''Did Rhee's DCPS erase its way to the top?''
Written by Barbara Hollingsworth for The Washington Examiner. Read the entire article here.
“Educators were apparently doing the same thing [as Atlanta] in D.C. under another “miracle worker.” Chancellor Michelle Rhee became a national icon for education reform, appearing on the covers of Time and Newsweek magazines.
But her legacy is now in serious jeopardy as the U.S. Department of Education’s inspector general investigates unusually high erasure rates at more than 100 D.C. public schools between 2008 and 2010.
USA Today first reported the widespread problem at more than half of D.C. public schools during Rhee’s tenure, including the Crosby S. Noyes Education Campus, named one of just 264 federal National Blue Ribbon Schools
nationwide.
nationwide.
Rhee gave Noyes Principal Wayne Ryan and his teachers cash bonuses in 2008 and again in 2010, referring to the school as one of D.C.’s “shining stars.”
Falling star would have been a more accurate description. In 2009-10, Noyes’ reading scores plunged 23 points. More alarming, 80 percent of its classrooms were flagged by CTB/McGraw-Hill’s electronic scanners for abnormally high wrong-answer-to-right-answer erasures. [Rhee knew this when she promoted Ryan. See story here.]
So high, USA Today pointed out, “that it could have occurred roughly one in 30,000 times by chance.” Statistically, you have the same chance of being killed by a lightning bolt.
But Rhee and Deputy Mayor of Education Victor Reinoso failed to act on a 2008 recommendation by former State Superintendent of Education Deborah Gist, so no D.C. schools with abnormal erasure rates were investigated — including one that received a TEAM award from Rhee even though its erasure rate was 10 times the district average.
Planned public hearings by the D.C. Council were cancelled. Nobody wanted to acknowledge the possibility that the academic gains that won DCPS $75 million in federal Race to the Top funding last year might prove to be illusory.
But that appears to be the case. Four years after Rhee instituted a slew of long-awaited reforms, 2011 test scores are down slightly for the second year in a row. Overall proficiency rates in elementary reading and math are in the disappointingly low 43rd percentile. …
Erasing your way to the top is no way to run a school system — or leave a legacy that lasts.”
Posted: 10:30AM, July 13, 2011