Michelle Rhee, who shoved ill-advised reforms down the throat of the Washington D.C. school system, is now purveying her ideology with a policy wish list masquerading as an education "report card." Her "Students First" organization has issued its first assessment of K-12 systems in each state. This assessment measures not actual student performance, but each state's adherence to her preferred policies, like charter schools, vouchers, test-based teacher evaluations, and handing mayors control of school districts.
Quick check, fellow South Dakotans: how many of you want your mayor running your school?
Apparently none of us do. We rightly rejected test-based teacher evaluations last November. And charter schools and vouchers are ineffective and irrelevant in a sparse state that already underfunds education. Michelle Rhee thus gives South Dakota a big fat F.
Rhee puts us at the bottom of the class with our neighbors: while we get the eighth lowest grade, Rhee gives even lower Fs to every neighboring state except for Minnesota, which ranks in the middle of Rhee's grades with a D.
Now we could just take Michelle Rhee's approach, erase our score, and write in our own grade. Accusations are coming out that Rhee's supposed triumph in raising test scores in Washington D.C. arose less from her "reforms" and more from widespread test-tampering.
Rhee's scorecard further demonstrates its unreliability when it says the best schools in the country are those in Louisiana (Rhee gives Jindal-land a B-minus). Expect Governor Daugaard to cite this study and exhort us to compete with Governor Jindal. We turned that thinking back at the polls last year; be ready to turn it back again.
Next up: South Dakota's disturbing rock-bottom score on the Quality Counts 2013 scorecard.
If our mayor here in Sioux Falls had control of the district, I doubt teacher salaries would go up, but upper admin would probably get a raise and every school would have a state-of-the-art gym with more seating than they could ever hope to need, all financed with borrowed money - damn the interest rates, full speed ahead!
When I saw this list a few days ago I damn near shorted out the computer with a coffee spit of surprise. Louisiana is the number one state in the nation? That's all it takes to toss this list in the trash and forever question anything this ideologue says.
"And charter schools and vouchers are ineffective and irrelevant in a sparse state that already underfunds education."
Not true on all counts. Vouchers should go to the family and support home schooling. It could also go to the churches and not just the current New Age churches. And the indoctrination and social engineering found in teh New Age churches is costly and makes education "look" underfunded.
Remedial home schooling for Steve. "Put on the dunce cap and sit in the corner. Count your toes 1000 times."
Ms. Rhee has made a good living shouting in the echo chamber.
Facing shutdown, Colorado virtual charter school failed to comply with state financial requirements:
http://kunc.org/post/colorado-virtual-academy-s-district-charter-jeopardy