Michelle Rhee: My Break With the Democrats

[n2doc]

I'm not going to post her drivel, you can read it here if you can stomach it:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/04/michelle-rhee-my-break-with-the-democrats.html

But the next time someone says she is a democrat, I am going to point them to this.

[Mass]

1. She was on John Stewart yesterday. It is worth watching as John Stewart called her on her lies

several times.

[DJ13]

2. Its her break with sanity thats most worrying

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. I honestly don't care what party she belongs to

My opinion of her is not based on her party affiliation.

[FBaggins]

4. So a disagreement on a couple issues means she's no longer a Democrat?

Has she changed her mind on tax policy, abortion, personal freedoms, etc.etc.etc?

There have been Democrats in favor of voucher programs for many years. It doesn't mean they cease to be Democrats.

I remember a West Wing episode about a decade ago where both Charlie Young and the Mayor of DC supported the idea. Obviously these are fictional characters, but just as obviously it means that Sorkin was picking up on some variability in the traditional Democratic position. Is Anthony Williams no longer considered a Democrat?

[madfloridian]

5. She wrote the article about breaking with Democrats.

Her words.

[FBaggins]

6. Yes... but NOT an article about leaving the party.

A break on some issue is not the same thing as changing sides in general.

I'd also point out that authors often don't get to write the titles of the story - an editor does that (so those aren't even necessarily "her words&quot . Her text talks about a specific break from a specific "dogma"... and continues to call herself "a lifelong Democrat"

You can't say "here's a question we Democrats need to ask" if you don't consider yourself a Democrat.

[madfloridian]

11. Actually she fits right in with the Dem party on education reform.

Except for vouchers. Many Democratic politicians do support them, but the main issue for them now is charter schools.

Vouchers are not the main goal yet for Democrats.

I don't care what party she is, doesn't matter right now. This admin has given the green light to privatize public education.

[FBaggins]

12. You're exactly right.

It doesn't make sense to take one person after another and pretend that they aren't Democrats. The reality is that teachers unions used to hold a great deal of power within the party and that has changed substantially.

Re/Deform is rapidly becoming a popular position in the party. We can't just write them off with a label that says they don't count.

[HiPointDem]

13. Democrats flee StudentsFirst, cite conservative policy stance

Last edited Wed Feb 6, 2013, 07:18 AM - Edit history (1)

“Rhee purported to be the face of a bipartisan movement to “transform education,” while simultaneously battling Democratic teachers unions and appearing chummy in photo ops with conservative Republican governors like Rick Scott (Fla.) or John Kasich (Ohio).

All the while, a small cadre of influential Democrats stood behind her, helping her craft messages on things like her positions on unions (that they are entitled to collective bargaining on salary issues), and trying to fend off attacks from the progressive community (one in particular thwacked her explicitly for her right-wing contacts). But in the last few months, these Democrats — including the group’s vice president of communications, Hari Sevugan, as first reported by education blogger Alexander Russo — have left the group, ceding control to a group of new hires, including president Kahlil Byrd.

Dmitri Mehlhorn, the group’s former COO, has left to lead Bloomberg Law. Mike Phillips, who served as Rhee’s chief of staff for communications, took a leave of absence this fall to work on Sen. Chris Murphy’s (D-Conn.) campaign, but ultimately never rejoined. Tali Stein, a former Hillary Clinton fundraiser who led StudentsFirst’s development, left two months ago to focus on other projects. Ximena Hartsock, a Democratic lobbyist, also left.

“There were known to be some significant differences on political strategy and policy matters, especially in StudentsFirst’s approach toward unions and partisanship,” said ao be named in order to preserve working relationships.”

http://www.rheefirst.com/democrats-flee-studentsfirst-cite-conservative-policy-stance


Rhee says she is no longer a democrat; possibly because her cozying up to murdoch, koch, scott walker, etc. has made that claim increasingly untenable.

Remember Michelle Rhee? She has stripped Tennessee teachers of their collective bargaining rights. She likes to pretend that she’s a moderate, but, her record proves otherwise. She played a role in passing an anti-union bill and even co-authored an op-ed with Former Republican Senate Leader Bill Frist.

She is the former Chancellor of DC Public Schools whose record has been debunked by a major cheating scandal. She left DC and opened StudentsFirst with major donations from Wall Street tycoons, including Rupert Murdoch. She now travels around the country and works mainly with conservative Republicans like Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley to (as I mentioned above) limit collective bargaining for teachers, institute private charter schools and promote private for-profit cyber schools.

Rhee recently attended a ceremony MC’d by Foster Friess, who just happens to be the bag of cash man bankrolling the Rick Santorum SuperPAC. She and her husband accepted an award at the Joe Foss Institute, an organization that has very close ties to the NRA and some other lovely right wing groups.

Yes, there she is, with a Cheshire Cat grin, posing with the Koch-loving, Islam-hating, Santorum-backing, Tea Party Patriot MC Foster Friess.

Let’s spice this up with a Friess quote:

Image from http://www.ksvoboda.com/?p=1410

“The Kochs are a national treasure. They’re true patriots.”

And just for bad measure, here’s Foster Friess doing his best to scare us silly with his introduction of the Islamophobic video, Obsession...

This is the club of which Michelle Rhee is an honored member...

http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2012/02/09/guns-rick-santorum-the-koch-brothers-islamophobia-and-michelle-rhee/

and democrats appear to be deserting rhee, possibly because the corruption is boiling over to the point where it can't be hidden from the public much longer.

[Starry Messenger]

14. I didn't know Friess did the intro to "Obsession"

The release and heavy distribution of that movie in 2008 was timed to raise fear about Obama being elected too. It was one of the topics I first posted on DU when I stopped lurking. I lost track of who all was involved in that, but it was dirty. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erik-ose/pro-mccain-group-dumping_b_125969.html

I just said the other day that StudentsFirst and the Koch brothers would probably be associated soon. They have too much in common to not join together.

She is no longer a Democrat by any objective standard.

[HiPointDem]

16. they already are associated; koch = donor

After failing in Washington D.C., Rhee jumped statetostate, helping Republican governors dismantle public education. She gave many speeches, charging $50,000 per appearance, plus first-class expenses. In 2010, she founded StudentsFirst, which claims that it will “transform” public education. Judging from StudentsFirst’shistory and funding, they favor transformation that will benefit the one percent, not public school children. On its website, Bain & Company (where Mitt Romney was a venture capitalist) boasts that it helped Rhee build an “in-depth plan” to start her new playground. While Rhee tried hard to hide her donors’ identity, it was eventually discovered that the billionaire founder ofNews Corporation (which owns Fox News and was implicated in a large wiretapping scandal in Britain), Rupert Murdoch, spent part of his large fortune to prop up StudentsFirst. Charles and David Koch, who inherited billions from their father and have spent millions in an attempt to buythe 2012 elections, have also donated to Rhee’s group.

http://www.movechicagoschoolsforward.com/michelle-rhee-and-studentsfirst/


As it turns out, the “education empire” lawsuit was filed by StudentsFirst lobbyist Rich Thompson. When Thompson isn’t filing nonsense lawsuits, or regaling Tea Party ralliers with tales about how women lack business acumen, he’s out doing Michelle Rhee’s bidding. He lobbied for StudentsFirst in the Georgia legislature, and even turned up in Missouri to speak in favor of a StudentsFirst-backed bill (on the same day as several other StudentsFirst employees). Thompson was also featured in a video supporting the Georgia initiative, released by Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, which partnered with StudentsFirst to push for the statewide charter authorizer law.

http://www.rheefirst.com/

[Starry Messenger]

17. Thank you!

I asked someone else the other day, and we weren't sure. It seemed like a natural fit though. She's shameless.

[FBaggins]

15. "Rhee says she is no longer a democrat"

That's the point of this thread - she has not, in fact, said that.

and democrats appear to be deserting rhee

In the last few weeks? Because there were some pretty prominent Democrats in her corner during the election season.

There's no use pretending that this isn't a split within the party... that it's just a couple former democrats who have gone astray. That ship sailed quite some time ago. There's a real battle going on, and it isn't republicans vs. democrats... it's within the party.

[HiPointDem]

19. she wrote an article called 'my break with the democrats' and she openly consorts with kochs and

other extreme right-wingers.

that's enough for me.

[FBaggins]

21. No. She didn't.

She wrote a book that was excerpted in an article edited and titled by someone else.

If someone agrees with democrats on nine out of ten things and agrees with RWers on one thing... they do not cease to be a Democrat.

If that were true, we would never win another election.

[HiPointDem]

23. That one does.

[FBaggins]

24. Sorry... it really doesn't.

There are too many Democrats now who support re/de-form in education to pretend that this is still a litmus test for "real" Democrats.

Or do you now consider the President to be a Republican?

[HiPointDem]

27. Education deform is a policy developed in republican think tanks and pushed by both parties, in

cooperation. They don't attempt to disguise it except on the campaign trail.

so you do the math.

[FBaggins]

29. If it's "pushed by both parties"...

... then you can't use it as evidence that a proponent is in the other party.

[HiPointDem]

33. the dividing line is vouchers and consorting with republican funders like koch and republican

politicians.

which rhee does.

in fact her political action group has funded republicans against democrats.

so give up the apologetics for the creep, already.

[mwrguy]

7. Go to hell Ms Rhee

take your neocon masters with you

[Angry Dragon]

8. Rhee is nothing more than a grifter

[reteachinwi]

9. She addresses the wrong issues.

Public, charter, and private schools have a difficult time overcoming the deficits of child poverty.

“Until very recently, the second finding, about the importance of reducing concentrations of school poverty, has been consciously ignored by policymakers, despite publication of study after study that confirmed Coleman’s findings.”
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/02/02-0

[Bok_Tukalo]

10. The Good School Bad School distillation process

From the article:

Usually mothers would request meetings with me during the school selection process that takes place each January and February.

...

She had applied to those schools and a number of others through a lottery process that allowed out-of-boundary students to attend certain schools.


What happens is the motivated parents, instead of working to improve their neighborhood schools, work to leave those schools and the distillation process results in very good and very bad schools.

The advent of so-called "choice" in the public school system has been a disaster which causes rising costs and neighborhood degradation.

The quickest way to kill a community is to kill its schools.

[sulphurdunn]

18. Her statement about

the "data" being perfectly clear that a teacher is the most important factor in education outcomes is not supported by any"data" of which I am aware and is probably a myth. What the data does make perfectly clear is that the number of parents in the home, the incomes of the parents and the educational levels of the parents are the most important factors in determining student success in school and that teachers are only the most important factors in classrooms. That is a distinction with a difference as wide as the Grand Canyon. Neither Rhee nor any of the other stooges of the billionaire social engineers will go within a country mile of that data, and for some unfathomable reason they are never scuttled with it during their infomercial interviews.

In fact Rhee gave the interview merely to reinforce her false teacher quality meme, upon which she has built her career. It went unchallenged by Stewart. Mission accomplished, again.

[HiPointDem]

20. i though stewart's interview was weak as well.

[sulphurdunn]

22. Yes.

But not surprising. If you work in mass media you probably don't need to be told not to go hard on any commodity of Bill Gates and other billionaire oligarchs.

[Mattias]

25. In the early

90s both Sweden (where im native from) and Finland changed there educational systems drastically from as both where experiencing depression like condidions. Sweden went with a voucher model and Finland with state education.

Both nations have reduced spending in education since then alot, with the difference that Finland now is number one according to PISA and Sweden has slipped from number one to 21st.

The finnish model was basically to give every teacher a goal, in one year your class are to be profficient in this and that, however you do it is your problem. If a finish teacher for example sees the class slipping in history she/he can change the corricilum to include more history as long as goals are reached.

The Swedish voucher model mean that parents after the fact that the shool they choose subperforms can change school.

Early action in a voucher system is hard as its the parents who act on yesterdays news is required. A model as the Finish logicaly seem and empiricaly is evident to perform better. The teacher who is closest to students are given the responsability.

[HiPointDem]

28. yes, i think a lot of people don't know that sweden was an early adopter of the charter school

model. and even though their version is reportedly more generous than the US model, it doesn't seem to have yielded any improvements over their previous system -- except for the capitalists making money off it.

[Mattias]

30. As the

swedish pupils PISA results have been in constant decline since start its unlikely that voucher schools give better results. However it is impossible to know as there is no way of knowing how the old system had performed.

But an educated guess is that public schools would not have performed worse, studies of performance done by the Education Departement actually show that the public schools generally perform better (the swedish system is a mix with about half, I think, the schools beeing public).

The voucher system is a classic case of assymetric information, in that the parents and the students always have less information than the schools. Meaning that decisions made by the buyer is at best based on historical performance which dont guarantee future performance. With only the seller holding information about likely future performance the seller is unlikely to provide negative information.

Other negative events, even if rare, that has occured is private schools going bankrupt, making the goverment often at great cost having to step in to provide the education. prof. George Akerlof has written an excellent essay on this called the market for lemmons.

The finish model seem to be the optimal one, with the teacher having a set goal for what pupils are expected to know but having alot of freedom to set the corricilum after her/his own mind. This have also shown to have the bonus that teaching is a popular career and respected profession even as the pay by academic standard remain comparably low. The explanation to this is propably the freedom given. Another bonus is that it eliminates assymetric information as the teacher who is responsible also have the best information and knowledge how to reach set targets.

[duffyduff]

32. I don't care about Scandinavia, which is far smaller in population and not diverse

Any arguments promoting this line as a way for our schools in the US to follow are not valid.

Not to mention the fact you do not understand what is going on in this country. This has NOTHING to do with education or kids--this is just another avenue in the onslaught to stripping the public good for private profit.

It's coming your way in Europe, too.

[duffyduff]

31. Sweden v. US = Apples and Oranges. Not valid in US.

The notion of charter schools actually began as a naive, utterly stupid concept by the late AFT leader Al Shanker back in the 1980s as a way for parents and teachers to come together and create "experimental" schools. Of course, this was a stupid notion on its face, as schools would NEVER be allowed to exist that weren't free from administrative interference.

When the con artists like the Bradley Foundation discovered it was a good way to force privatization on people when vouchers proved to be utterly unpopular with voters, only then did Shanker come out against them.

[longship]

26. Her break with reality!

Her lunge for fame and unbridled greed and egomania at the cost of education and, especially, the teachers who do all the real work.

Disgusting human being, that Rhee.
She's a leech.