On March 26, NBC‘s Today show did a pretty moving report about Susan Sluyter, a veteran Massachusetts teacher who decided to leave the field because of the dramatic changes she’s seen as a result of an overemphasis on standardized testing.
But it was the segment after the report that was so puzzling: an interview with corporate education lobbyist Michelle Rhee, who was at the center of a massive standardized-test cheating scandal when she was chancellor of the Washington, DC, school district.
In the piece about Sluyter, correspondent Ron Mott called her resignation letter a “sobering assessment” of the state of public education. Her words certainly resonated with many; as anchor Matt Lauer pointed out, when the Today show posed an online question: “Are standardized tests the best way to have kids learn?,” 5,692 voted no, while just 41 voted yes.
Interesting, then, that the Today show would choose to feature Rhee, whose reputation was built largely around the idea that test-taking would be one of the most effective ways to expose bad teachers. Rhee’s history on this question is legendary; a famous Time cover (12/8/08) showed Rhee, broom in hand, ready to clean up the messy business of public schools.
But Rhee’s record wasn’t really up for examination. Lauer’s first question:
You have children in public schools. I have children in public schools. What is your gut reaction to what this teacher wrote in her resignation letter?
Rhee even declared at one point that she decried schools “where there’s an overemphasis on testing.”
This is where some explanation of Rhee’s record would come in handy. She is only on TV because of the supposed turnaround she engineered in DC schools. But that storyline suffered a serious hit when USA Today (3/28/11) uncovered evidence of cheating on the tests that Rhee was using as proof that her radical methods were working. Rhee’s response to the paper was interesting: “When reached by telephone, Rhee said she is no longer the chancellor and declined to comment further.”
For Rhee’s critics, the revelations suggested that Rhee’s successes weren’t what they appeared to be. The plot thickened when USA Today (4/11/13) reported on a confidential memo that warned Rhee that cheating on the tests was possibly widespread, and that the district should immediately investigate. The paper notes that little seemed to come of the memo, as business as usual prevailed: Schools with “high” scores were rewarded by Rhee, and teachers at schools with low scores were fired by the hundreds.
That memo was uncovered by veteran education reporter John Merrow, who had followed and reported on Rhee’s tenure for years. His article “Michelle Rhee’s Reign of Error” (Taking Note, 4/11/13) provides many of the details. He closed by noting this:
That Michelle Rhee named her new organization StudentsFirst is beyond ironic.
Rhee’s history could make her an interesting person to interview for a critical piece about the overemphasis on standardized testing. But the failure to mention Rhee’s scandal suggests that either the Today show doesn’t know that history–or doesn’t think it matters.
Today‘s email: today@nbcuni.com
Just one more example/reason I have not watched network TV/network TV “news” in over two decades. It is worthless at best. Just my opinion, yours may vary.
Great article! Rhee is a disgrace to education. I also love her screenshot here, she looks absolutely imbecilic.
The Today show is about entertainment, not journalism.
Beyond ironic!! Rhee left a path of destruction in already beleaguered DC schools loaded with disadvantaged children, and gets hauled in as an “expert”? Looks like the Today Show hosts are deficient in what’s so lacking in what remains of our public school system: the teaching of critical thinking skills. Who has time for that when the emphasis has forcibly been shifted towards test scores and teacher evaluations/careers which depend on their results? Any teacher today who wants continuing employment will flee towards jobs in schools with high achieving students where the magic ingredients exist: Parents and community who value and support education. The real solution? A level playing field for all students.
Network television, especially what they term news, would be laughable if the propaganda they spread were not so pernicious. The well-paid imbeciles on the morning programs can astound you with their lack of knowledge of anything and everything.
NBC’s Education Nation is backed by corporate education privatizers.
Network TV hosts are spoon-fed questions to ask. So why would NBC omit Rhee’s background info? Oh gosh, let’s see. NBC and the Obama administration are one and the same and Obama and Duncan love Rhee so did ya really think brain-dead lemming Lauer would go against his bosses? And don’t get me started why the “it’s poverty,stupid” crowd doesn’t vet Ravitch. She’s as mixed up with high stakes testing, Gates and Common Core as the rest of them–she still hasn’t answered for her part in Gates Common Core Mapping Project. She has flip-flopped so much anybody vetting her will have whiplash. Rhee and Ravitch are cut from the same cloth,it just wears differnently on each of them.
First you outsource the prisons. Then to fill the prisons, you outsource the police. Next you outsource the schools, and to keep them filled, no child is left behind. If really bad antisocial behavior develops, you send some of the schoolchildren to the prisons. Then if parents start to complain, you simply outsource the Congress.
Oh, I forgot, we’ve already done that.
” a famous Time cover (12/8/08) showed Rhee, broom in hand, ready to clean up the messy business of public schools.”
Clean up public school business? I thought that was her ride to work. Sorry.