From the TED website:
Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.
Disclaimer: I am not writing in my official capacity as WTU General Vice President, but rather as an announced candidate in the 2013 WTU elections and WTU member.
WASHINGTON — Why won’t Michelle Rhee talk to USA Today?
"Ms. Rhee, the chancellor of the Washington public schools from 2007 to 2010, is the national symbol of the data-driven, take-no-prisoners education reform movement.
It’s hard to find a media outlet, big or small, that she hasn’t talked to. She’s been interviewed by Katie Couric, Tom Brokaw and Oprah Winfrey. She’s been featured on a Time magazine cover holding a broom (to sweep away bad teachers). She was one of the stars of the documentary “Waiting for Superman.”
These days, as director of an advocacy group she founded, StudentsFirst, she crisscrosses the country pushing her education politics: she’s for vouchers and charter schools, against tenure, for teachers, but against their unions.
Always, she preens for the cameras. Early in her chancellorship, she was trailed for a story by the education correspondent of “PBS NewsHour,” John Merrow.
At one point, Ms. Rhee asked if his crew wanted to watch her fire a principal. “We were totally stunned,” Mr. Merrow said.
She let them set up the camera behind the principal and videotape the entire firing. “The principal seemed dazed,” said Mr. Merrow. “I’ve been reporting 35 years and never seen anything like it.”
And yet, as voracious as she is for the media spotlight, Ms. Rhee will not talk to USA Today.
At the end of March, three of the paper’s reporters — Marisol Bello, Jack Gillum and Greg Toppo — broke a story about the high rate of erasures and suspiciously high test-score gains at 41 Washington schools while Ms. Rhee was chancellor.
At some schools, they found the odds that so many answers had been changed from wrong to right randomly were 1 in 100 billion. In a fourth-grade class at Stanton Elementary, 97 percent of the erasures were from wrong to right. Districtwide, the average number of erasures for seventh graders was fewer than one per child, but for a seventh-grade class at Noyes Elementary, it was 12.7 per student. At Noyes Elementary in 2008, 84 percent of fourth graders were proficient in math, up from 22 percent in 2007.
Ms. Rhee’s reputation has rested on her schools’ test scores. Suddenly, a USA Today headline was asking, “were the gains real?” In this era of high-pressure testing, Washington has become another in a growing list of cheating scandals that has included Atlanta, Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas.
It took the USA Today reporters a year to finish their three-part series. So many people were afraid to speak that Ms. Bello had to interview dozens to find one willing to be quoted. She knocked on teachers’ doors at 9:30 at night and hunted parents at PTA meetings. She met people in coffee shops where they would not be recognized, and never called or e-mailed sources at their schools.
Hari Sevugan, a spokesman for Ms. Rhee, said the reporters were “provided unprecedented time and access to report out their story,” including many meetings with senior staff members and the chief of data accountability. By last fall, Mr. Sevugan said, district officials’ patience was wearing thin. The deputy press secretary, Satiya Simmons, complained in an e-mail to a colleague, “Jack Gillum isn’t going away quietly, Uggh.”
“Just stop answering his e-mails,” advised Anita Dunn, a consultant who had been the communications director for President Obama.
The reporters made a dozen attempts to interview Ms. Rhee, directly and through her public relations representatives. Ms. Bello called Ms. Rhee’s cellphone daily, and finally got her on a Sunday.
“She said she wasn’t going to talk with us,” Ms. Bello recalled. “Her understanding was we were writing about” district schools “and she is no longer chancellor.”
On March 29, the day after the story came out, Ms. Rhee appeared on the PBS program “Tavis Smiley” and attacked USA Today.
“Are you suggesting this story is much ado about nothing, that this is lacking integrity, this story in USA Today?” Mr. Smiley asked.
“Absolutely,” Ms. Rhee said. “It absolutely lacks credibility.”
Mr. Smiley asked if she was concerned that she had put too much pressure on teachers and principals to raise scores. “We want educators to feel that pressure,” she answered.
Ms. Rhee emphasized that the district had hired a top security company, Caveon, to investigate in 2009, and was given a clean bill of health. The district released a statement from John Fremer, Caveon’s owner, saying, “The company did not find evidence of cheating at any of the schools.”
However, in subsequent interviews with USA Today and this reporter, Mr. Fremer made it clear that the scope of his inquiry was limited, and that the district had not requested that he do more. Indeed, Caveon’s report, posted on USA Today’s Web site, was full of sentences like, “Redacted was interviewed at redacted.”
Teachers described security as “excellent” and “very vigilant,” and investigators, for the most part, took their comments at face value.
It did not take Ms. Rhee long to realize she had miscalculated. Three days later, she told Bloomberg Radio she was “100 percent supportive” of a broader inquiry.
Still, she would not talk to USA Today. Mr. Sevugan gave no explanation, but pointed out that she had spoken with several other news outlets.
The reporters did not give up. On April 26, Emily Lenzner, a spokeswoman, wrote Mr. Gillum, “Michelle is willing to do an interview, but we’d like to do this in person.” She asked if they could hold their story, and arranged for a meeting on May 3 at the StudentsFirst office in Washington.
On May 2, another Rhee spokeswoman e-mailed to say the reporters were too interested in cheating and not enough in StudentsFirst. She said they could submit a list of questions.
There were 21 questions; Ms. Rhee did not answer 10 of the 11 about cheating.
Mr. Gillum, who recently took a job at The Associated Press, said he was surprised by how unresponsive Ms. Rhee has been. “She talks about how important data is, and our story is data driven,” he said.
So that people could make their own judgments, Linda Mathews, the project editor, posted the relevant public documents on the USA Today Web site.
Shortly after the follow-up story appeared, the district’s inspector general began what was supposed to be an inquiry, but in July The Washington Post reported that just one investigator had been assigned. “Basically it was one guy in a room who made 10 phone calls,” Mr. Toppo said.
Officials with the federal Department of Education have indicated that they are assisting with the investigation.
In Washington, two investigators spent five days at eight schools. In Atlanta, the state deployed 60 investigators who worked for 10 months at 56 schools. They produced a report that named all 178 people found cheating, including 82 who confessed. There was not a single case of “redacted and redacted doctoring redacted grade answer sheets at redacted.”
People in Atlanta could go to prison. Last week, a grand jury issued subpoenas seeking the names of school employees who had received bonuses for test scores. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that there were subpoenas for “signed copies” of “any and all oaths of office” taken by Beverly Hall, the former superintendent.
The three reporters still hope to interview Ms. Rhee. “Absolutely,” said Mr. Toppo.
Which brings things full circle: Why won’t Ms. Rhee talk to USA Today? "
One of the problems with the current Democratic proposal for healthcare reform is the process. I know liberals believe that the ends justify the means, and they are willing to do anything to make America have a government-run healthcare system, but some of the means that Democrats are engaging in are the sort of dirty and disgusting stuff that should cause voters to throw them out of office next election.
One such dirty and disgusting tactic that Democrats are engaging in is hiring interns in their county offices to write letters to lawmakers pretending to be distressed individuals who are unable to get healthcare under the current system.
These interns write letters and emails pretending to be people who are very poor, have a severe disability, are faced with extreme situations, or otherwise have really bad problems, and urge lawmakers to vote to pass the healthcare reform that Democrats are proposing based on this evidence. The interns are not these things- they are instead being paid to lie to lawmakers by Democrats. This type of tactic is insulting on many levels, but is happening all over the nation now, being employed openly by Democrats to win the healthcare debate.
This disgusting Democrat tactic was easily discovered by Republican lawmakers. Whenever they received these letters and emails, they would try to contact the sender to let them know that our government already provides extensive healthcare coverage that almost certainly covered their problems. You see, we already have government provided healthcare to a large segment of our population, paid for by taxpayer dollars from you and me. And Republican lawmakers care, so when they track down the senders of these sad letters to tell them that they are already covered, they discover that the senders are not sad individuals at all, but paid Democratic interns.
Commissioner Shelley Taub exposed this tactic at a recent county commissioner meeting, which I covered in a blog post here. Although she exposed just a single example, the person she discovered who wrote a sad letter to her had as a full time job sending out letters such as these, and so although she exposed just one example of Democratic slime, a good amount of it is now flowing in the system (and it's the bad slime, like in Ghostbusters II).
You can contact Taub to obtain the evidence yourself by going to her page here- at the meeting she read us the evidence and and told us the full story of how she spent her weekend trying to track down the poor unwed mother who was on death's door in order to put her in touch with government help, only to discover that it was deception perpetrated by the Democratic party.
When Taub exposed this local piece of fraud, she was told that it was only "an overzealous individual from the county party’s office stepped outside of the realm of acceptable conduct and encouraged county party interns to follow suit," and that this person was "officially reprimanded them for their unacceptable actions." The email Taub received closed by encouraging Taub to ignore "these distractions"- the phony emails and letters that are flooding the system lying about the situation and encouraging public officials to vote a certain way based on deception and lies- because "there is a very real need... for improved health care coverage." The ends justify the means, in other words, and Democrats are sorry they were caught this time, but they will strike again.
Life, liberty, and property are being taken from us by deception and lies. Don't vote for this party, whether they be blue, black, or green.
UPDATE: If you would like to email someone your disgust with this, Mike McGuinness, Chairman of the Oakland County Democratic Party, was the guy who ran this shop of deception and lies. His email address is chair@ocdp.org.
UPDATE II: Looks like I am generating the news cycle again. Today in the Oakland Press there is a story about this very issue- Commissioner: Dems sent falsified letters. The author of this story must be a reader on my blog. Check it out!
UPDATE III: This story has some legs- big blogs around the country are picking it up and running with it, including the very good blog Atlas Shrugs. Here is their thoughts on this story.
As many of you may not know Mike Debonis, writer for the Washington City Paper tipped us off in his Thursday 'Loose Lips' column about Chancellor Michelle Rhee's quote on RIF'ed teachers which appeared in Fast Company magazine. I read Loose Lips weekly because Mike is a good source for local news here in Washington, DC. He often quotes The Washington Teacher education blog and gives updates on the happenings in education rhee-form. Thanks to Mike's heads-up- this story about the ongoing disrespect of DC teachers is making its rounds on nationwide blogs, channel 4 news, Fox 5 news (on Friday and Saturday), channel 7 and channel 9 news, and The Washington Post. This story aired again tonight at 6 pm and at 10 pm on channel 5 news.The piece below is courtesy of The Frustrated Teacher an education blogger from California. This was posted yesterday with a recent update which includes my quote in today's Washington Post. If you haven't already, check out Bill Turque's Wash. Post article below which appeared in the metro section B1. I have to give a shout out for The Frustrated Teacher's coverage of our story and highly recommend you to check out this education blogger from California. We are now bi-coastal. Also, here's the link to the frustrated teacher blogger: http://www.thefrustratedteacher.com/ for your reading pleasure. Finally, here's to Bill Turque for covering this story and to Mike Debonis for linking Rhee's comments in his weekly column. We need more reporters like both of them.JANUARY 22, 2010
Michelle Rhee: "[They] Hit Children...Had Sex With Children..." Updated
She looks mean
The Washington Teacher, who you should bookmark, is worried Michelle Rhee might be insane. She points us to Jeff Chu at Fast Company as evidence:Eighteen months after we profiled Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee ("The Iron Chancellor," September 2008), she still hasn't won union approval of a new contract. After the October layoffs of 266 teachers and staff, the union claimed Rhee used a budget crunch as a pretext for dismissing veteran teachers, since seniority rules don't cover cuts for fiscal reasons. "I got rid of teachers who had hit children, who had had sex with children, who had missed 78 days of school," Rhee says. "Why wouldn't we take those things into consideration?" The release of 2009 test scores was good news for Rhee: Only D.C. and four states showed gains in math for fourth and eighth graders. "We're not good yet," she says, "but I'm seeing the quality of instruction improving."
So, that's Rhee's claim. Hard to believe.
If you go to the article link you can read some comments. One, by someone who claims to be a psychologist, is very worried about Ms. Rhee's mental state. I think there are a few of us who are worried!
Update: Turque's Washington Post articleRhee says laid-off teachers in D.C. abused kids
"This seems to me to be among the most egregious abuses of power I have ever seen. Michelle Rhee is claiming, with NO support/proof that she fired teachers not for the reasons given at the time, but because, now, with no substantiation, she has decided to say that these teachers did horrible things to kids--with no proof (well, there is the one case of corporal punishment, but to paint the entire group with this broad brush is wrong, and maybe criminal)! And if it turns out there is proof of abuse of students by teachers, why were they not fired for it, or at minimum placed on paid administrative leave while it was investigated? Who has the responsibility to see that every student has a safe learning environment? Guess who...The Chancellor (they really need to change that to Superintendent)!
By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee told a national business magazine that some of the 266 teachers laid off in October's budget reductions had sex with children or had hit them, a claim immediately and angrily challenged Friday by leaders of the Washington Teachers Union.
Rhee's comments appear in the February issue of Fast Company, a magazine aimed at young entrepreneurs and change-minded corporate executives. In a brief item, Rhee addressed the union allegation that she contrived the budget crunch to circumvent seniority rules and rid the system of older teachers.
"I got rid of teachers who had hit children, who had had sex with children, who had missed 78 days of school. Why wouldn't we take those things into consideration?" she said.
Rhee declined to provide specific numbers Friday or details to substantiate her remarks about sexual misconduct and teachers striking students. Neither did she respond when asked by e-mail why such teachers were allowed to remain in the school system before the Oct. 2 job cuts. D.C. police spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump said late Friday that she was researching the matter.
"I cannot comment at this time," she said.
George Parker, president of the teachers union, called Rhee's statements "reckless" and without basis in fact. The union usually receives notice from the District when a teacher faces disciplinary action, Parker said, and he has received no information that any of the 266 had been under investigation for sexual offenses against children. One of the 266 faced action for administering corporal punishment, he said.
"This paints all teachers as being a group of child molesters who assault children and don't come to work," Parker said. "It damages the reputation of a lot of innocent, hardworking, dedicated teachers."
Rhee said she had made similar statements in other venues, including her October 29 appearance before the D.C. Council. Rhee's sworn testimony then did not mention teachers having sex with students. When council member Michael A. Brown (I-At Large) asked whether she would fight any attempt to reinstate the 266 teachers, Rhee said she would.
"There were some promising or effective people who were [laid off], but there were also some people who, quite frankly, if you saw what was in their file and what their situations have been in this city, you would be shocked," Rhee said. "Just to give a little sampling of this, six of the [laid off] employees had served suspensions for corporal punishment. One was suspended four times, three times for being AWOL."
As Brown attempted to cut her off, she added: "For you to say, 'Would I fight all 266 people coming back into the system,' I would, because a number of these people are not people that you or I would want to put in their classroom."
Word of Rhee's comments to Fast Company rippled through the teaching ranks, with some expressing outrage.
The union's general vice president, Nathan Saunders, said Rhee owes the city's teacher corps an apology. "The statements are not only an affront to every single teacher that was [laid off] but every single teacher currently employed in D.C. public schools," Saunders said. "It's irresponsible, and she needs to be taken to task for it."
Other union activists said they were especially offended by Rhee's remarks, in light of the recent investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct by her fiancé, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson.
Before Johnson's 2008 election, the inspector general for the federal Corporation for National and Community Service filed a criminal referral with the U.S. attorney in Sacramento about Johnson. It included allegations that Johnson had inappropriately touched a minor girl and climbed into bed with a teenager who worked for the charter school he founded. The school received funding from Americorps, which is part of the community service corporation.
Johnson was not charged.
"I'm ready to recommend that Chancellor Rhee submit for a fitness for duty examination because these are the rants of either a mad or very confused woman," Candi Peterson, a teacher and member of the union's board of trustees, said on the Washington Teacher blog.
The little people, like you and me, need to speak up and expose these abuses by the powerful. We need to do it more, and with real, paper/envelope letters. Blogs are great (especially Candi's and this one) but we can't really do anything except preach to the choir. I am in California but what happens in DC is illustrative of what is happening nation wide."Posted by The Washington Teacher blog, Candi Peterson - blogger in residence, story courtesy of The Frustrated Teacher and the Washington Post.
On the Detroit News online edition, here are the headlines, as they appear:
Obama vows to aid families, business
Obama faces new realities after election
Insurgents to Obama: Pull troops from Iraq
Tough decision dogs the president-elect
Home sweet White House: Obamas prepare for big move
Graham yields the ear of presidents
Obama sets tougher tone with staff picks
Obama taps Granholm, Bonior
Coalition's help gives a boost to Democrats
Ads play large role in incumbents' fall
Podesta ups liberal muscle
Labor seeks election spoils
Emanuel brings tough-guy rep
Next first family brings new style
This is a reprint from an education blog titled conducting the inner light (below). Even though it was posted on November 21, I think it deserves a' look see' by my readers as it provides yet another perspective into the Michelle Rhee, Kevin Johnson and St Hope story. Many DC parents thank their lucky stars that KJ didn't get to take over DC's Eastern Senior High School here as Rhee might have liked due to their own due diligence . Here's to DC parents who were pro-active in protecting their community.As critical thinkers, it is imperative that we review the Inspector General's report and transcripts and not simply take the word of Rhee's spokesperson or others who want to sweep the details of this story under the rug. Conducting the inner light blogger has done an excellent analysis of what's wrong with this story as it more than just a sex scandal. I implore you to judge for yourselves by reviewing the Inspector General's report, transcripts and other links from the Sacramento Bee in detail by clicking on the respective names within the body of this story below. After all, isn't it time for all of us to exercise due diligence ? It's been a long time coming.Definition of due diligence: 1. An investigation or audit of a potential investment. Due diligence serves to confirm all material facts in regards to a sale. 2. Generally, due diligence refers to the care a reasonable person should take before entering in an agreement or transaction with another party. Investopedia CommentaryDue diligence is essentially a way of preventing unnecessary harm to either party involved in a transaction.
"It is interesting to me how the Michelle Rhee/Kevin Johnson situation is playing out in the newspapers and blogs. For those of you not keeping up suffice it to say that in a congressional investigation it has been revealed that Michelle Rhee acted as a fixer/damage controller for her fiance when he was accused by three girls of inappropriate touching. I won’t go into the allegations but refer you to the articles via The Washington Teacher’s Blog. Candi Peterson has aggregated all the newsources beautifully and this allows you to read each and come to your own conclusion.
Personally, I think the sex part of this scandal is somewhat of a misdirection. Not that I think the charges are groundless – read not only the Inspector General’s report but also the transcripts, as reported by The Sacramento News and Review , of Johnson’s phone conversation with another girl (not one of the accusers but a girl from 10 years before when Johnson was still a player on the Suns) and it will be hard to avert your eyes or find any excuse for him – but I think that there is much more damning evidence in the IG report than sex.
I cannot recommend enough reading the entire report right down to the interview of Jacqueline Wong-Hernandez, the former employee of St. Hope Academy Charter Schools. Your jaw will drop, your eyes will pop out of your head. No matter how you try to play this report it looks stinky. Just a for instance: Michelle Rhee was listed as a board member of St. Hope. Simultaneously she was listed as: the consultant for the New Teacher Project, the consultant for the reconstruction bridge span, the consultant for the reconstruction of the HR department, while on another memo she was listed as the COO. In yet another letter she was listed as the President and Johnson as the CEO. So many hats for one person and absolutely no conflict of interest, is there, in being both a board member and a consultant for the very board of which you are a member. Sarcasm in that last sentence.
The discrepencies are legion in this report. Just read the summary of charges. According to these charges Johnson used Americorps money and Americorps volunteers in complete violation of the government contract and volunteer contract. These volunteers are supposed to be used for the community and as tutors for students in schools. According to the report none of the volunteers did a single hour of tuturing for their time at St. Hope. What they did do was wash KJ’s car, clean his place (Johnson told one employee that the Americorps volunteers were there for “grunt work”), worked as clerks in the St. Hope store, canvassed the neighborhoods for candidates for local political offices, used them to solicit funds for St. Hope – even traveling to NYC on the Americorps money to do so. Johnson also misappropriated Americorps funds to pay SHA staff.
Here was one of the most incredible things I found in this report: the volunteers, who were on a stipend of around $4000 plus dollars, were charged rent for their housing. The housing was owned by (wait for the drumroll please) The St. Hope Development Corporation – they were charged $300-$350 a month. SHA never revealed to federal authorities their relationship to SHD (you would think, though, that they would change the name of their corporation just a tad so that no one would notice – you know, like Enron).
The sex allegations are here, as well. I don’t see how anyone can dismiss them as groundless nor as the accusations of people who hold a political motive. It is obvious throughout this report that there was a culture of abuse. The culture of power that Johnson practiced (one person describes him as micromanaging every thing right down to the position of all the office furniture) is one in which abuse is the predominate factor.
Here is what disturbs me after reading this report: Michelle Rhee tried to bring St. Hope Charter schools into our school system to take over some schools. She tried to do this AFTER this report had been filed. It was only due to the due diligence on the part of the parents of those schools that would have been overtaken (deliberate use of word here) and their objection to SHA coming in because of what they found out in their own investigations.
Due diligence in regards to Ms. Rhee has been missing in DC from the very beginning. From the vetting process on down she has been given a free ride by Adrian Fenty, the Washington Post, many on the city council, and a host of other people who believe she is “doing what has to be done.” Discrepencies in what she says and does have been ignored or explained away at almost every turn. She contradicts herself, denies, changes facts to suit her need and all of this is dismissed as quibbles on the part of those of us who have had worries about her methods and the true nature of her plans. OK, fine, than read this report and explain to me how anyone could think to bring in this corrupt, unethicial organization to run any of our schools? She knew about the charges in that report. Given her status as one of the three main operators of St. Hope – again read the report and Ms. Wong-Hernandez’ interview to see the number of titles Rhee held – there is no way she can claim ignorance to these charges.
That is the real scandal that should be on the front page of every paper. Diligence is now due."
Posted by The Washington Teacher featuring Candi Peterson, blogger in residence, story courtesy of conducting the inner light, definition/commentary courtesy of dictionary.com
Via Powerlineblog, from Instapundit, comes a news story so stunning that you can hardly believe it. In Lake County, Indiana, ACORN turned in 5,000 new registrations. The authorities there started reviewing them, and quit after they found that the first 2,100 were all fraudulent. Not a single one was legitimate.
Here is the video of the story from CNN.
Consider- nationally, ACORN has now turned in 1.3 million registrations over the last several months. If not a single one was real out of 5,000, how many of these new registrations out of 1.3 million are legitimate? 100? 1,000? And how many are fraudulent, to be filled out by representatives of ACORN? 1 million? 800,000? How might the election in a swing state be swung by this openly fraudulent organization?
And even more shocking is that Obama was a lawyer for ACORN for many years, and currently is giving ACORN money, and ACORN is giving Obama money. This is an obvious attempt to win the election by fraudulent means. People are going to have some serious buyers remorse with this fraud.
Why the emphasis on misery? And the single story... from Medecins sans frontieres
On Friday, January 16th a DC City Council hearing was held on the human capital initiative. Ten DC teachers testified at the hearing after school hours including three DC teachers who were terminated under Rhee's administration without due process. One teacher reported that she was fired via email by McKinley principal David Pender while teacher Fred Kamara never received notice of his termination . Denise Hamilton and Fred Kamara both appeared at the council hearing. Both are blind teachers and their stories were featured on this blog earlier in the year. The story- "DC Teachers Say Morale Is Low" as written by Bill Turque on the DC Wire blog on January 17, 2009 will not be reported by our local mainstream press. Here's the story in its entirety:
D.C. Teachers Say Morale Is Low
"At an 11-hour hearing Friday on the D.C. schools' "human capital" policies, teachers charged that Michelle A. Rhee's quest to reform the historically poor-performing system--which includes a pledge to replace significant numbers of them--has created a culture of fear. Morale, many said, has never been lower.Seemingly arbitrary and capricious performance evaluations, petty retribution for questioning authority, and just plain bungling were recurrent themes in the discussion with D.C. Council members, headed by Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D).
Fred Kamara, a special education teacher, said he worked for several weeks (without pay) before learning that he'd been fired. Kadesha Bonds said the principal never came to observe her classroom work before filling out her evaluation form. She was fired last summer.Jeff Canady, a third grade teacher at Emery Education Campus in Northeast, received "exceeds expectations" in multiple categories on his June 2008 evaluation, scoring 25 out of a possible 30 points. This fall, he was placed on the so-called "90-day plan," which puts instructors on notice to improve their performance or face dismissal. Canady said he is the same teacher he was last June, the only difference being that he complained to Rhee and other administrators about conditions at the school, including a lack of Internet service.Speaking in a soft but deliberate tone, Canady said that in 17 years, "I've never had one single principal or individual say anything about my teaching."Resources promised and not delivered was another frequently cited complaint. Crystal Silvia, a social worker at Bruce-Monroe Elementary School at Parkview, said the school was supposed to begin the academic year with an additional social worker and a psychologist. It hasn't happened."I feel like what I'm doing most of the time is crisis management," Silvia said.
Deputy Chancellor Kaya Henderson told council members she concurred that morale was bad. "I expect that some people will be frustrated with the rate and pace of change," she said. "It makes our job a lot more difficult when people are frustrated."But Henderson added that Rhee and her team were trying to reverse years of neglect and mismanagement within a short span of time. "If all of our teachers were great and wonderful, we wouldn't be the lowest performing school district in the country."Henderson said DCPS has been pushing to overhaul its personnel practices. The system's payroll, which had 9,933 employees when Rhee took over in 2007, is now just over 7,000, although only a few hundred jobs were actually eliminated. Most of them, including transportation, facilities management and food service, were off-loaded to other agencies or outside contractors.
A more sophisticated new teacher evaluation system will be rolled out in the spring and implemented next fall, Henderson said. Among the metrics to measure teacher effectiveness will be a new "value-added" category that measures the academic growth of their students year-to-year.But Gray cautioned Henderson that none of these innovations would amount to much if the Chancellor isn't more effective in fostering trust among teachers and managing the tensions triggered by change."If that doesn't change, this thing is going to drop of its own weight," he said." (Posted by The Washington Teacher). Article courtesy of the DC Wire.
In 2007, Global Warming was the reason behind the lowering lake levels on Lake Superior. Clearly, researchers at the Lake Superior Conference in 2007 agreed, there's a huge threat from global warming- a warmer climate means a warmer Lake Superior. In fact, apparently global warming was so bad back in the hot summer of 2007, that researchers at the University of Minnesota and elsewhere were forced to study whether Lake Superior's low water levels were the result of global warming, and question whether Lake Superior might even disappear unless government took drastic action and controlled every major industry in the United States.
In fact, back in 2007, a United Nations study predicted that Global warming would lower water levels in by 5 feet over the next century. Poor Lake Superior was already called an 'early victim of climate change' by scientists in Duluth, adding that the time to radically change our society away from a free and prosperous one is now. Good thing we have such great politicians such as U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, who seized on this alarmist and populist issue to announce that he will demand swift action to address the reported dramatic drop in water levels in the Great Lakes, including the strengthening of federal power over businesses and individuals, in the hope that by controlling everyone's behavior, the water levels could be raised.
Well, through his actions and the fact that man-made global warming is made-up by stupid watermellons (people who are green on the outside, but red inside) out there, I am happy to say that Lake Superior has been rising ever since Feingold's announcement. It appears the the water levels also go up and down throughout the year, based on seasons incredibly, to the surprise of many scientists who assumed that they were God and controlled the whole world with their new super-modeling computers. The Detroit News story says that "Rising Great Lakes levels may give Michigan a lift", and document the rise in water levels over the last 3 years.
If only data existed that might show that taking a single snapshot on water levels, based on a single time point in a single year, was not the way to radically change our country and give more power to the government. If only, for example, there was a graph showing the average water levels of Lake Superior since 1860, and then we could mock all those who freaked out in 2007 and called for change based on global warming. I personally am eagerly awaiting the correction the UN is sure to issue based on this new data, that will call for radical changes back to the way America used to be, when we were free and prosperous.
Buy Lowest Price !! See Lowest Price Here Discount Firefly Lane. This Store is the best place to buy cheap Firefly Lane. If you want to buy Firefly Lane in the best price, try to see specail offers or read the best customer reviews from this page. That can help you to make easy decision to buy this product. This product Shipped and Sold by Amazon Shopping Store. Usually ships in 1-2 business days This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Order The Best price From This Page - Read more Informations by Click at the Big Links.
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||
From the New York Times bestselling author of On Mystic Lake comes a powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship. . . .
In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the “coolest girl in the world” moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all---beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer’s end they’ve become TullyandKate. Inseparable.
So begins Kristin Hannah’s magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives.
From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success . . . and loneliness.
Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she really wants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn’t know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she’ll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she’ll envy her famous best friend. . . .
For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship---jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they’ve survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart . . . and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test.
Firefly Lane is for anyone who ever drank Boone’s Farm apple wine while listening to Abba or Fleetwood Mac. More than a coming-of-age novel, it’s the story of a generation of women who were both blessed and cursed by choices. It’s about promises and secrets and betrayals. And ultimately, about the one person who really, truly knows you---and knows what has the power to hurt you . . . and heal you. Firefly Lane is a story you’ll never forget . . . one you’ll want to pass on to your best friend.
Available : In Stock. |
 |
FREE with Super Saver Shipping Usually ships in 1-2 business days |
