Michelle Rhee believes that all children can achieve at a high level, given the proper teaching and support. Her thinking on this is admirable, but less so when it’s paired with passages like this, from a new New York magazine piece:
Rhee now describes teaching ability as something akin to an inborn talent, joking that no matter how much she practiced basketball, she could never play in the NBA like her fiancé Kevin Johnson, the former All-Star and current mayor of Sacramento. She created the New Teacher Project to identify other naturals.
Rhee would never accept the notion that some students are “natural” learners blessed with raw ability and others are not. So why would she insist that teaching is an inborn talent?
It’s certainly true that teachers, on any given day or week, have more at stake in their performance than do individual students. If a student performs poorly, only their learning is affected. If a teacher performs poorly, they’ve harmed an entire class of students (not to mention the fact that teachers are adults being paid to do an important job).
Rhee admits that she herself “sucked” as a teacher in her first year in the classroom. But she stuck with teaching, she worked really hard, and eventually she became a Teacher of the Year nominee. Her teaching talent wasn’t innate, and there wasn’t anything natural about it. It boiled down to setting high expectations for herself and doing anything she needed to do to meet them.
Some teachers may enter the profession and succeed immediately. Good for them. The vast majority of new teachers will need mentoring and practice, like Rhee did, in order to become effective. If, given those supports, they aren’t able to be successful in the classroom, they should consider a new profession. Teaching is a much bigger, much more complicated profession than being an NBA star, and it’s not helpful to see the nature-versus-nurture debate as an either-or.
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A few days after this became publicly available, USA Today broke a stpry on massive erasures on DC state tests under Rhee’s watch. Could there be more reasons to doubt her credibility?
Could the teacher of the year nomination have been orchestrated as to aid her in her planned stardom to move forth the billionaire’s agenda? It is hard to forget one who tapes mouths shut. They oft are shamed or punished. Rarely are they glorified. YIKES!
Chad,
I agree your bigger point about innate or learned is the key point here. Kevin Johnson is admittedly helped by being 6′1″ and 180 pounds but so were a lot of kids in Sacramento when he was growing up. but according to Wikipedia Johnson was “originally drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers to challenge the incumbent point guard Mark Price of Georgia Tech for the starting spot, [but] … found himself on the bench as Price’s backup during the 1987-88 NBA season, since Price significantly improved during training camp ..” Improved during training? It can’t be so, can it?.
In any case, even if the anecdote is proof of her inconsistency, the New York Mag story points out in several places that Rhee (perhaps like all of us?) is a bundle of contradictions. Hers just get played out publicly.
On the less-significant but important claim that she moved mountains in Baltimore, according to a 2007 story in the Washington Times:
“…education experts note that most low-income schools have a high student-turnover rate and Mrs. Rhee taught her students as part of a team. Tying the percentile jump specifically to her is extremely hard to do, they said.
“Although there were some significant gains for third-grade Title 1 students in reading [during Mrs. Rhee's tenure], there is nothing that would establish a sufficient evaluation link between that particular population of students and any particular individual staff member,” said Ben Feldman, who is in charge of testing for Baltimore schools. “You couldn’t go there.”
Now having lived in DC I’m as skeptical as anyone of the Times. But an interested journalist or blogger could presumably call BPS and confirm Mr. Feldman’s existence and authority.
I suspect resume inflation is a big issue, especially among upper middle class Ivy-league grads.The competition to be distinctive is really enormous, and one is rarely rewarded for modesty or sharing credit.
Chad, you’re right, the analogy is awkward.
So, should a D3 coach tell his team that they shouldn’t bother showing up to practice because they’re never going to be good enough for the NBA?
It’s important to get the specific facts right and obviously there is a debate about Rhee’s claims, but aren’t all of you kind of missing the point of the post?
Her claims of dramatic score improvements are in fact in doubt. She and her co-teacher appear to have pushed many of the children out of the standardized test (about half), and the improvement of those children who remained was modest, and her continual exaggeration of this does not help her integrity. The “improvement by eliminating the weaker links” has been continually torn apart online (http://gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com/) and in print.
Five pages of googling of Rhee “Teacher of the year” turned up one direct reference – this blog (on page 2). Other references were to other teachers of the year – not Rhee. How can that be? National hotshot education reformer nominated teacher of the year during her brief career and its not reported until now and only by one source?
Then I googled – Rhee “Teacher of the year” New York Magazine” – and found this:
“By her third year, her classroom had become a showpiece for Education Alternatives, which then encouraged the rest of the faculty to follow Rhee’s lead. Not surprisingly, some older members bristled at her favored status. “Good Morning America came in to watch,” recalls Andrea Derrien, who worked alongside Rhee. “After that point, it really was like we were isolated from the rest of the school.” The tension culminated in Rhee’s being nominated for Teacher of the Year, competing in a vote against a popular veteran whom Rhee thought incompetent. According to Whitmire’s book and the recollections of several former Harlem Park teachers, the anti-Rhee faction was so determined to defeat her that there were rumors they stuffed the ballot box.”
http://nymag.com/news/features/michelle-rhee-2011-3/index3.html
So – it looks like it the nomination was from her school only. Also, the whole story is based on rumor and innuendo, using Whitmere’s “The Bee-eater” as its only source.
I realize this is “only” a blog, but assume that you still don’t want to mislead your readers.
How about posting a clarification?
You might also contact New York and suggest they do better sourcing on this.
I will too.
The “Teacher of the Year” line appeared in both the NY Mag story as well as the Bee Eater. It was for her elementary school, Harlem Park, and it’s been corroborated by several former teachers.
More importantly, no one has disputed that her students made dramatic test score gains. Rhee’s specific numeric claims may be in doubt, but the improvement is not.
Since when is Rhee claiming she was a Teacher of the Year nominee? Since her score increase miracle story fell apart under the weight of evidence?
Why wasn’t this “teacher of the year” status mentioned on her resume along with the bogus score increase and the bogus acclaim by the WSJ and GMA? Why hasn’t she been shouting it to the rooftops in her many national speeches that way she has with her other claims? If she had said this before, I would have heard it. I’ve been listening very carefully.
A bigger question is why did the New York magazine (or this blog) publish this without checking on it?
And was she nominated for this honor at her elementary school or system wide? This matters a lot and not mentioning it suggests the journalist doesn’t know or doesn’t care about misleading readers.
If a budding football player was nominated best player of the year at his middle school, but didn’t get selected, it’s unlikely it would be listed as an accomlishment 20 years later.
Teacher of the year nominee? For taping closed her student’s mouths? I don’t think so.
And given the mess that are her scores from Baltimore, we don’t know that she ever got better at teaching.
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