Five Best Blogs: Ackerman Reportedly Out Of Philly

Why Are Finland's Schools Successful? Smithsonian:  It was the end of term when Kari Louhivuori, a veteran teacher and the school’s principal, decided to try something extreme—by Finnish standards. 

110 schools [42pct] meet AYP targets Notebook:  Philadelphia schools Superintendent Arlene Ackerman gave an emotional speech and received a rousing ovation from principals assembled on Thursday at Lincoln High School for the District's annual leadership convocation. UPDATE:  Philadelphia pushes out schools chief Arlene Ackerman WP

Teachers Aren't Plaster Saints! Rick Hess:  I'm fairly confident that isolated cheating scandals will eventually snowball. 

Rhee-Visiting DC Cheating Eduwonk:  At this point she should stay quiet until the ongoing investigation is done and cooperate with it.

Is Wyoming Bowing out of the Common Core? Kathleen Porter-Magee: Even if Wyoming does move forward the Common Core ELA and math standards, there is still some question about whether the state will opt to administer the assessment. 

$7 billion-plus in shopping and everything else The Answer Sheet:  Here is everything you ever wanted to know — even things you didn’t know enough to know that you wanted to know — about the back to school season.

Comments

[Mary]

Oh, you linked to Hess' sanctimonious weasel piece on his own blog, instead of on his Edweek column. Here's the comment I posted there:

chemtchr
11:02 AM on August 22, 2011

No, Rick, it's your own moral turpitude that's at issue here. Your "plaster saints" are the reform industry sponsors who enable your career and line your pockets. You're pretending to assume they're misguided do-gooders, blindsided by their undue regard for public school teachers (!!), but you know they've been the liars and cheats all along.

Who Michelle Rhee was working for in Baltimore, when she told the Big Lie that for-profit managers had raised "the same kids in the same building" to 90% proficiency? Who did she really work for when she supressed the 2009 investigation of cheating in her gold-star reformed schools? Who does she work for now?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison_Schools
http://www.quickanded.com/2008/07/company-formerly-known-as-edison.html

It was Eli Broad who put Beverly Hall's heel on the throats of Atlanta's school children. Here is a 2003 press release from his Broad Academy, featuring Beverly:

Eli Broad, founder of The Broad Foundation, said, "This is a direct infusion of leadership at the highest management level of our nation's urban public school districts. We are building an executive leadership corps to protect and to grow our nation's investment in children."
http://broadeducation.org/news/97.html

You (and Broad, and Mike Milken, and Gates, and Jeb Bush and a few dozen more) helped destroy good schools and honest teachers with your bogus, cheating miracles. Your lies have been exposed in spite of your efforts, and now your pretense at innocent shock is transparent, weak, and sickening.

[Mary]

Here's the link to the Mike Winerip NYT story on Rhee's evasions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/education/22winerip.html?_r=1

This is the piece Eduwonk wants us to look away from, because it would be unbecoming now for Rhee to discuss her tenure in DC. Unless she's attacking the honest people who opposed her, or promoting herself, of course. Her own systematic fraud, and her supression of the investigation, and her outright lies about the nature of that investigation, are all off-limits.