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CAT Tracks for February 10, 2011
JAY MATHEWS...IN A LATHER II |
A billion dollars for the defense...
Michelle Rhee's Students First organization (committed to raising $1 billion for education reform) comes to her aid and comfort...as reported by one of her biggest fans, Washington Post Columnist Jay Mathews.
Since Jay was "fair and balanced" enough to print "the lie", I shall do likewise with "the cover-up".
Ya know...
...this "defense" seems pretty lame.
Why doesn't Michelle (or her lushly funded organization) simply report "the truth"..."the data" from Michelle's brief career as a teacher?
I mean...
...trying to explain away questions about her "claim to fame" by posing possible errors in reporting...
...well, that would be like the friend of some drunk driver involved in an accident yesterday on icy roads trying to explain away the truth of his condition by pointing fingers at the weather, the other drivers who should not have been on the road with him (or who should have at least should have been able to avoid him since THEY were sober), or stating with moral certitude that the accident would NOT have happened on a sunny day when he was not drinking.
There's another "convenience"...
If our blogger digs deeper (and Jay describes him as tenacious)...and comes up with irrefutable proof - test scores on Michelle's students that prove that, rather than being "Superwoman", she is merely mortal - Michelle can stand before the bank of microphones that follow her everywhere and defiantly state: "I did NOT deny the allegations made about my test scores. That was the StudentsFirst organization..."
Don't know what kind of teacher Michelle Rhee was, but one thing cannot be denied...Michelle CAN peddle the snake oil! Michelle has managed to hornswoggle millions and millions of people out of billions and billions of dollars with her velvet forked tongue.
From the Washington Post...
Class Struggle
Rhee's response to blogger's allegations
By Washington Post editors
Michelle Rhee's advocacy group, StudentsFirst, on Wednesday evening issued a statement challenging blogger G.F. Brandenburg's account of her record as a Baltimore school teacher. The entire statement appears below:
A response to the unfounded attacks on Michelle Rhee
February 09, 2011
Our public schools are in crisis. Instead of talking about how to fix them, we're getting unfounded attacks on Michelle. To get back to the debate about public schools, we want to address this misinformation head-on.
A blogger has posted some error-laden numbers, based on a 1995 study, claiming that Michelle was not an effective teacher. A couple of mainstream journalists have picked up and re-broadcast this storyline without reviewing the underlying analysis.
Here are the underlying facts about the 1995 study:
•This was not a study of Michelle's students. It was a study of the school's entire grade level, which had four teachers.
•There is no way to know if any of Michelle's students were even included in this study. The study included only certain students at the school, and excluded large numbers from their sample.
Some have expressed surprise that credible journalists would swallow a blogger’s analysis without looking at the facts for themselves. We were quite frankly surprised ourselves. To our members, this episode is further proof of what we're up against and why we need your support to get the message out
By Jay Mathews
Posted by Mafara Hobson
