Michelle Rhee Gets Saved

From Mike Klonsky:

Rhee's strategy had been nothing less than shattering D.C.'s teachers union and overriding the teachers collective bargaining agreement with the district. Broom in hand, she promised her patrons at Broad and Gates, that she would close schools, turn them over to private management companies and the Archdiocese, and sweep away teacher tenure and fire teachers in mass....

The contract, if and when it is ratified by the rank-and-file, is a life raft, thrown by Weingarten, that Rhee (and Dunn) hope can keep her, Parker, and Fenty afloat, at least until after the elections....

Klonsky: For The Sake Of Clarity...

Mike Klonsky clears thing up:

For the sake of clarity, I don't think the current regime is worse than the neo-cons or that Sec. Duncan is worse than Paige or Spellings. The fact that teachers and their union leadership is even at the table, represents a step up from the previous 8 years.

My point was that there are some things, some policies, which are even more destructive and more of a threat to the public aspect of public schooling. What is worse about current policies is the cynical way Duncan has used his power and the threat of withholding desperately-needed federal dollars in the midst of the current economic crisis, to coerce states and school districts into accepting his failed approach to reform (there's now important and overwhelming evidence of this failure coming out in the Chicago media). [emphasis mine]

Arne Duncan's Ren10 Is A Confirmed Failure

Mike Klonsky has been exposing Arne Duncan's failure as Chicago schools CEO regularly. Now with the exposure of the truth about Duncan's Ren10 failure, Klonsky takes his well-deserved shot (sans links):

Duncan should apologize


I can't help but look back to 2006, when in response to our early critical assessment of Ren10, Arne Duncan wrote:

Academics are supposed to stick to the facts and remain impartial, but Ayers and Klonsky have clearly failed the test...Closing and reopening a failing school is an absolute last resort, intended only for the small handful of schools that have consistently underperformed while the rest of the system has made steady and dramatic gains...All of us in Chicago are grateful to Ayers and Klonsky for their work with small schools in our city and their continuing commitment to education, but they need to get their facts straight.

Duncan's response was at best misleading. He is calling for the closing of thousands of schools, not as a "last resort" but as the mainstay of his mandated Race-To-The-Top strategy and threatening the losses of badly needed school funding if states and districts fail to comply.

He owes us and more importantly, the children and parents of Chicago Public Schools an apology for what they've been put through. He also needs to get HIS OWN facts straight. Reading the recent studies from the Civic Committee, the Consortium on Chicago School Research, the Washington Post, or even the Sunday Trib would be a good start. The verdict is in on Renaissance 2010 and on the myth of the Chicago Miracle.

Finally, he needs to stop reproducing, on a national level, his now obviously failed Ren10 strategy.