Investigation shows questionable test results under Michelle Rhee

[Recursion]

Source: KOS (via USAT)

Former Washington, DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee made her name on union-busting and allegedly improving test scores in the city's public schools. The test score gains were always overhyped by her supporters—now it turns out that they may have been fraudulent. According to a major investigative piece by USA Today reporters Jack Gillum and Marisol Bello, at Crosby S. Noyes Education Campus:

Standardized test scores improved dramatically. In 2006, only 10% of Noyes' students scored "proficient" or "advanced" in math on the standardized tests required by the federal No Child Left Behind law. Two years later, 58% achieved that level. The school showed similar gains in reading.

Rhee elevated the school as an example of how successful her program was, and handed out large bonuses to teachers and administrators. But a look at the test sheets of students during the time scores at Noyes were soaring shows a startling pattern of erasures in which an initial incorrect answer was erased and replaced with a correct one:

In 2007-08, six classrooms out of the eight taking tests at Noyes were flagged by McGraw-Hill because of high wrong-to-right erasure rates. The pattern was repeated in the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years, when 80% of Noyes classrooms were flagged by McGraw-Hill.

Read more: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/28/960859/-Investigation-shows-questionable-test-results-under-Michelle-Rhee

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As a former Rhee supporter, let me just say:

I

Was

Wrong.

Also, surprising (but encouraging) to see USA Today doing investigative stuff.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Pardon me, be right back!

:popcorn:

[Recursion]

5. Do you have any of the crow-flavored stuff? (nt)

[hlthe2b]

2. Glad to give Kos some traffic, but the real story is at USAT

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-03-28-1Aschooltesting28_CV_N.htm

Which given the potential for other MSM to pick up--something they would never do from a daily Kos or other progressive blog, I think this is the noteworthy aspect.

I'm glad to see this. That damned SuperMan movie with its blatant propaganda has so many of my progressive friends bamboozled and ready to hang onto Rhee's every word.

[Arctic Dave]

3. Are you trying tell me people would LIE for money and ideology!?

Get the smelling salts....

[Recursion]

4. The whole story filtered out to the country in a distorted way

She actually fired fewer teachers than her predecessor; she just seemed to enjoy it way too much. I was for the idea of making the WTU come to terms with the fact that DCPS is not a jobs program for Ward 8, but now that that's done we need to look more at why we're spending almost as much per-student as Fairfax County and have so much less to show for it. And the answer isn't senior teachers.

[mortfrom]

8. Why?

First, I'd suggest you look over Bob Sommerby's (The Daily Howler) work over the last decade or so. I surely won't do it justice. But as a former Baltimore teacher, he observed that there are kids who come to their first day of school two or three years behind their age-peers in Fairfax County-type districts, and they fall farther behind as the years roll on. It's not the teachers, the schools or the kids. It's largely the environment, along with hundreds of years of history weighing on the tender shoulders of those little ones. It can be remedied, but not by inexperienced TFA kids or concentrating students into large classes taught by fewer highly paid teachers. Raising the bar is absolutely pointless for kids who can't clear the bar they already have. It will take an honest assessment, revision of materials and curricula, and more effort than any district's been willing to spend.

Read Sommerby. He may not have all the answers, but he has a better grasp of the problems than anyone else I've read.

[riderinthestorm]

11. Great post Mort! Welcome to DU. nt

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[msanthrope]

6. Any teacher, principal, or administrator who did this ought to be fired, and their 'merit pay'

returned....they should be criminally prosecuted.

and if Michelle Rhee told people to do this, or knowingly covered it up, she should be prosecuted, too.

[SoulSearcher]

10. GA involved in the same thing

2 counties plus the Atlanta public school system on the block
for doing this - multiple teachers and principals changed grades,
culminating in a GBI investigation because the school officials
were seemingly covering up the actions of these imbeciles.
They have great teachers, but because of a few cheaters changing grades
to make their students look smarter than they were, they brought
national shame one their entire school systems and co-workers
(not to mention losing certification and making the kids look like they
could not compete otherwise!!)
Too many news stories to mention - just google it. The DC-story
pales compared to Atlanta-area public problems... btw - no firings.

[Bozita]

7. I'm shocked, shocked I tell you ...

... to find fraud and Michelle Rhee in the same sentence.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. Here's the problem: Fraud. And the people who are benefitting from

it are not getting held accountable.

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. Thank you!

I suspected as much. Glad to see MSM investigating.

[Starry Messenger]

14. Thank you.

I'm glad to see investigation of this. She's like the Uri Geller of education. People wanted to believe, but it's always best to be critical of those kinds of gains when none of the other variables really changed.

[SoCalDem]

15. Tons of money for changes & investigations, but not so much for teachers/schools.students

:grr:

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

16. I'm so happy that you are admitting this. I've had countless fights over what Rhee

did here in D.C. I can understand the firing of teachers who were engaging in unlawful, disgusting conduct. I can't, however, excuse the draconian approach that she resorted to over the treatment of public schools.

Now, she's in Florida doing the same thing.

[KamaAina]

17. This dandy little site has the goods on Rhee

http://www.rheefirst.com

"Michelle Rhee is the Sarah Palin of public education." :rofl:

[66 dmhlt]

18. Big Question: Why was Rhee so resistant to investigate it?

"Gist's proposal met resistance from Rhee's staff, documents obtained by USA TODAY show. Memoranda flew back and forth for five months as D.C. school officials questioned the methodology and the rationale for an investigation."

Source:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-03-28-1Aschooltesting28_CV_N.htm

[jimlup]

19. Don't worry about the guy behind the curtain

Smoke and mirrors is it? I should have known.

[annabanana]

20. I really really wish I was surprised.

I want so much to believe people who say they want to help the schools... but the agenda never seems to align with what I understand about schools.