Can Michelle Rhee Save Your Child's School?

Yahoo ^ | Dec 13, 2010 | Victoria Leigh Miller

[george76]

| Michelle Rhee, the outspoken former chancellor of the Washington D.C. public school system, has a new mission in life: She wants to save the world. OK. She wants to save the United States' public education system, but it's still a massive undertaking.

Her new mission -- Students First -- is being called "A movement to transform public education."

And just to be sure she had a big audience for the official launch of her new venture, Rhee announced it last week on "The Oprah Winfrey Show." She also was featured on a Newsweek cover story, so the word is out: Michelle Rhee is everywhere.

She plans to take on teachers' unions, work to employ "great " teachers (and get rid of the not-so-great ones), use tax dollars to create better school programs, and make the American education system the best public school system the world.

[April Lexington]

How many Education Movements have we had since the 1960s? This is the same old crap. Big public money wasted on people who have NO interest in learning or mainstreaming. I say we use the money to assist these poor souls in migrating to better opportunities elsewhere. Money spent on public education is a total waste. It never works. It only supports the middle class (white) education industry and the Democratic Party. Abolish public schools. If someone wants an education, find a private academy...

[Dilbert San Diego]

She had made some great progress in changing the direction of the disaster in the Washington, DC, public school system. For her efforts, she was fired.

[Fred Hayek]

She was one of the very few adminstrators who identified and tackled the real problems. And she stepped on some toes in the process, gored a few sacred cows as well.

I saw the movie “Waiting for Superman”. For a documentary made by a liberal (same as who produced “An Inconvenient Truth”), it was surprisingly even handed.

[Windflier]

Michelle Rhee is the real deal. That lady took on one of the most entrenched, corrupt school districts in the country, and damn near reformed it, before she was forced out by the Commies in the teacher’s union.

She’s one of the most impressive people I’ve seen in the last decade. Keep an eye on her. She’s going to do great things.

[Graybeard58]

She had made some great progress in changing the direction of the disaster in the Washington, DC, public school system. For her efforts, she was fired.

As usual, I'm late to the thread and someone has already said what I was going to say.

[MinorityRepublican]

She can’t save the United States of America but she can save your child’s school system.

[GladesGuru]

Doctors, engineers, lawyers - all are professionals, hired for what they know. Professionals have professional associations.

Truck drivers, carpenters, even garbage men are workers hired for what they can do with their hands and with tools they know how to use - they all have unions.

Teachers have unions, not professional associations - what does that tell us about teachers?

[frogjerk]

She and her husband are big Obama supporters. Just give us the money wasted in Public Schools these days and we’ll take care of our kids.

[joe.fralick]

She’s done courageous things and made the right enemies, but the cult that’s grown up around her is just another example of our desperate search for a savior who will do the impossible. There’s perpetual motion, there’s turning lead into gold, and there’s educating our dysfunctional underclass. Good luck with all of that.

[17th Miss Regt]

For her efforts, she was fired.

As well she should be. The aim of public education is not to train youngsters to think for themselves but rather to be mindless, obedient slaves. She was diverting the school system from its fundamental function.

[Ouderkirk]

You have forgotten Gramsci. Long march through the institutions and all. Why just cede them to the communists? Why not take them for the right and create a new paradigm.

However it has to state at the local level. The school board taking a stand against UFT/NEA and decertifying these unions.

At the federal level we need to repeal The Taft-Hartley Labor Act

[goodnesswins]

The STATES have to take on the education UNIOnS....NOT the feds...and it’s going to have to come from citizens, somehow.

[Tribune7]

The other side of Michelle Rhee

[blaveda]

Don't forget her vast experience in the classroom (three years) with those hardened elementary students and her inability to “control” them. How to you rise to her level of authority...the same way Obama got his job and the same way sociology major and BBall buddy Arne Duncan got his job, the old fashioned way being associates of the non vetted TOTUS.

[blaveda]

Don't forget her vast experience in the classroom (three years) with those hardened elementary students and her inability to “control” them. How to you rise to her level of authority...the same way Obama got his job and the same way sociology major and BBall buddy Arne Duncan got his job, the old fashioned way being associates of the non vetted TOTUS.

[CRBDeuce]

She plans to take on teachers' unions, work to employ "great " teachers (and get rid of the not-so-great ones), use tax dollars to create better school programs, and make the American education system the best public school system the world.

God....dat u?

[CRBDeuce]

Henry Ford was looking for workers. But all that showed up were labor!

[CRBDeuce]

At the federal level we need to repeal The Taft-Hartley Labor Act

AND make 'government union' a criminal offense.

[Clintonfatigued]

Public education is beyond saving.