Michelle Rhee - Will She Get Investigated?

According to the NY Times, it seems that there is an investigation about the cheating in D.C. schools and guess who it may reach?  Yes, that would be Michelle Rhee. 

Apparently, Arne Duncan enjoys spending stage time with Rhee but others are questioning why he is being seen with her at all.

From the article;

If there is any hope of getting to the bottom of what went on in the Washington schools — whether Ms. Rhee is as amazing as Mr. Duncan said, or whether test scores were inflated by cheating — it is through the inquiry by the inspector general. (Catherine Grant, a spokeswoman for the office, confirmed that an investigation was under way, but would not give details.) 

Ms. Rhee’s reputation as a national leader of the education reform movement has rested on those test scores, which soared while she was chancellor. Then, last March, USA Today published the results of a yearlong investigation of the Washington schools that found a high rate of erasures on tests as well as suspiciously large gains at 41 schools — one-third of the elementary and middle schools in the district. 

Since then, Ms. Rhee has refused to talk to the reporters who know the story best, although she has been talking to many other people.

It appears that there are many similarities between the Atlanta cheating scandal and the Washington, D.C. one.  We know how the Atlanta one turned out.  Atlanta and D.C. even used the same firm to try to clear their district.  But in D.C.'s case:

In 2009, Ms. Rhee announced that Caveon’s inquiry had cleared the district, but the company’s owner, John Fremer, disagreed, saying that the scope of the investigation was limited and that he was not asked by Ms. Rhee to do more. 

Comments

dan dempsey said…
Hey maybe Rhee was a miracle worker?

After all Rhee had Everyday Math in place in WA DC .... and if she got scores for Low Income Kids and/or Black students and/or American Indian kids to go up much that would be a miracle.

NY City also uses a lot of EDM and NYC scores were recently debunked.

As for Seattle and EDM ... no need to debunk SPS EDM Math scores they suck.

Here are the changes in SPS score differentials from WA state scores for the same demographic.

Average of two years Spring 2006 and 2007 and the differential in 2011 => yielded these differences above or below the state averages

............. Reading :: Math
Low Income students
Grade 3 => +5.10% :: -2.90%

Grade 4 => -2.05% :: -2.25%

Grade 5 => -0.10% :: +0.55%

Black students
Grade 3 => +2.25% :: -4.75%

Grade 4 => -4.65% :: -1.30%

Grade 5 => -0.50% :: -0.95%

American Indian
Grade 3 => -17.00% :: -9.25%

Grade 4 => -16.20% :: -12.30%

Grade 5 => -7.75% :: -11.45%

===================
Keep in mind that with EDM math class time was increased to 75 minutes per day and a huge number of math coaches for teachers were employed and Enfield said the teachers were getting a better handle on teaching the math when she commented on current math situation.

On MSP Math 2011 in looking at SPS differential scores with state the following groups posted their worse score in the EDM years in 2011.

5th grade American Indians
4th grade American Indians

5th grade Black Students
4th grade Black students
3rd grade black Students

5th grade Low Income students
4th grade Low Income students
3rd grade Low Income students

In that same time frame the last four years of test scores...

For reading these SPS groups had their lowest differential score from State score.

4th grade Black students

5th grade American Indians
4th grade American Indians
3rd grade American Indians

===============
Guess Seattle needed to be taking tips from Rhee about how to use EDM ... or at least on how to raise math scores.

HERE is the spreadsheet.

================
No wonder the Board and Administration ignored the questions as to when the District conducted a careful review of all options for closing achievement gaps before approving TFA and the conditional cert applications (Ignoring State Law again --- keeping SAO Tony Martinez busy).
================
The coming board meeting has agenda items for Instructional materials Waivers, Canceling TFA agreement, Limiting testimony to two minutes, and the MOU which likely stretches the law to its limit if not beyond.

Sure looks like these folks want to look everywhere ... except at their own incompetence for the system that produces such academic malaise.
Anonymous said…
If it is the the 0bummer administration doing the investigation ... yawn.

I'm sure they'll get to it, after they've cleaned up Wall Street, and then the despicable shenanigans of the "health" insurance business ... yawn.

YawnYawn
wseadawg said…
She is a mean-spirited fraud artist with severe pathological traits of an anti-social personality disorder. It must be a requirement for admission to the Broad SI Academy.

Why anyone would give a dime to listen to that loser is beyond me, let alone 50k, but that's what she bags for a speech these days.

DEFR loves her, and the Leer Jet owning Sun Valley and Aspen crowds invite her to their overlord pow-wows every year.

Dems vs. Repubs is a sham. It's about the money. Always has been, always will be.
Anonymous said…
No Ms. Rhee will not get investigated. Even if there is a high erasure rate, the effect of this investigation would directly impact the principals and teachers involved, not Ms. Rhee. So you are talking about their jobs and not Ms. Rhee's as she doesn't have a job with DCPS anymore. A paying job is what pays rent, food, gas. So who are the bigger losers here. It's folks in the trenches. Not Ms. Rhee. DCPS has way bigger problems than this right now and their problems are far bigger and than Seattle's (be grateful you have kids in SSD). It won't matter that Rhee created or accentuated the environment that nurtured this. She's sitting next to Arne and that is what matters. Charters are here to stay in DCPS as are standardized testing and merit pay.

getting real

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