The war to starve, privatize and digitize public education and destroy teachers' unions rages on.

[seafan]

So, today a media investigation is focused on widespread cheating on standardized tests (to inflate test scores) in Washington, D. C. schools, during the tenure of Michelle Rhee, chancellor of the Washington public schools from 2007 to 2010. Apparently, Rhee is hiding from questions about her role in this.


Eager for Spotlight, but Not if It Is on a Testing Scandal, NYT, August 21, 2011 (Why is Michelle Rhee running away from scrutiny?)


Widespread cheating on this reviled, standardized school testing?


Quite notably, the same thing has happened in Florida, where, not-so-incidentally, Governor Rick Scott put Rhee on his educational transition team when he bought himself into power last November.

Rhee and Jeb Bush, in tandem, are pushing these despised standardized tests as part of the witches' brew of "bold education reform" . When it comes to the survival of quality public education, these two are poison.






June 18, 2011, WaPo:

.....

According to various Florida media outlets, 14 counties have been ordered by state officials to look for cheating on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, or FCAT, the exam that more than 4 million students took during the school year.

According to WPTV, a security system that checked all of the tests flagged more than 7,000 as suspicious — 6,967 of them for similarities in results and 864 fora high amount of erasures.

The Naples News reported that Florida officials had contracted with Caveon Test Security to examine all of the tests ...... But, too, Caveon was the company that found suspicious irregularities in the standardized tests taken in the D.C. public school system over a few years. Investigators have launched a probe following suggestions that there was widespread cheating in the District during the tenure of former chancellor Michelle Rhee.

.....

But now we have teachers (and even principals) who are allegedly helping them cheat because of the new trend to evaluate educators on the basis of how well their students do on these tests. It’s not a fair way to evaluate teachers (hungry, sick, anxious and uninterested kids probably won’t do well on a test, and teachers can’t necessarily address all those problems), but that hasn’t stopped state after state from adopting the approach, with the blessing of the Obama administration.

.....

Using these tests as a measure of "accountability" is a farce. But, then, the Bush family wouldn't benefit as nicely if these tests were dropped. Brother Neil Bush in particular.


Many more details of the extremely toxic Michelle Rhee-Jeb Bush-Rick Scott-Rupert Murdoch alliance (including billionaires Bill Gates, the Walton Family and Eli Broad) to privatize and digitize public education into oblivion are here, here and here.

[Starry Messenger]

1. k&r

[classof56]

2. Is this the Michelle Rhee who's CEO and Founder of StudentsFirst?

'Cause I've been getting her e-mails, why I'm not sure, but the group's stated goal is to "fight to transform public education and save teachers from seniority-based layoffs". I am aware of her and the havoc she wreaked in DC schools (IIRC), and thus far have ignored her e-mails, but perhaps a pointed response would be in order. Thanks for this post!

Tired Old Cynic

[seafan]

3. Michelle Rhee created the "Students First" org to undermine the strength of teachers' unions.

More info about her in the latter half of this thread. She and Jeb Bush are a veritable tag team in obliterating public education as we know it.


There are efforts underway to determine if there is a direct line from Rupert Murdoch funneling some of his billions toward this organization of Rhee's.



This "Students First" **advocacy** group that Rhee founded is directly involved in opposing the strength of teachers' unions. And Jeb Bush utterly despises teachers' unions too. I seriously doubt there is a day he wakes up that he isn't crafting more of his "devious plans" to kill them off for good.


What a team.



Some days, this $&*$ is just so deep, it's hard to see a way out.

[amborin]

4. kr

[madfloridian]

5. They always kept tests locked away from teachers except for testing sessions.

That is what is so pathetic. In every school in which I taught, we had to go to the office and personally take the tests back to our room, then return them once the test sessions were ended. They were put in a locked storage room.