The Stonewall to Protect Michelle Rhee and Teach for America | Scathing Purple Musings
9AUG
One time Michelle Rhee apologist, Jay Mathews, predicted a cover-up. He got one. Wrote Mathews in June of the snail’s pace of the DC inspector generals investigation of test-cheating which occurred on Rhee’s watch as DC chancellor:
What about all those erasures? (Current) D.C. schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson seems uninterested in the question. “I am pleased that this investigation is complete and that the vast majority of our schools were cleared of any wrongdoing,” she said.I have been a reporter for 45 years. I have seen many cover-ups. This looks like one to me, and to many educators I have spoken to. D.C. officials have never investigated in any depth the wrong-to-right erasures that the District’s testing company began reporting in 2008.
Mathews was proved correct in yesterday’s release of the report. For USA Today:
A 17-month investigation into possible cheating on standardized tests at Washington, D.C., public schools focused on only one school and did not expand to any other school with rising test scores and suspiciously high rates of wrong answers changed to right ones.In a report issued Wednesday, city investigators said they found no reason to probe more than one elementary school, Noyes Education Campus, whose principal resigned in the wake of a USA TODAY story in March 2011. Investigators said they limited the probe because they believed news coverage of the scandal would limit future cheating — and because schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson handed over “no additional evidence” of cheating or “investigative leads to pursue.”D.C.’s Office of the Inspector General said it considered expanding the probe to other schools, but concluded that “once the erasure issue came to light, any improper practices that may have occurred in the past would diminish.”
Here’s some of what Mathews wrote yesterday afternoon:
Many D.C. educators have convinced me that the wrong-to-right erasures at many schools, averaging more than 10 per child in some classes, could not be the work of the test takers. Students almost never correct their answers on such tests, since they have no effect on their grades. The answers had to have been changed, several teachers said, by school officials after the tests were handed in, since those officials would benefit from high scores.The investigators made note of D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson’s defense of another elementary school with as many erasures as Noyes — J.O. Wilson. The report said Henderson defended Wilson as a great school where any visitor can see “quality, engagement and rigor.”The investigation made no attempt to interview students at Noyes and ask them if they remembered making any erasures on test sheets full of indications of answers being changed.I will have more on this in Monday’s column. I think the truth of what happened in these tests will come out some day, but not because of the three inadequate investigations financed with D.C. tax dollars.
Strangely neither Mathews nor USA Today mention Rhee in their report. No matter. Others already have.
Henderson’s statements and actions in this whole affair couldn’t be more suspicious. But they make sense. Like Rhee, she has a lot invested in the DC model and its test data being pure. Moreover, the DC teacher evaluation system she and Rhee conjured up known as IMPACT is being sold around the nation. Florida’s is now a virtual recreation after Rhee had a seat at the table with Gov. Rick Scott’s education transition team.
But Rhee and Henderson share something else. Both are Teach for America alums. A scandal on the level that DC is turning out to be could seriously cripple the reputation of Wendy Kopp’s organization. With Rhee and Henderson TFA’s most prominent figures, the money for the self-described non-profit could begin to dry up. Last year, TFA received $14.9 million in federal grants.
The whole idea of "reform" is autonomy and consequences. These cheaters sound a lot like the people I work with, except the cheating part and autonomous part. I guess we get stuck with the consequences, huh?
ReplyDeleteCould greed and control really be the motives driving "reform"?
Well look who's behind so much of it- opportunists, hedge funders, political hacks, BUT NOBODY WHO SERVES IN A CLASSROOM. Gotta wonder why, Oh because that's who the "reformers" blame for everything from poverty stricken kids to mentally ill and incarcerated "parents."
ReplyDeleteA few months ago, Dr. King formed a "forensic" unit at State Ed. to investigate the erasures etc. on the tests. It will be ineteresting to see if he gets his 2.5 million dollars worth of "gotchas". I wonder why this new "force" is such a secret...?
ReplyDeleteIt was probably sent to Superintendents on Andrew's Blackberry so there would be no trace of its existence or the ultimate waste of money that could lower class sizes.
Yeah we really don't need any forensics experts to figure out what the governor and his flunkies are trying to do to public schools. Their panels are stacked with corporate parasites and charter school hucksters, people like Boulous and Radford and not a single public school teacher or principal. In NYC they even had the balls to cram everyone into a tiny sweaty auditorium in the Bronx and refused to let Carol Burris speak even though she submitted her remarks ahead of time so they could be ready to keep her from saying anything. One 3 hour meeting for the largest school district in the country, yeah, I don't need NYSED's CSI Team to spell anything out for me. Is Katie the lead investigator on the team or is she still trying to write up teacher evaluations for public schools but not charters? What a pathetic unfunny joke.
ReplyDelete