"Waiting for Superman" movie resurfacing in Ohio. So is Michelle Rhee...its star.

madfloridian

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Wed Mar-30-11 01:28 PM
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"Waiting for Superman" movie resurfacing in Ohio. So is Michelle Rhee...its star.

Just when you thought that some of the shine had been taken off the blatantly pro-charter school movie called "Waiting for Superman", it is getting shown in front of the Ohio legislature.

Coincidentally Ms Rhee recently launched her "Campaign to Save Great Teachers" in Ohio as well....a move which of course spells possible doom for teachers with experience.

From the Columbus Dispatch:

Film offers false hope that charter schools will fix education

Waiting for Superman is making the rounds again. The film — a moving documentary about five families trying to get their kids into charter schools — was released to great fanfare and criticism last year. It’s getting a special showing tonight in Columbus, with Gov. John Kasich playing host to state lawmakers. I can’t help but be struck by a few ironies about the timing.

The first is that the governor and legislative leaders are in the midst of pushing a budget proposal that would cripple teaching and learning in this state. Far from preparing our children for a 21st-century education, the Kasich plan reads more like a plan for undermining the future of our kids and our nation.

It would cut school funding by $1.3 billion over the next two years. It would expand a costly and scandal-ridden charter-school program. It would gut Ohio’s 27-year-old collective-bargaining law, silencing the voices of those who work most closely with children. It’s a proposal that’s bad for kids and bad for Ohio.

...The second irony is that Waiting for Superman stars former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee. Just this week, Rhee’s record came under scrutiny. On Monday, USA Today reported that D.C. student test-score gains during her tenure, which she promotes, were probably tainted by widespread cheating. In fact, the newspaper’s analysis found suspicious patterns of erasures on standardized tests at half of the city’s schools.

Earlier in March Michelle Rhee moved to Ohio to help save great teachers there just as she has been doing in DC, Florida, and even Tennessee.

Michelle Rhee launches campaign to 'Save Great Teachers' in Ohio

StudentsFirst CEO Rhee to speak to Cleveland City Club Thursday.
Photo: Getty Images

COLUMBUS, Ohio (CGE) - Michelle A. Rhee, the outspoken and controversial education advocate who closed schools, fired teachers and took on administrators in an unprecedented way as the former Chancellor of schools for Washington D.C., has launched a call to "Save Great Teachers" in Ohio in advance of her appearance Thursday at the City Club of Cleveland.

Rhee in Cleveland Thursday

Rhee, who resigned her D.C. schools Chancellor position last year when Mayor Adrian Fenty, who appointed her to lead what some said was the worst school system in the nation at the time, lost his bid for reelection, became the founder and CEO of Studentsfirst.org, an advocacy group whose mission to transform public education includes waging war against teacher unions, whose hiring and firing policies rest exclusively on seniority and are blind to factors of performance.

..."For Ohio, Rhee says at least 160,000 teachers face layoffs and warns that most layoffs will be based solely on seniority, not on performance. The result, she says, will be that "many of our most effective teachers will lose their jobs...Even if there have to be layoffs, we can save great teachers."

When Rhee joined with our very controversial governor, Rick Scott, to "fix" Florida schools...she announced that she wanted to get rid of 8 percent of Florida's teachers.

Michelle Rhee urges Florida to abolish tenure, fire 8% of K-12 teachers.

Welcomed as a "movie star" to the state Senate's top public schools committee, former Washington D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee encouraged lawmakers to abolish teacher tenure laws, fire up to 8 percent of K-12 educators and watch student achievement soar.

"As long as we have practices in place that protect ineffective teachers, we are not going to be able move student achievement," Rhee said.

Rhee also joined her ex-husband, Kevin Huffman, in Tennessee recently, where he is now the new Tennessee Commissioner of Education.

From the Commercial Appeal in Memphis:

Ex-D.C. schools chief Michelle Rhee joins anti-union offensive in Tennessee

Michelle Rhee, the controversial former superintendent of Washington public schools, is out to raise $1billion to counteract the voice of teacher unions.

She spoke Thursday at the Economic Club of Memphis as CEO of Students First, the nonprofit organization she founded after stepping down as D.C. school chief last fall.

"We wanted a nationally recognized speaker to discuss education topics since our community has such a critical vote next week," said club spokeswoman Beth Flanagan.

Rhee, the former wife of new Tennessee Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman, believes in collective bargaining to a point, has little use for seniority or tenure and is out to make sure a group with heft equal to that of "the union bosses" is shaping policy that affects children's lives.

I have a feeling that soon the public school teachers in Ohio and Tennessee will join the Florida public school teachers in wondering what the heck just happened to them.

Florida teachers are reeling from the recently passed bills that do away with collective bargaining, end tenure for new teachers, and begin merit pay with no money to pay for it.

I keep hoping that Arne Duncan and his boss, President Obama, will see the harm being done to public schools....and will speak out for those schools and their teachers.