Reform: Michelle Rhee Won't Say If Murdoch Is Funding Her

While much is being made of the Rupert Murdoch-Joel Klein connection this week, few seem to have considered the connections between the beleagured businessman and another big-name education reformer: Michele Rhee, who has been trying to drum up $1 billion to fund her new organization, Students First, for the past six months. A full donors list has never been released by the organization and federal 501c(4) rules allow for anonymous funders, but it's widely rumored that Murdoch was one of the first big-money guys to commit to funding the fledgling effort.  After two days of emails and phone calls -- they must have been freaking out behind the scenes trying to figure out what to do -- a Rhee spokesperson would neither confirm nor deny the Murdoch money.  "Our policy  doesn't allow me to reveal who our donors are or aren't."

Comments

[Arthur]

"The policy I made up off the top of my head this very moment absolutely prohibits me from divulging any such information. Also, I agreed when I took the money never to reveal where it came from. I am a role model, and expect children to adhere to the high standards I set. Either that, or I'd have to go out and get a real job. I have scruples, you know."

[Doug]

Nothing would surprise me about this cheating, lying, arrogant B_T_H.

[Ken Houghton]

"We know nothing about our donors except that we will do whatever they want. What do you mean, 'Students First'? That's just a name, like Clear Skies Initiative. "

[Joe]

Michele Rhee is peddling miracle elixirs like a traveling salesman. And all along the way of her journey, she is finding fools to sell bottles to before she skedaddles out of town, never to be seen from again and never to be punished for selling her brand of firewater.