on when I went to that school that I landed the perfect job where everyone wants to end up because it is the easiest place to ride out your last years teaching. And so it was for 2/3 of the building. The rest of us got so burnt out from picking up the pieces that we couldn't last for more than 5 or 6 years. It would have been nice to have someone, ANYONE look at the school and notice just how bad and useless most of the adults were in that building.

Interesting to me that you were a teacher and only found problems with other teachers. So the admin was fine? Parents fine? Thats amazing... and BS

What in the world are you talking about? A principal embezzling money is not an administrative problem? Not having sub teachers is not an administrative problem? A homeless kid is not a problem with his parents? Not sure why you're jumping on the PP here, but your criticisms are silly.

The Washington Post did an expose on the grant in 2007 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/08/AR2007110802506.html?sid=ST2007110802581

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At this point I'm pretty strongly suspecting the poster(s) most fervently criticizing Rhee are probably among the ones that she wanted fired for underperforming.

At this point I'm pretty strongly suspecting the poster most fervently criticizing the people who criticize Rhee are probably DCPS employees trying to discredit any criticism of Rhee.

Wrong. Concerned parent and taxpayer here, I don't work for DCPS.

[jsteele]

If you haven't seen this article about Adell Cothorne, the principal of Noyes who alleged cheating, it's worth a read. After reading this, it is hard to believe that ErasureGate wasn't worse than I had previously believed (and I previously thought it was pretty bad):

http://takingnote.learningmatters.tv/?p=6070

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:If you haven't seen this article about Adell Cothorne, the principal of Noyes who alleged cheating, it's worth a read. After reading this, it is hard to believe that ErasureGate wasn't worse than I had previously believed (and I previously thought it was pretty bad):

http://takingnote.learningmatters.tv/?p=6070

Wow.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:If you haven't seen this article about Adell Cothorne, the principal of Noyes who alleged cheating, it's worth a read. After reading this, it is hard to believe that ErasureGate wasn't worse than I had previously believed (and I previously thought it was pretty bad):

http://takingnote.learningmatters.tv/?p=6070

Very powerful. Thank you for sharing this.

[Anonymous]

Diane Ravitch on Michelle Rhee

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/09/ravitch-on-rhee/

[Anonymous]

It was all about the test scores, Rhee used secret mind control and brain washing techniques to turn hundreds and hundreds of honest and upstanding teachers and administrators into her legion of evil minions to do her bidding to fake the results and even now, years after she's gone, she still controls them through threat of Omerta and her roving bands of secret death squads that patrol all the schools. And, she did all that in just three short years.

Uh huh.