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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| DC School Chief kicking ass and taking names |
| 2008-09-09 |
| WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Michelle Rhee says she runs at 100 miles per hour. As the chancellor of one of the nation's lowest performing schools, she says she has no choice -- too much bureaucracy to cut through, too many problems to fix after decades of neglect. Michelle Rhee says a lack of urgency has been missing for years in the District of Columbia's schools. Rhee closed 23 schools in her first year as the head of the District of Columbia's public schools, fired 36 principals and cut 15 percent -- about 121 jobs -- from the central office staff. And she's making no apologies. "I think it's that sense of urgency that has been lacking for far too long in our public schools," Rhee told CNN as she began her second year on the job in late August. "We are always going to put the best interests of kids above the rights, privileges and priorities of adults." |
| Posted by:GolfBravoUSMC |
| #9 "We're preparing them to understand that if you do the right thing, then good things will happen to you," Rhee said. This may simply be a bridge too far. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2008-09-09 19:20 |
| #8 GB, you just can't use the words "seriously" and "ebonics" in the same sentence. Too much cognitive dissonance.... |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2008-09-09 19:12 |
| #7 The Oakland California School District seriously considered using the Ebonics language so that African Americans could leaarn more easily. |
| Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC 2008-09-09 15:45 |
| #6 Somehow, Danielle, my wife's Polish grandparents managed to arrive here circa 1910 and thrive despite lack of a large extended family here, poverty, no pay to attend school, language barriers, and a lack of computers and good software. The six kids in my wife's generation ALL graduated from college, two with advanced degrees. Cut me a break. Like my wife's Polish grandparents, Asians tend to excel because their expectations cause them to DO THE WORK. |
| Posted by: Darrell 2008-09-09 15:14 |
| #5 Cultural differences make a big difference in education, as Asians tend to have large extended families for support, besides expectations. Hispanic and black students often say they have no need of college, making more running drugs or producing fake ID's and SS#s, and 13 &14 yo pregnant teens can't progress. Paying them is a novel idea that may work for some of these kids. Another factor in inner city schools is that is where most poor immigrants live. Even the preschools and daycares are having problems, as the kids may speak Hungarian, Russian, Urdu, Spanish, or an African dialect, with no one at home to help with Language Arts assignments in English. They can't read or write in their native tongue, let alone in English, so they don't have the basic skills to continue. Computers and good software helps hold their attention, but those are lacking in these poor districts. Education funds are largely from property taxes in many parts of the country, so they are really hard-pressed budgetwise. Disciplining hard-core gang members is a whole 'nother story suburban teachers don't have to deal with. Sounds like Rhee has a little spunk, like Palin. |
| Posted by: Danielle 2008-09-09 14:52 |
| #4 Well you see... the poor asians (Japanese / Korean / Vietmanese / etc...) don't have 'Community Organizers' to tell them how bad they have it, how ignorant they are (without the organizers) and how much they need Government handouts. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2008-09-09 13:12 |
| #3 Rhee, who is Korean-American, .. Korean mothers are as demanding as Japanese mothers of their children's performance in school. I suspect there's been a significant behavioral transfer of focus from the other generation. In the 'old country' just like Japan, there is a significant level of teenage suicide because of the performance expectations. Hopefully, she can impart that performance consequence upon any obstructionist unionists. "the achievement gap between wealthy white kids and poor minority kids." How about poor asians? I can think of no correlation when dealing with Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese or for that matter Indians and systemic poor academic performance. When the kids comes here in the Vietnamese boat lift with nothing, their family of 8 living in a three room apartment, generating income with both mom and pop working their butts off, and they graduate at the head of their high school classes [amazing given the environment they grew up in back in SEA], I don't see the excuses. Bush was correct when he talked about the 'Bigotry of Low Expectations'. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-09-09 13:05 |
| #2 I'm not real familiar with the machinations of D.C. on the city level, but it sounds like anything short of foot-meets-ass doesn't cut it there. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-09-09 12:47 |
| #1 Good luck, Superintendent Rhee. Those children deserve better than they've been getting for the past many generations. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-09-09 12:39 |