This tactic is popular with folks who are trying to get their lies believed. They need to obfuscate, cheat and squash any and all dissent, especially dissent with facts to back it up.
Students First is in the business of convincing the public that poverty is a choice and can be overcome. Well, to be fair, they say that since poverty is such a huge problem they have decided to focus on the one factor in a school they know they can get popular support for--teacher bashing. They admit poverty is a much larger problem, and they go on to admit that it's too big for them, so they will focus on teachers, or something.
They are confused. They have no good reason for ignoring poverty as they claim to want to put students first.
Bullshit.
Poverty's effects account for 60-90% of factors negatively impacting a child's ability to learn. Teachers and schools have effects that account for the other 10-40% (most researchers agree that the low number --10% -- is the more accurate measure of the effects. Ninety percent of factors fall outside of school. Rhee want to focus on the 10%, and she want one billion dollars to do it).
If it weren't so dishonest it would be funny.
Update: Here is the proof that my assumption about SF being responsible for cutting off access to posting to their page was on purpose and not a glitch as they first claimed--a claim which has been scrubbed and replaced with the truth:
1) Here we have two comments where the missing SF claim of a glitch used to be. SF's original claim, that is was a glitch, was transposed by Sahila:
"StudentsFirst is not responsible for the removal of wall posting privileges, nor do we sensor any material that is not deemed abusive or profane. Unfortunately, Facebook is experiencing technical difficulties across the platform. We are working on having the issue resolved, thank you for your patience."It used to be between the 2 comments you see below, but it was removed.
2) Here we have the new comment from SF saying they did it, not FB, and they offer no explanation of the removal of their first comment that was a lie.
So, they lied, and were caught. And Michelle Rhee wants you to trust her. She lied. Again. Again? Yes, again. She lied about her students' scores as a teacher, she lied about all those screwed up teachers she fired as Chancellor (remember they were rehired at huge expense?), she lies about the negative effects of LIFO and tenure, and she lies about the root causes and solutions to poor school performance by our most vulnerable kids.
Why does anyone trust her? Oh, they don't. She's a tool of the Oligarchy, and trust has nothing to do with it.
