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

[Anonymous]

This is not a web-based rumor. This is a direct quote in a national magazine, one with a great reputation. The advance date is how magazines work. Look at Newsweek, Time, the New Yorker. Fast Company is under no obligation to comment on this unless they want to respond to whatever Chancellor Rhee says in response to the response to her comment. (If we ever get one.) If you look at magazines, direct quotes often (but not always) come from an interview, either on the phone or in person. For the sake of space, short pieces do not clarify specifics. Why are people getting so irrational about this? She's all about accountability. Let's see her walk the walk.

[Anonymous]

P.S. If a journalist gets caught intentionally fabricating a quote, they are fired if they are a staffer or end the relationship with the publication if they are a freelancer and will probably never write as a journalist again. Also many magazines factcheck all quotes. I do not know what Fast Company's factchecking policies are.

[Anonymous]

13:19 said "I don't support Gray. I do think the firings/layoffs were handled poorly. But let's get rid of the only semi-effective people who have made any dent in the crap that is DCPS? Are you all that blind or that crazy or that wedded to the status quo of crap?"

If the quote attributed to Rhee is accurate and this is the first time these crimes are being reported, then Rhee should be sent packing immediately. Not only will she have failed to notify DCPS parents about some very disturbing activities in our schools, but she has set predators loose to hurt some other children. If that is true, not only should she lose her job but she should also be investigated and if warranted, prosecuted.

[Anonymous]

http://edumacationarchive.com/2010/01/24/michelle-rhees-double-standard-on-sex-with-children/

Michelle Rhee’s comment leads one to only three conclusions:

1. There were known pedophiles teaching in the DC schools and rather than going after them in court or at the least firing them for inappropriate contact with students, the disrtict merely let these people go merrily on their way to other schools and other school districts where they can again be around children. Even if the district won’t hire them back, there are plenty of private and charter schools that will. Plus they would be free to get other jobs that keep them in the proximity of schools. She has done exactly the sort of thing that people have rightly complained about Catholic bishops doing–taking known pedophiles and instead of doing something about the problem moving them on to a new parish.

2. Michelle Rhee has slandered the names of the vast majority of the teachers who were let go. She has said in the past that many were excellent teachers. However, if you are hiring a teacher and you have two candidates. One of them is good, but the other one is slightly better. However, the one that is slightly better has a 2% chance of sexually abusing his students–are you really going to take that chance? She has done irreparable harm to many good people and good educators.

3. On the other hand, it may simply be that Michelle Rhee doesn’t think sexual abusing minors is a big deal. This is an appalling thing to say and perhaps an unfair accusation. However, I do feel the need to bring it up because of her recent engagement to Kevin Johnson who has not only been accused of sex with minors, but records show that he paid one girl who filed a complaint against him $230,000. Rhee has been accused of helping to kill investigations into the charges against Johnson. Now, if I’m wrong here and Rhee believes that it is wrong and her future husband was wrongly accused, how dare she wrongly accuse others.

At worst this woman is aiding and abetting the sexual abuse of minors. At best she is slandering the name of good people in a way that ultimately will destroy their career and their lives. A woman like this should not be making decisions that affect our children. A woman like this should not be allowed around children.

[Anonymous]

or she is just not that bright.

[Anonymous]

I know, right? It often goes overlooked that Rhee is not some Steven Hawking shining star intellect. People tend to understandably get fixated on her brashness or self-promotion or toughness or or or. I think not enough is said about the probability that she's a dum dum. (which, as anyone who has ever worked in an office knows, can be covered up with brashness, toughness, media hype, etc)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, I cannot believe the vitriol against Rhee and Fenty on this anonymous board. Or maybe I can. I'm not a blind Rhee supporter, or Fenty, but at least they are making some progress against the entrenched layers of crap that DCPS has become over the past decades. Schools are getting better, and I support that.

Now this quote - it is a doozy. But wow. Knee jerk reaction, much? I think it says a lot about posters here to see the immediate fire Rhee support Gray reaction.

I don't support Gray. I do think the firings/layoffs were handled poorly. But let's get rid of the only semi-effective people who have made any dent in the crap that is DCPS? Are you all that blind or that crazy or that wedded to the status quo of crap?

But it's not entirely clear that Michelle Rhee has been the driving force behind all those improvements. I'm sure some of the improvements are due to her efforts. However, a number of improvements were planned under Dr. Janey and Rhee should not be taking credit for them.

But it's also important to recognize the impact that gentrification has had on the school system. Some of the improvements have come from middle class people not moving out of the city once they have kids. In Capitol Hill, there are several schools which in recent years have had an influx of middle class kids which means greater parent involvement. (I'm not dissing poor and working class parents here -- Just saying that middle class people feel entitled to better service and are willing to demand it while poor people generally don't know what the schools should be offering. I have direct experience of this with a kid I'm tutoring.) Now it's perfectly possible that Rhee put principals in place that wouldn't have been there before (but now that I think of it at least one of the good ones predated her) but in terms of the demand for improvement -- the changing demographics of the District have also been a factor. (I'm guessing it didn't make a difference but I also wonder whether increases in test scores are due in some cases to these changing demographics rather than improved teaching.)

Personally, while Fenty felt that Janey was moving too slowly, I'd rather have him back. I felt that DCPS was moving in the right direction and the man seemed more capable of building support for the changes he wanted to see in the system, rather than unnecessarily sowing discord.

[Anonymous]

Looks like Chancellor Rhee is too busy accepting being named DC Person of the year to make a statement concerning possible abuse in her schools.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/dc-schools/is-rhee-dcs-person-of-the-year.html

"Congratulations to D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee for being named the Federal City Council’s Person of the Year."

This is probably old news by now, but I just ran into it.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:Looks like Chancellor Rhee is too busy accepting being named DC Person of the year to make a statement concerning possible abuse in her schools.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/dc-schools/is-rhee-dcs-person-of-the-year.html

"Congratulations to D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee for being named the Federal City Council’s Person of the Year."

This is probably old news by now, but I just ran into it.

Of course, the Federal City Council has been the wizard behind the screen pulling the strings on DCPS ever since Fenty won the primary. Reinoso was an executive there and the Federal City Council set up EdBuild which was run by now City Administrator Neil Albert. I dare anyone to spend anytime looking at the linkages between education in DC and the Federal City Council and not end up as a conspiracy theorist.

[Anonymous]

This explains things nicely.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2010/01/25/why-michelle-rhee-needs-to-explain-her-sex-with-children-claim/

[Anonymous]

Chancellor Rhee’s spin will be that she is not a mandatory reporter and used the RIF’s as the only tool available to her to eliminate these teachers. She will claim that she is not a mandatory reporter as she does not come into contact with DC School Children on a daily basis as she is an administrator alone. In all likelihood, she did not ever personally come into contact with the child or children who were abused. She will probably even claim that these complaints were holdovers from the previous administration. She will also not be able to release details as the children are minors and this happened before her ‘watch’ and there are 'privacy issues' as charges were never levied. The ‘other’ school officials who should have know about this and were in Rhee’s opinion ‘mandatory reporters’ will most likely be fired before long. Either way, the blame for the lack of involvement by MPD or any other authority will be pushed to the Janey tenure and Rhee’s charmed life will go on.

[jsteele]

Mike Debonis (City Paper's Loose Lips) just tweeted:

"Rhee just talked to Tom Sherwood about teacher sex claim. Explains that 1 teacher was on admin leave for sex. misconduct when RIF'd."

http://twitter.com/mikedebonis/status/8212174320

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:Mike Debonis (City Paper's Loose Lips) just tweeted:

"Rhee just talked to Tom Sherwood about teacher sex claim. Explains that 1 teacher was on admin leave for sex. misconduct when RIF'd."

http://twitter.com/mikedebonis/status/8212174320

Ahhh...one teacher, some teachers, it all makes sense now.

Would Chancellor Rhee actually graduate from her own school district?

One heck of a professional we have on our hands. I guess that the Post can get back to making excuses for her and covering this one up.

[Anonymous]

Devil's Advocate. What if she was referring to people she got rid before the Oct RIF? In my dream world that's what she meant. Problem is, she's also implied there were likely mistakes with good staff being RIFed by vengeful or misinformed principals. Which is also horrible for kids. But as a taxpayer I don't want another council meeting circus that doesn't get anywhere. (Other than finding out the DCPS CFO wasn't actually the DCPS CFO.) As a parent, I want someone to come in and referee the BS. What happened to Schmoke? Or at least get a decent PR function for DCPS like Catania said. Any Spin Doctors out there willing to work for free?

[Anonymous]

So if it was only one teacher, Ms. Rhee owes a very big apology to 265 other teachers who were RIFFed. Of course the fact that she is engaged to Kevin Johnson should give her plenty of experience in this area.