Having been stiffed by many a good (and bad) source (including a few educators) in my career as a journalist, I was tempted to advise Michael Winerip to lay off Michelle Rhee for his Eager for Sptlight, But Not If It Is On a Testing Scandal column in today's New York Times. But despite some petulant prose ? ?she preens for the cameras? -- and questionable assessments ? has Rhee's reputation really ?rested on her schools' test scores?? ? Winerip is right: Rhee really should discuss the brewing Washington, DC, public school cheating charges that a USA Today reporting team unearthed last May.
Is DC different than Atlanta, which Winerip has written about (see here)?? You bet.? The reporting on the latter case (by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution) was ongoing, for several years, before it hit nationwide scandal status.? And Atlanta's superintendent, Beverly Hall, was in charge of the district, before, during, and after the scandal broke ? she retired just before the hugely damning governor's investigation was released in July.? Rhee, in charge of DC schools for barely three years, can hardly be said to have presided over a cheating scandal, but not talking to USA Today, a reputable national news outlet, surely doesn't do her protests of innocence (on the ?Tavis Smiley? show, according to Winerip) any good.
Face it; one of the more egregious faults of our public school system is its lack of responsiveness ? to students, parents, the public, the press, reality, you name it.? So, reformers must be purer than Ceasar's wife when it comes to transparency, especially with the importance of test score data on the rise.? There needs to be an investigation in Washington at least as good as the one done in Atlanta. And Michelle Rhee should be discussing it, if not leading the charge to secure the facts.
--Peter Meyer, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow
