Did she mention she’s still in negotiations with the union and the union is not considering the two tier system?

Did she mention that just three days before making this speech at Pace, she wrote an editorial in the Post saying for the first time that she didn’t blame teachers for students’ poor achievement?

Part of me is stunned that she would go to Pace a few days later and make her same old stale pitch about how all it takes is a good teacher. Then I remind myself that this is Michelle Rhee, who posed on the Cover of Time dressed in black and holding a broom and I realize that she is shameless.

I am looking at this from a hyper local context, in that I work in schools in NYC in underserved communities such as the Bronx and Washington Heights. I know that there are places where tenured non-performing teachers are housed all day. They read the paper, play cards, etc….Principals have to fight to give poor teachers unsatisfactory ratings, and teachers have to receive three unsatisfactory ratings before they can be removed. That’s three years where a bad teacher continues to work in school. For a middle school student, that’s their entire middle school career. Three years of a bad teacher and they are now going to high school unprepared. I know that I work with several students who receive xeroxed spelling lists from their teachers where words are spelled incorrectly. I have to show these students in a dictionary that these words are not spelled correctly. What about the other students in the class whose parents don’t speak English and can’t make the corrections? I know these stories sound made up, but they’re not. It’s great when good teachers are protected, but if the bad teachers are also being protected, then yes, I think the unions need some fixin’. The kids do not deserve this.

I am not saying that the unions are the only place to put the blame and maybe that’s where the conflict is, but I like to recognize when there are valid attempts at reform. Do we really want to go back the way NYC did education ten years ago?

She is merely a puppet.

It has never been about children for Rhee, but rather about forwarding a philosophy which is growing increasingly unpopular.

I give her a year before she is gone.

For every story your good friend in the Bronx has, there is a counterpoint. We are wasting time. We are wasting kids. We are adults and we are obliged to work towards improving eduction for children.

Try France, Germany and Sweden.

As much as people want to protect the unions, there is a lot that needs to be changed within the unions and if you can’t admit that, then you are living in a surreal world.

My good friend is a teacher in the Bronx. For the past three years she has raised the test scores of her students by an average of 20%. How? By spending time with them before and after school and making sure they understand math! And what happens? The union rep within her school constantly criticizes her and tells her that she needs to stop the after school tutoring until she is paid more for it.

I’m sorry that I’m not a fan of the unions, but this is not the only story that I have heard where union reps are trying to impede student progress.

If you truly believe that education is the great leveler than you would be rallying behind anyone who is saying that all children can learn and is making changes to that end. Unions are saying that tests are too hard and offering excuses instead of solutions.

But surely those who are in leadership roles should be able to lead, to lay down whatever stones they want to throw, to communicate better with parents, to bring people together to change what the general public sees as failure. This is rapidly becoming a rich versus poor town, an us versus them town. Education is the great leveler. The leadership of our DOE has made it clear to the public that they think no one knows better than they do. This leadership has managed to push away and silence the public voice for education.

Both Rhee and Klein are laser focused on unions as the cause of all that is wrong with schools. Look around. In other nations there are teacher and administrator unions with rules and structures similar to ours. How come they have passed us by? Why is the US always at the bottom of the barrel? maybe it’s leadership? Or the lack thereof?

And I love Michelle Rhee too, despite her utter lack of accomplishment and her complete inability to substantiate any of her claims about what happened during the five minutes she was a classroom teacher. You go girl!

And people should identify themselves instead of hiding behind a smoke screen of names