Posted on 05/15/2009 9:39:52 AM PDT by bs9021
DC Vouchers Rhee-Visited
by: Bethany Stotts, May 15, 2009
On May 5, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee told a symposium on innovation in education that she doesn’t care whether education providers earn a profit if they are effective. “Textbook companies, food service companies, they all don’t do a whole lot of great stuff but they all make a ton of money off of kids,” she argued. Rhee later added that for her the “bottom line” for her is
a) “what is this organization going to deliver,” b) “what guarantees are they going to make,” and c) “how are they going to fit into our overall plan.”
She argued that opponents to for-profits in education were creating “sort of a false kind of dynamic” meant to “villainize a few of these for-profit organizations.”
However, when asked what type of innovative methods she’d like to see get additional funding, Chancellor Rhee did not mention the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. Instead, she pointed to programs such as City Year and Wireless Gen. (Research has shown that the DC voucher program improves some participant’s reading skills).
“I think that we have some things going on in the District right now that I think, with some of the entrepreneurial partners that I think have a tremendous amount of promise,” she said, encouraging philanthrophic donors to invest in somewhat risky education innovations. “I think in some ways education philanthropy has kind of become a sector where they only want to invest in the sure things, right? If it was a sure thing, we’d fund it with the public money, right?,” she said....
(Excerpt) Read more at campusreportonline.net ...
In other words, she gets a kickback form textbook and food companies, but not for vouchers.
I have never heard anyone in the education establishment that explained the situation as clearly as Ms. Rhee.
Thanks for posting.
What’s your gripe? Rhee says that textbook and food companies make money off schoolkids, so that a profit-making company doing so is no different. She ISN’T saying that vouchers or profit making education are bad.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.