Florida Welcomes Michelle "Tape Their Mouths Shut" Rhee

We are having a little fun at Michelle Rhee's expense in the Miami Herald today. Somehow the word of Rhee's lies about her student's test scores, her woeful inadequacies when she was dabbling in teaching for three years which went all the way to criminal child abuse, and the mess she made in DC that won't be straightened out for years, found their way to the Sunshine State. That damn Internet, Michelle!
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/13/2065253/star-educator-michelle-rhee-sparks.html

Posted on Sun, Feb. 13, 2011 'Star' educator Michelle Rhee sparks debate in Florida By Jeffrey Solochek St. Petersburg Times ALAN DIAZ / AP Michelle Rhee, left, former D.C. public schools chief, and Gov. Rick Scott prepare to tour a South Florida charter school in in Opalocka, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011. Rhee was on Scott's education transition team, and the new governor said she would continue to serve Florida as an informal education adviser. Florida's lawmakers were starstruck. Before them stood Michelle Rhee, the former Washington D.C. public schools chancellor recently featured on Oprah, on a Newsweek cover and in the documentary film Waiting for Superman. "I am here today to ask you to keep being a leader," Rhee said, urging members of two education committees to tackle one the few reforms that Florida has yet to achieve: a streamlined way to get "ineffective" teachers out of the classroom. "There is so much more to do." Senate Pre-K-12 committee chairman Steve Wise called her a movie star, and even Sen. Eleanor Sobel, a more skeptical Broward Democrat, gave a nod to Rhee for "bringing new energy to the education debate." But as he watched from the audience, the spokesman from Florida's teacher's union wondered why lawmakers were listening to her. "It's a little difficult to understand why she is given rock star status," said Mark Pudlow, of the Florida Education Association. Sure, Rhee might have the ear of the governor and the praise of the president. Sure, Rhee has made national headlines pushing through controversial measures relating to teacher tenure, evaluations and salaries in D.C. But Pudlow noted that Washington D.C. schools score at the bottom of the national Education Week Quality Counts ranking, while Florida rates close to the top. He observed that some of Rhee's controversial efforts to fire "ineffective" teachers have been overturned by an arbitrator after the Washington Teachers Union fought the effort. Valid concerns, said Rhee, an unpaid informal adviser to Florida Gov. Rick Scott. She suggested looking through a different lens for some perspective. "Over the three years that I was there, we saw really record gains in academic achievement on the NAEP examination," she said. "We went from being last in the entire nation to leading the entire nation in gains in both reading and math at both the fourth and eighth grade levels. And we were the only jurisdiction in the entire country in which every single subgroup of children improved their academic standing." The 75,000-student district still isn't the best, she acknowledged. Far from it, in fact. But Rhee proposed that the gains that D.C. schools made might be replicated if other school systems adopt some of the "drastic changes" that she pushed through. Her new national organization, Students First, seeks to get states to adopt similar changes. Rhee has made presentations to leaders in New Jersey and Indiana about these efforts, and she headed to Atlanta right after her Tallahassee stop to make a pitch to Georgia lawmakers. But she sees Florida as the logical leader for altering the teacher contract landscape, she said, because of its history of adopting school accountability measures and the willingness of its leaders to take on the tough challenges that lie ahead. She credited former governor Jeb Bush – with whom she has met – for starting the ball rolling and current Gov. Scott for taking the next step. Some of Rhee's points to Florida lawmakers last week: •  End the practice of relying on seniority to determine which teachers stay and go during layoffs. Reduce the length of time low-performing teachers get to improve, so children's education is not wasted. •  Separate teacher evaluations from the collective bargaining process. •  Eliminate "tenure" and related systems. House Rep. K-20 Competitiveness Subcommittee chairman Erik Fresen thanked Rhee for creating a national blueprint for education reform. "We have to start treating teaching as a profession," Fresen said. Some observers question whether Rhee's approach does that at all. Rhee has endured much criticism for her tough approach to the issue, where she didn't always wait for everyone to join forces with her before forging ahead. Some have contrasted her to Hillsborough County superintendent MaryEllen Elia, who is attempting to change the face of teacher evaluation with the local teachers union on board. Richard Whitmire, a former USA Today editorial writer who wrote Rhee biography The Bee Eater, said Rhee made things happen in a district that hadn't moved much before her tenure. Her relentless push for teacher quality won devoted followers, he said, but also had its fallout. "The pushback that sparked, especially around firing teachers, was the biggest reason Adrian Fenty lost his reelection bid as mayor and Rhee had to step down," Whitmire said. That's a lesson that Florida could draw from, Rhee said, acknowledging her own failure to communicate well with the public about her efforts. "I didn't do as good a job as I needed to, to proactively go out to the great teachers and say, `We're not talking about you. What I need you to do is stay. We want to recognize what you are doing. It's so important,' " she said. "You have to be careful not to send a message that you are blaming teachers or that you don't think teachers are good." In fact, she said, teachers are critically important to the success of any effort to improve education. The strong ones want the weak ones out of their schools, Rhee said, and students deserve nothing less. Wise stressed this point just before his committee passed its "teacher quality" bill on a unanimous, bipartisan vote. "We are not here to punish teachers," Wise said, adding that he wants to hear from more teachers, as well as parents and others in order to improve the measure before it gets to a final vote. Nathan Saunders, president of the Washington Teachers Union, said Florida lawmakers should think twice about heading down D.C.'s path. The full costs of Rhee's tenure have yet to be borne out, he said, but already they have begun to arise in the form of deficits and back pay for improperly fired teachers. Boiled down, Saunders had one simple message for Florida lawmakers: "Florida should not be listening to Michelle Rhee."

NY TImes Mag Asks: Is Michelle Rhee’s Revolution Over?

Is Michelle Rhee’s Revolution Over?

By JUDITH WARNER

Around the country, supporters of education reform — or at least of the test-scores-driven, tenure-busting, results-rewarding sort of reform epitomized by organizations like Teach for America and championed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan — gave a collective gasp of dismay last month when voters in a number of districts handed primary defeats to candidates closely associated with just this type of reform. In New York, three state-senate candidates who ran on pro-charter-school platforms each failed to garner more than 30 percent of the vote. In Washington, voters overwhelmingly rejected Mayor Adrian Fenty in favor of the City Council chairman, Vincent Gray, as the Democratic candidate in this year’s mayoral election. The Fenty defeat worried many people particularly because he was inextricably linked with his crusading, nationally celebrated schools chancellor, Michelle Rhee.
Rhee, who was appointed by Fenty in 2007 and given unprecedented power to shake up the ailing school system, fired hundreds of teachers and dozens of bureaucrats and principals, even removing the popular head of her daughters’ elementary school in the northwest part of the district. She demanded that the city’s tenure system be replaced with one that would reward teachers for producing measurable performance gains in their students. For her efforts, she became a heroine to some — gracing the cover of Time magazine, earning the praise of the Obama administration and an invitation to appear on “Oprah” — but she also received enormous enmity from teachers, their unions and, surprisingly enough to outside observers, many public-school parents, not a few of whom were profoundly offended when, the night after the mayoral primary, Rhee appeared at the Washington premiere of Davis Guggenheim’s much-talked-about education documentary, “Waiting for Superman,” and told an assemblage of prominent Washingtonians that the election results “were devastating, devastating. Not for me, I’ll be fine . . . but devastating for the school children of Washington, D.C.”
In the local blogs that buzzed with outrage after Rhee’s comment, a theme became clear: people — even people who seemed destined to most benefit from the work of a committed reformer like Rhee — don’t like to get the message that their communities are on the wrong track. That their schools are no good, the teachers in them subpar; that their decision to back a politician who doesn’t share the reformer’s particular style of quasi-missionary zeal would consign their kids to disaster.
It became clear that people don’t much like stern-faced do-gooders telling them how to think and what to do; that they prefer “a reform agenda that’s being done with people, not to people,” as Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, recently put it. They don’t like collective slap-downs — like the one Rhee managed when she referred to the hundreds of fired teachers indiscriminately in an interview with a business magazine as people who “had hit children, who had had sex with children.” They don’t like to see respected members of their community seemingly compared to dirt, as Rhee unthinkingly did by agreeing to pose on the cover of Time wielding a big broom. They like policy makers who at least appear to be taking their concerns to heart, as Rhee pointedly did not, bluntly telling the magazine: “I’m not going to pretend to solicit your advice so you’ll feel involved, because that’s just fake.”
Washington residents, the majority of them African-American, many of them poor, all possessed, to varying degrees, of a sense of disenfranchisement — the city, after all, did not have the power to elect its own government until 1974 and must still submit its budget and laws for approval to Congress, where it lacks voting rights — take particularly poorly to these sorts of put-downs, says Michael Fauntroy, an associate professor of public policy at George Mason University. In fact, the black, often struggling residents of Washington — the vast majority of parents in the public-school system — have a hair-trigger intolerance for anything that smacks of paternalism or disdain by policy makers, particularly when they appear to be telling people how to run their lives and, most potentially offensive of all, how to educate their children. Fenty and Rhee, Fauntroy said, were perceived to have “an elite view of public policy: we know what’s better for your kids than you do, and because our ideas are better, yours are to be ignored, and ours are to be implemented.”
That sentiment is not unique to African-American residents of Washington who voted for Gray. It runs through much of the chorus of opposition to President Obama and his reformist policies — health reform in particular — and it’s easily tapped into by candidates who position themselves as plain-talking “real people,” alternatives to the powers that be. Which explains, perhaps, why so many primary elections this year left some outside observers reeling, as was the conservative Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, at the “reckless and irresponsible” decision of key Republicans to endorse Christine O’Donnell, who was backed by Tea Party members, as the Republican Senate candidate in Delaware. Krauthammer viewed this as a self-defeating choice that would condemn Republicans to failure in the general election. Many Washington residents who favored Fenty — including those in the white, largely upper-middle-class homes of Ward 3 (which voted 80 percent for Fenty) — expressed similar concerns in criticizing their neighbors’ selection of Gray for mayor, given the great improvements in city services and education that they had seen under Fenty.
The Tea Party candidates who surprised national observers and the Republican establishment by winning this month couldn’t be more different than the thoughtful, mild-­mannered Gray, his liberal sympathies as deep as his Washington roots. The voters who elected him, it is fair to say, have nothing politically in common with those who brought O’Donnell her upset victory. But it may well be that the sort of rage that fuels the mostly white, middle-class, conservative Tea Party movement has, at least in part, a similar root: a rejection of whip-smart policy makers who believe they know best and who — it seems to those who feel slighted by them — lack the common decency to try not to show it.

Judith Warner is the author, most recently, of “We’ve Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/magazine/03fob-wwln-t.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

Ravitch on Why Michelle Rhee and Adrian Fenty Lost

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2010/09/why_michelle_rhee_and_adrian_f.html

 

Why Michelle Rhee and Adrian Fenty Lost

By Diane Ravitch on September 21, 2010 8:40 AM | 1 Comment | Recommend

 

Dear Deborah, 

On the afternoon of Sept. 14, I attended a private screening of "Waiting for Superman," the film in which Michelle Rhee is portrayed as one of the true heroes of today's school reform movement. That evening, Washington D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty—who appointed Rhee and gave her free rein over the city's long-troubled public schools—lost his bid for re-election. The election was widely viewed as a referendum on Rhee, who attained a national reputation in her role as schools' chancellor. Her allies considered her bold and combative; her opponents considered her divisive and mean-spirited. In the closing days of the Fenty campaign, she went to the districts where Fenty had his strongest support—the largely white districts in the city's Northwest section—to rally voters. 

When the results came in, Fenty was trounced in largely black districts. In Wards 7 and 8, his opponent, Vincent Gray, won 82 percent of the vote. In Northwest Washington, where white voters predominate, Fenty won 76 percent of the vote. Fenty decisively lost the black vote and decisively won the white vote. D.C. public schools are about 5 percent white, so it is a reasonable supposition that the anti-Fenty vote was fueled to a large degree by parents of children in the public schools. Gray won handily, 53 percent to 46 percent.

Journalists attributed Fenty's loss to the power of the teachers' union, but such an explanation implies that black voters, even in the privacy of the voting booth, lack the capacity to make an informed choice. When the Tea Party wins a race, journalists don't write about who controlled their vote, but about a voter revolt; they acknowledge that those who turned out to vote had made a conscious decision. Yet when black voters, by large margins, chose Vincent Gray over Adrian Fenty, journalists found it difficult to accept that the voters were acting on their own, not as puppets of the teachers' union.

In the post-election analyses, the most common complaint about Fenty was that he was arrogant and out-of-touch with black voters. Rhee spoke about her failure to communicate, though it is hard to think of any figure in the world of American education who had as much media attention as she has had over the past three years. Certainly, she did not lack for opportunities to communicate. Her critics say that her fundamental flaw was arrogance and an indifference to the views of parents and teachers.

Rhee believed that mayoral control gave her the power to work her will and to ignore dissenters or brush them off as defenders of the status quo. Mayoral control bred arrogance and indifference to dialogue. She didn't need to listen to anyone because she had the mayor's unquestioning support. Mayoral control made democratic engagement with parents and teachers unnecessary. It became easy for her to disparage them and for the media to treat them as self-interested troublemakers.

Mayoral control of schools short-circuits democratic processes by concentrating all decision-making in the hands of one elected official, who need not consult with anyone else. If D.C. had had an independent school board, Rhee would have had to explain her ideas, defend them, and practice the democratic arts of persuasion, conciliation, and consensus-building . We now have an "education reform" movement which believes that democracy is too slow and too often wrong, and their reforms are so important, so self-evident that they cannot be delayed by discussion and debate. So self-assured are the so-called reformers that they can't be bothered to review the research and evidence on merit pay or evaluating teachers by test scores or the effects of high-stakes testing. If they can find one study or even a report by a friendly think tank, that's evidence enough for them. Mayoral control gives them the mechanism they need to push ahead, without regard to other views or collateral damage.

The trouble with this anti-democratic approach to school reform is that it alienates the very people whose votes are needed by the mayor to continue what he started. Although one can find exceptions, it is usually the case that voters don't like autocracy. They expect to be treated with respect, not condescension. They expect democratic institutions to operate with democratic processes. They expect their leaders to explain and discuss their decisions before they are final and to change course when they are wrong. The very behaviors that schools are supposed to teach—how to think, how to participate, how to reason with others, how to find common ground—are the same behaviors that we expect to encounter in public life.

In other contests, the pro-charter lobby took a beating in Democratic primaries in New York City. There, the pro-charter group Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) targeted three African-American state legislators for defeat because they questioned the expansion of charters in their communities. DFER raised huge sums for the challengers (Google "DFER Watch"). The highest-profile race was in Harlem, which has more charters than any other neighborhood in the city. Hedge-fund managers and other friends of DFER poured more than $100,000 into the campaign to defeat Bill Perkins, who gained their enmity by seeking public audits of charters. The New York Times, the New York Post, and the New York Daily News ran numerous articles and editorials vilifying Perkins and endorsing his opponent, Basil Smikle. Smikle was supported by New York Gov. David Paterson and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. On Sept. 14, the three state senators opposed by DFER were re-elected by large margins. DFER's main enemy, Bill Perkins, collected 76 percent of the vote. The media referred to the re-election of these state senators as victories for the teachers' union, denying the possibility that black voters exercise personal agency when they cast their ballots.

These electoral losses and the recent Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll suggest that the "reform" movement led by the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, DFER, hedge-fund managers, and the Obama administration lacks a base of popular support. But now begins the next phase of the movement, as its public relations campaign goes into high gear with the release this week of "Waiting for Superman." Now, the public will be immersed in the "reform" narrative: Our public schools are rotten; low test scores are caused by bad teachers; high-stakes testing works; merit pay works; charters work; the unions that represent teachers are the main obstacle to "reform."

Diane

Reports on Rhee in DC

Commentary at Ed Notes:

From Gotham links on Friday:

• D.C.’s CFO and Michelle Rhee are sparring over whether the school system’s surplus exists.
• Randi Weingarten said she’s “really disgusted” by the D.C. situation, and the union is going back to court.

Here are some reports from Candi Peterson in DC. Follow events on her blog.
4/16/10

Today George Parker, WTU President and Randi Weingarten, AFT President announced their plans to reopen new filings for the RIF'd teachers lawsuit as reported by Loose Lips. What appears strange to me are the premediitated series of events below.

The WTU tentative agreement was signed by Chancellor Rhee and WTU President George Parker on March 19, 2010, the very same day that George Parker withdrew the legal appeal previously filed by the WTU on behalf of RIF'd teachers.

Adding even more insult is the fact George Parker didn't seek the required approval from the WTU Executive Board to withdraw this legal appeal, until six days later on March 25th. These coinciding dates appear all too convenient.

Don't you think this is worth further inquiry by your newspaper, station, blog or organization ?

Candi Peterson

WTU Board of Trustees

Please check out the video on this story about DC teacher firings on The Washington Teacher blog.

Visit: http://thewashingtonteacher.blogspot.com/

D.C. teacher firings prompted by bad math

By: Leah Fabel
Examiner Staff Writer
April 14, 2010

Michelle Rhee (Examiner File Photo) (Examiner)

Erroneous budget calculations brought on the firing of 266 D.C. Public Schools teachers in the fall, Chancellor Michelle Rhee told the D.C. Council Tuesday.

The news came as a surprise to council members as well as Washington Teachers' Union President George Parker, all of whom met with Rhee to discuss funding for the recently proposed teachers contract.

That contract -- yet to be approved -- has been hailed as a breakthrough in urban education reform because of its ability to differentiate salary by success in the classroom. It is now in jeopardy as teachers, council members and school officials are faced with the appearance of giving raises on the backs of fired teachers.

"If I were one of the fired teachers, I would be ready to put my hands around someone's throat and squeeze till there was no air left," said Council Chairman Vincent Gray, locked in a mayoral race with Rhee-backer Mayor Adrian Fenty. "At the end of the day, some people's pay raises [would be] funded with someone else's job."

Rhee contested Gray's remark after the meeting, again defending the firings at the very time she hoped to push forward with the new contract, three years in the making.

"The information we were provided [before the firings] was that we had $43 million in budget pressure. We took action based on the information we had at the time," Rhee said.

That information stood up in court, Rhee pointed out. Fired teachers who brought a lawsuit against D.C. Public Schools in the fall could not convince a judge that the layoffs were unfair or unnecessary.

Rhee said revised budget figures came to light in February -- after the firings -- showing that the district had about $34 million more than budgeted salary figures. The excess came not because of the firings, she said, but because the budget figures provided by the D.C. chief financial officer's office used $81,000 as an average teacher salary, when in fact it is closer to $73,000 with benefits.

Councilman Marion Barry called Rhee's revelation "the worst mess involving the city government that I've seen in my 31 years in city government."

Parker called the news a "bombshell." He requested that Rhee reinstate the fired teachers -- a call that school officials deemed unrealistic.

Rhee remained steadfast in moving forward with the contract, which awaits approval by teachers and the D.C. Council if it receives a green light from the city's budget office.

"We certainly need to lay out how this happened, but it shouldn't derail it at all," Rhee said

For Immediate Release Contact: Nathan A. Saunders

Phone: 202.213.7081

Distribution to all DC Public School Teachers E-mail: nasaunders@aol.com

Media Contacts and other significant stakeholders

April 14, 2010

Statement by Nathan A. Saunders

Wrongfully Terminated Teachers Should Seek Restitution and Damages

Washington, D.C. - On Tuesday, April 13, 2010 DCPS Chancellor Michelle Rhee disclosed her lie against 266 wrongfully terminate teachers which she has secreted for months. WTU President George Parker was present and silent. Our responsibility as honest brokers, fellow teachers and union members is to make sure those wrongfully terminated teachers and their families receive what we all would want- a new non AFT and non WTU affiliated attorney for restitution of all rights and privileges with damages. We now know that our fellow teachers’ hardship and blood money is the base funding for the Rhee and Parker tentative agreement (TA) - a scheme for national glory not local progress.

One week prior to their televised tentative agreement press conference under AFT’s watchful eyes, Parker orchestrated the withdrawal of WTU’s DC Court of Appeals challenge to Rhee regarding the 266 wrongfully terminated teachers. Parker and Rhee’s collusive behavior is not coincidental, but intentional. From inception, Parker’s filing of the wrongfully terminated teachers lawsuit was late, incomplete and did not protect all of the teachers’ rights. He did not use critical information gleamed from exhaustive DC City Council hearings and curiously did not require Chancellor Michelle Rhee under oath. Teacher court spectators were humiliated. Rhee has a free hand to abuse because of Parker’s weak representation, slovenly behavior and reactionary leadership. He cannot represent teachers in any manner because he is not trustworthy and Rhee can depend on it. Two years ago, I, as a WTU fiduciary agent, took public action by charging senior AFT officials, Parker and Rhee with collusion. It centered on Parker helping Rhee to discipline (terminate) certain teachers, clandestine agreements and abusing DCPS personnel records. Fighting for teacher job security and rights has been difficult when opponents use high priced press agents, billionaires, and anti-union foundations with more access to AFT than to dues paying members. As the millions at stake have increased, old union tactics of threats, salary reductions, and violence are becoming more commonplace in WTU.

Today, Parker attempts to backtrack with a public statement announcing his outrage with Rhee’s revelations. She could not have done it without his support. As the General Vice President, I am calling on all teachers to boycott future Tentative Agreement presentations. If a ballot for ratification ever arrives- VOTE NO. AFT’s undisclosed conflict of interest to WTU members exists by receiving funding from the same or similarly situated foundations desirous of funding WTU’s teacher raises (AFT’s Innovation Fund).

This TA is not educationally or fiscally sound, and yields future economic opportunities for the individuals and organizations other than DCPS teachers and children. Neither George Parker nor Michelle Rhee is worth jeopardizing any teacher’s economic security or students’ success. Teachers should focus on IMPACT teacher evaluations- Rhee’s new terminating tool- whereby hundreds will lose their jobs quickly. Any attempt by Parker to blame Rhee solely for this debacle without acknowledging his culpability is another repeat offense against DCPS teachers and students.

##

This is a copy of Randi's response letter to my open letter to her. When I didn't post it right away, the AFT posted a comment on my blog stating that it was available on the Washington Teachers Union's blog. This is amazing to me. While I will eventually post it I have some other more pressing news to report right now. Check it out as sent to me from her public affairs division (attached). At least we know how to get an answer from Randi. Candi

Hi, Candi,

Randi Weingarten wanted to thank you for reaching out to her on Monday, and wants to make sure you receive this response to your open letter. We're hoping you'll post this on your blog, as well.

Thanks, we'll talk soon.

George Jackson, Sr. Associate

Public Affairs

P: 202/393-4275

M: 202/494-8178

F: 202/879-4556

E: gjackson@aft.org

American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO

555 New Jersey Ave NW

Washington, DC 20001

202/879-4400

www.aft.org

for reaching out

DC Watches Rhee and Fenty in The Mail

Deception

Dear Deceived:

In the last issue of themail, I wrote that Chancellor Rhee and Mayor Fenty had lost the trust of DCPS and government employees. And that was before the events of Monday and Tuesday that Dorothy recounts below. Fenty told the council on Monday that he had no idea how the Washington Teachers Union contract was funded in the budget he had submitted. Rhee told councilmembers on Tuesday that, although she had claimed in October 2009 that DCPS would have a $43 million deficit in fiscal year 2010 that required her to fire 388 DCPS employees, including 266 teachers, she now claimed that DCPS would actually have a fiscal year 2010 surplus of $34 million that would fund teachers’ raises and retroactive pay raises in fiscal year 2011.

Rhee and Fenty have been busy inventing consecutive cover stories ever since. The problem, they claimed, was an arithmetic error, a miscalculation, that made them really think there would be a deficit. The problem was all the Chief Financial Officer’s fault; the CFO makes a good fall guy. There wasn’t really a problem, since the false budget numbers the city presented to a judge fooled him, and convinced him that the phony deficit was real, and that it justified firing the teachers. The judge’s accepting DCPS’s fake numbers proves the fake numbers were real. There wasn’t really a problem for the teachers union, since unions aren’t built on a brotherhood of workers protecting each other and looking out for their common interest, and the surviving teachers should be happy to take raises funded by blood money, by firing their fellow union members. Union members should look to the future, and forget the wrong done to their fellow union members in the long-ago past, just a few months ago. The problem wasn’t Fenty’s and Rhee’s failure to inform the council or the public when they “discovered” a $34 million surplus in the DCPS budget, since the DCPS and the mayor have no duty to inform the public or the council of anything.

Why hasn’t any cover story lasted for more than a few hours? Because all the cover stories lead to one conclusion. Fenty and Rhee will say anything they need to say to justify doing what they want to do, and they don’t care about the real-life damage they do to government workers or city residents. Rhee was asked whether she would consider using the surprising surplus to rehire wrongfully fired teachers, and her response was screw them.

Now the city council begins its process of overseeing the city’s budget, and it has to do its oversight with an entirely new attitude, informed by its experience with Rhee and the DCPS budget. It has to expect that any budget submitted to it for any agency, department, or program is susceptible to manipulation with the intent to deceive, to deceive them or the public.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

###############

Rhee’s Disclosure
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com

On Tuesday morning, I attended the administrative meeting that councilmembers held with School Chancellor Michelle Rhee and Washington Teachers Union President George Parker in order to be briefed on the newly negotiated WTU contract. The meeting, held in Chairman Vincent Gray’s fifth floor conference room at the Wilson Building, followed by one day the council’s contentious budget hearing with the mayor, City Administrator Neil Albert, and Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi. At that Monday hearing, Mayor Fenty and City Administrator Neil Albert were unable to point to any line item in the budget where the contract raises promised to the teachers were funded. They were stumped when they were pressed on whether the $140 million cost of the contract was adequately funded in the FY 2011 budget that the Mayor had submitted to the council on April 1, and Mayor Fenty told the council that Chancellor Rhee would be able to explain the funding to them on Tuesday.

At the Tuesday meeting, attendees included Rhee; Parker; Councilmembers Gray, Alexander, Barry Bowser, K. Brown, M. Brown, Catania, Evans, Graham, Mendelson, and Wells; DC Auditor Deborah Nickles; senior staffers from the office of the Deputy Mayor for Education, and representative from the American Federation of Teachers. Rhee astounded everyone there when she announced that DC Public Schools would fund the contract by using a “newly found” surplus of $34 million for this fiscal year. Some of the atmosphere of the meeting was given in reports in the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/14/AR2010041404847.html) and the Washington Examiner (http://tinyurl.com/ybcqc7a). Here are some other emotional reactions by Councilmembers to Rhee’s revelation. Barry: “It is clear to me that we didn’t need to have a RIF.” Catania: “I don’t have any confidence in your [Rhee’s] numbers.” Catania: “A cynic . . . [would not that it is] too convenient that an appropriate number of teachers were RIFed [in order] to fund the pay increases [in the WTU contract]. Catania: “I am suspicious of the process.” Graham: “Why did you [Rhee] wait until this moment to say this?” Gray: “We [the councilmembers] are all stunned.” K. Brown: “Looks like shenanigans.” Gray: “If I was one of the 266 individuals [teachers] who had lost their jobs, I would be ready to put my hands around someone’s throat and squeeze.” Gray: “People lost their jobs over a budget deficit which did not exist.” Wells: “This was an error, or was it manufactured.” Gray: “Some people’s pay raise [under the new WTU contract] was funded by someone else’s job.”

###############

DC Teachers’ Tentative Agreement: “Buyer Beware”
Nathan A. Saunders, General Vice President, WTU, nasaunders@aol.com

DCPS Chancellor Michelle Rhee and WTU President George Parker announced a tentative agreement (TA) after three years amid protests of a group of wrongfully terminated teachers and now former union members, who lost their medical benefits, life insurance, and voting rights. Since that time, the news media has been regurgitating the well prepared press package without investigation or analysis. Despite their unfounded reports of soon-to-be-rich public school teachers, the TA delivers less. Teachers have not received mailed copies of the TA and the Internet version at WTUlocal6.org does not include the side agreement letters, yet it advertises “the entire” TA.

Teachers’ rights in the contract are ambiguous and vague, and use unresolved terms. The words “tenure” and “seniority,” while preserved, are irrelevant, as their meaning is gutted and without substance. A troubling section is Performance Based Pay; it is incomplete and states it will be developed later — yet Performance Based Excessing is oppressive — establishing quick terminations within sixty days. For Rhee, the contract is specific, binding, and punitive; for teachers, it is incomplete, indefinite, and unenforceable. Rhee has made the jobs of the DC city council, mayor, foundations, and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) child’s play with Article 40, et. seq. (P.103):

ARTICLE 40 - SUFFICIENT FUNDS

40.1 The Parties agree that all provisions of this Agreement are subject to the availability of funds.

40.2 Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed as a promise that Congress, the DC Council, or any other organization shall appropriate sufficient funds to meet the obligations set forth in this Agreement.

40.3 DCPS agrees to provide financial certification that DCPS can meet the obligations of this contract before moving toward final approval. The parties agree that the failure to provide the funds to meet the obligations of the Agreement pertaining to base salary, benefits (defined as the provisions governing optical, dental and legal benefits), and mutual consent, is a material breach of contract by DCPS. The consequences of that breach will be settled by a court or an arbitrator, unless otherwise negotiated by the Parties.

The TA creates no financial liability on any entity. It does not have the full faith and credit security of the DC government. As a result, teachers are not guaranteed a 21 percent raise or a 0 percent raise but teachers will jeopardize 100 percent of their current salary. Because of Article 40, CFO Gandhi could approve the TA’s financial soundness without using his calculator, that is, if he and others (DC city council and the US Congress) are as eager to shortchange teachers as Rhee and Parker. Article 40 language is an entirely new low standard to WTU contracts. Nothing is certain including the bonus, the base salary, the promise or the requirement for the DC Government to even appropriate the funds! Teachers risk everything without any assurances. Article 40.1 and 40.2 are failure to pay escape clause provisions which would cause any breach of contract lawsuit to wilt. Article 40.3 is unnecessary gibberish as all breach of contract issues are court adjudicated based on common law principles. The “Article 40 style trickery” permeates the entire TA. Those believing the courts would not allow a bad deal to exist must think again. Courts do not inquire into the value of promises negotiators make to one another. The number or quality of promises made by DCPS or WTU is not the business of the court. Therefore, teachers could ratify a bad deal and have no legal recourse.

Rhee’s education philosophy translates into “terminating teachers helps children,” and teachers voting for ratification will be endorsing her. Churning teachers in and out of classrooms will affect students negatively. Some voters for ratification may be seduced by Wal-Mart and Enron foundation money, but they could join ranks of the DC unemployed. Teaching jobs are hard to find even for experienced, certified teachers — ask the protesters. With the DC government running a $530 million deficit and calls to reduce DCPS spending, ratifying an unsecured, non-pensionable, and unenforceable TA could create hundreds of unemployed teachers. Most teachers, who are committed to students’ well being, the teaching profession, and their family’s economic security, will say no to ratification.

###############

Michelle Rhee: Time to Call It Quits
Richard Urban, Rurban@RUforDC.com

Michelle Rhee reported to the DC city council on Tuesday that she knew in February that there were surplus funds available. However, she did not report that information to the council. This revelation comes on the heels of the contention that Ms. Rhee knew very well that teachers would have to be laid off (266 were laid off) to accurate her hiring of nine hundred new teachers. Michelle Rhee has shown contempt for honesty and transparency.

In November 2007, ULTRA Teen Choice, the nonprofit that I co-founded, was told to stop our programs at DC Public Schools (http://www.ultrateenchoice.org/c_LSRT_&_DCPS_emails_631_English.htm) because “there is a moratorium on all outside health providers.” It turned out that there was no such moratorium. I attempted to ring the alarm bell about an administrator who subverts rules and due process to suit her own agenda. It turned out that Ms. Rhee was upset that I did not support new health standards that required teaching that same sex relationships are normal, beginning in the sixth grade. This spring, I found out that Ms. Rhee, instead of following DC law, which specifies that after-school providers that work with DCPS do not have to have their own liability insurance, forces providers to carry a million dollars in liability insurance. When I brought up the point that DC Code does not require this insurance, the out-of-school time office simply said that those were the rules that the Chancellor was applying, law or no law.

Ms. Rhee has repeatedly shown contempt for oversight, transparency, due process, parental rights, and teachers rights. In the name of supposed reform, she has created distrust among administrators and teachers. She has blocked many community organizations that want to help youths in DC Public Schools from working in the schools. At Ludlow Taylor elementary school, she met with parents who didn’t have children in DCPS while ignoring parents whose children were currently enrolled there. Ms. Rhee has accused teachers in DC Public schools of sexual misconduct, while covering up for her fiancee, Kevin Johnson, who was accused of making sexual advances on AmeriCorps students under his supervision (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/21/hill-report-names-dc-schools-chief/). It is time for Michelle Rhee to call it quits, and for DC Public Schools to be returned to the control of an elected school board.

It's okay! Michelle Rhee found $34 million in the pocket of her winter coat. Get this incompetent, lying, teacher-hating weasel out of our lives D. C. Council members!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/13/AR2010041302834.html

Budget that prompted D.C. teacher firings is now being used to fund teacher raises

By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 13, 2010; 2:27 PM

Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, who laid off 266 teachers in October to help close what she said was a $43 million budget gap, told the D.C. Council on Monday that raises for educators under a proposed labor contract would be paid for in part by a $34 million surplus in that same budget.

Council members expressed astonishment at Rhee's disclosure, which came during a morning meeting to discuss the tentative contract settlement with the Washington Teachers' Union announced last week. It is likely to revive charges among some council and union members that Rhee manipulated last year's budget process to execute the layoffs, and could well complicate deliberations over the proposed labor deal. The pact must be ratified by both the union and the council.

"This just gets curiouser and curiouser," said council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1).

Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray said it appeared that the layoffs, which triggered weeks of stormy public hearings, students protests, teacher rallies and a union lawsuit, might have been unnecessary. He also said the council should have been apprised of the surplus, which Rhee said she learned about in January -- about two months after the terminated teachers were dropped from the District payroll.

Gray, who is challenging Rhee's boss, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) in the September mayoral primary, said if he were a laid-off teacher, he'd be livid. "I'd be about ready to put my hands around somebody's throat," he said.

He added: "People lost their jobs under a budget deficit that didn't exist. That's what I heard today."

Rhee said that based on data she received from Noah Wepman, then the school system's chief financial officer, the budget gap was legitimate and that she had no choice but to address it. She added that the District's contention was upheld by a judge in the union's lawsuit challenging the layoffs.

"The evidence very clearly showed that at the time we had a budget pressure," Rhee said.

Teachers union President George Parker, who also attended the meeting, said he was not aware of the surplus. He left the session without comment.

The meeting started with what appeared to be heartening news for the council, which had raised numerous questions at a Monday budget hearing about how the proposed contract -- which promises teachers a 20 percent pay increase over five years -- would be financed in a tight fiscal environment.

Rhee said that raises in the first two years of the five-year agreement, which are retroactive base salary hikes of 3 percent each for 2008 and 2009, would be paid for by $22 million in unspent federal funding. Rhee explained that the third year of the pact, which calls for a 4 percent raise in the current fiscal year, would be financed by a $34 million surplus. She said that spending on teacher salaries was running at lower-than-expected rates, creating an unexpected pot of money.

Council members were incredulous.

"It's just too convenient," said council member David A. Catania (I-At Large), who likened the school system's budgeting process to a "three-card monte game."

Council member Michael A. Brown (I-At Large) asked Rhee whether she would be willing to consider reinstating the 266 laid-off teachers in light of the new budget situation. Rhee said no.

"Because we are in a completely different situation now," she said.

Members also expressed unhappiness with District Chief Financial Officer Natwar M.Gandhi, who made no mention of the surplus at Monday's hearing, which lasted more than five hours.

"That is a problem. That is a huge, huge, huge problem," Brown said.

The story that keeps giving: Rhee/Johnson/Huffner (Rhee ex)/White House

New documents: White House scrambled to justify AmeriCorps firing after the fact

By: BYRON YORK
Chief Political Correspondent
November 23, 2009

Just hours after Sen. Charles Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa released a report Friday on their investigation into the abrupt firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin, the Obama White House gave the lawmakers a trove of new, previously-withheld documents on the affair. It was a twist on the now-familiar White House late-Friday release of bad news; this time, the new evidence was put out not only at the start of a weekend but also hours too late for inclusion in the report.

The new documents support the Republican investigators' conclusion that the White House's explanation for Walpin's dismissal -- that it came after the board of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps, unanimously decided that Walpin must go -- was in fact a public story cobbled together after Walpin was fired, not before.

Walpin was axed on the evening of June 10, when he received a call from Norman Eisen, the special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, who told Walpin he had one hour either to resign or be fired. The next day, congressional Republicans, led by Grassley, objected, charging that Walpin's dismissal violated a recently-passed law requiring the president to give Congress 30 days' notice before dismissing an inspector general.

Pressed for the reason Walpin was fired, Eisen told House and Senate aides that the White House conducted an "extensive review" of complaints about Walpin’s performance before deciding to dismiss him. According to the new report, Eisen told Congress that "his investigation into the merits of removing Gerald Walpin involved contacting members of the Corporation for National and Community Service [CNCS] board to confirm the existence of a 'consensus' in favor of removal." But Republican investigators later discovered that during that "extensive review," the White House did not even seek the views of the corporation's board -- the very people whose "consensus" purportedly led to Walpin's firing.

Other than board chairman Alan Solomont, the Democratic mega-donor and Obama supporter who originally told the White House of his dissatisfaction with Walpin, "no member of the CNCS board had any substantive input about whether the removal of Gerald Walpin was appropriate," according to the report. Only one other board member, vice-chairman Stephen Goldsmith, was even called by the White House, and that was on June 10, a few hours before Walpin was fired. According to the report, Goldsmith told investigators that "the White House had already decided to remove Walpin and wanted to confirm [Goldsmith's] support for the action."

The new documents show the White House scrambling, in the days after the controversy erupted, to put together a public explanation for the firing. On June 11, less than 24 hours after Walpin received the call from Eisen, the board held a conference call. The next day, Ranit Schmelzer, who is part of the corporation's press office, sent an email to board members giving them talking points to use if contacted by reporters seeking information about the matter.

"Indicate that you support the president's decision to remove IG Walpin," was Schmelzer's first instruction to the board. Then: "If asked why he was removed, indicate that the president lost confidence in Mr. Walpin." And then: "If the reporter continues to press, say that you can't get into details on a personnel matter, but you understand there were some performance-based issues." Finally, Schmelzer advised the board to avoid "getting into any specifics about IG Walpin's performance-based issues. The WH has stayed away from this and has counseled us to do the same."

The next day, June 13, after having instructed board members that the correct answer was to express support for the firing, the White House, for the first time, solicited the members' actual views on the matter. In an email to the board headlined "Time-sensitive request from White House Counsel re IG matter," corporation general counsel Frank Trinity wrote, "I was just contacted by Elana Tyrangiel, Associate Counsel to the President, seeking your assistance in responding to questions from members of Congress about President Obama's removal of Gerald Walpin as inspector general. Specifically, the White House Counsel's office would like to compile statements from board members and CNCS staff who were present at the inspector general's presentation to the board immediately before the public board meeting last month." Trinity said each member would receive a call from White House lawyer Tyrangiel, who "will prepare statements for your review for accuracy."

The mention of Walpin's "presentation to the board" was a reference to a May 20 board meeting that played a key part in the White House's evolving explanations for Walpin's firing. After initially explaining that President Obama no longer had the "fullest confidence" in Walpin, the White House later changed its story to say that Walpin, who was 77 years old at the time, had become "confused, disoriented [and] unable to answer questions" at the May 20 meeting. Later, the White House cited other "performance-based" issues. But Republican investigators concluded that the key motive behind the firing was unhappiness with Walpin's aggressive investigation of misuse of AmeriCorps funds by Kevin Johnson, the mayor of Sacramento, California who is a prominent political ally of President Obama.

Through it all, the White House and top management of the corporation struggled to keep the story straight. By June 18, a week after the firing, with news coverage dying down -- it had never been very intense in the first place -- they felt they had succeeded. "I understand how much work you are doing to prevent and control damage from the IG matter," Solomont wrote in an email to Eric Tanenblatt, a board member who had talked to the press. "I want you to know how much I personally appreciate all your efforts."

Rhee Ex-Husband "Wins" WAPO Contest

As to why Huffman won the "contest", the following posting at the WaPo website explains:

"The Teach for America twitter feed has been campaigning for him and he has over 6,000 people in just one of the several TFA facebook groups. Google him and you'll see a couple of major politicians tweeting for him including Kevin Johnson Democrat Mayor of Sacramento and some major education blogs. It's clear he's invested a great deal of time in this. One wonders though if his supporters will stick around after he wins."

---

From: nyceducationnews@yahoogroups.com [mailto:nyceducationnews@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Leonie Haimson
Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2009 5:39 PM
To: nyceducationnews@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [nyceducationnews] New WaPo 'pundit' is Rhee's ex; Hiatt responds

More inside the beltway echo chambers. TFA public affairs officer and Rhee’s ex chosen as new “pundit” for Washington Post.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/1109/New_WaPo_pundit_is_Rhees_Ex.html?showall

New WaPo 'pundit' is Rhee's ex; Hiatt responds

Earlier, I mentioned that the Washington Post named Kevin Huffman the winner of its first-ever "America's Next Great Pundit" contest.

But it should also be noted that Huffman's ex-wife is schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, an editorial page favorite and cover star of the first revamped Post magazine. In that 4,200-word piece on Rhee in September, the author mentioned that she didn't want to discuss aspects of her personal life, including Huffman and their two children.

However, when Time profiled Rhee last year, Huffman spoke on the record about their relationship.

The summer after her second year of teaching, Rhee met Kevin Huffman, a fellow Teach for America member. They married two years later and had two daughters, Starr and Olivia, now 9 and 6. They moved to Colorado to be closer to Rhee's parents, but the marriage faltered. Huffman and Rhee separated, agreeing to joint custody of the kids. And then Rhee got the offer to run Washington's schools. Huffman, now head of public affairs for Teach for America, had no illusions about the challenges Rhee would face. But when he heard about the job offer, he decided to follow her to D.C. "Even though moving didn't sound like a whole lot of fun," he says, "the reality is that I genuinely believed that she had the potential to be the best superintendent in the country. Most people think about their own longevity, about political considerations." He adds, "Very few people genuinely don't care about anything other than the end result for kids. Michelle will compromise with no one when it comes to making sure kids get what they deserve."

With 4,800 contestants, from all 50 states, it's interesting that the winner ends up being someone familiar with the world of D.C. politics, as opposed to someone far outside the Beltway.

However, Fred Hiatt, the Post's editorial page editor, pointed out to POLITICO that Huffman was voted in by viewers and readers across the country. "I don't think his personal life was a factor." Hiatt said he didn't know Huffman before the contest and doesn't know of anyone at the Post who did.

And would Huffman have to disclose that he was married to Rhee?

"As with any columnist, we would expect him not to write about areas in which he has a personal conflict, or to disclose the conflict if he chooses to write about such areas," Hiatt said.

Posted by Michael Calderone 02:01 PM

WTU Loses Court Challenge To Layoffs
A D.C. Superior Court judge has ruled against a bid by the Washington Teachers' Union (WTU) to roll back the Oct. 2 layoffs of 266 DCPS teachers and staff.
In an opinion issued late Tuesday morning, Judge Judith Bartnoff said WTU had failed to prove any of its core arguments against Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's decision to conduct a RIF (reduction in force) due to a $43.9 million budget shortfall. She said that given the District's financial situation, a reversal of the layoffs would force Rhee and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty to make other cuts in the DCPS, harming the public interest.
"The District asserts, and the plaintiff has not disputed, that in that event, other staff would be subject to a RIF--even further into the school year--or programs that have been deemed essential would have to be cut," Bartnoff wrote. "Such an action would not benefit DCPS, its teachers, students or staff, or the wider District of Columbia community."
No word yet on whether WTU plans to appeal.
The union argued that the RIF was not a budget-driven layoff but an illegal mass firing, and that the shortfall cited by Rhee was a sham and a pretext for dumping older teachers. As a mass firing, WTU contended, the action was subject to arbitration under the District's collective bargaining agreement with the WTU.
The union charged that Rhee, in essence, went on an illegal hiring spree over the spring and summer, bringing more 900 new teachers on board knowing that she would need to make cuts later.
But Bartnoff said the union failed to provide any substantive evidence that DCPS packed the system with teachers it could not pay for until the D.C. Council cut its 2010 budget by $21 million on July 31. In contrast, she singled out Rhee's chief of staff, Lisa Ruda, as "a very credible witness" in her testimony on DCPS' budget problems after the council cut.
Bill Turque

What Was Michelle Rhee’s ‘Damage Control’ for Kevin Johnson?

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2009/11/20/what-was-michelle-rhees-damage-control-for-kevin-johnson/

Posted by Mike DeBonis on Nov. 20, 2009, at 2:34 pm

Stories broke this morning in the Los Angeles Times and in the Examiner reporting that D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee took an active role in investigations of her fiance, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson.

Allow LL to explicate a little more fully what this is and what Rhee is alleged to have done.

Rhee's involvement in Johnson's dealing has been revealed as part of an investigation by two congressional Republicans into the firing of Gerald Walpin, who had served as inspector general for the federal AmeriCorps program until June. Republicans allege that Walpin was fired by the Obama administration for political reasons---in particular, for pressing his investigation of mismanagement of federal funds by St. Hope, the nonprofit founded by prominent Democrat and Obama ally Johnson. The Republican report [PDF], released today, concludes that the White House's decision to fire Walpin was "based on incomplete and misleading information"; that a White House lawyer's explanation for the firing is "not credible"; and that the firing "is likely to have a chilling effect on the IG community." In other words, there's a lot of political posturing going on here.

But along with their report, the Republicans also released Walpin's IG report on St. Hope, which includes interview notes indicating that Rhee got involved after a St. Hope employee reported being "touched inappropriately" by Johnson.

Rhee's involvement in the probe stems from the statements of Jacqueline Wong-Hernandez, a former St. Hope staff member, to federal investigators. According to an interview report, Wong-Hernandez told an investigator that Rhee was well known as someone who filled several roles with Johnson's St. Hope organization and would use Johnson's office when she was in town. Wong-Hernandez said that Rhee 'played the role as "Damage Control". When there was a problem at St. HOPE, Ms. Rhee was there the next day taking care of the problem.'

When the sexual misconduct allegations were raised, Rhee contacted Wong-Hernandez to figure out what had happened, telling her "she was making this her number one priority and she would take care of the situation." Subsequently, Wong-Hernandez found out that Johnson's lawyer had contacted the accuser, after which the accuser dropped the complaint.

Disgusted with how the incident had been handled, Wong-Hernandez quit St. Hope, and it was Rhee who conducted the exit interview. She told Rhee the reason she was leaving was the way St. Hope had handled the sexual misconduct allegation. According to the interview report, "Ms, Wong-Hernandez also informed Ms. Rhee that she didn't trust the management at St. HOPE. Ms. Rhee documented the interview in her daily planner and responded to Ms. Wong-Hernandez by thanking her for bringing it to her attention how disorganized the program had become. Ms. Rhee didn't try to talk Ms. Wong-Hernandez into staying."

The L.A. Times further reports that Rhee spoke directly to Walpin, having discussions "in which she made the case for Johnson and the school he ran in Sacramento" and described Johnson as "a good guy." Still, the paper reports, "Rhee's position had little effect on [Walpin], who filed a criminal referral to the U.S. attorney on Johnson....But both the Sacramento police and federal attorneys declined to pursue charges."

When Walpin's report had to say regarding Johnson's sexual misconduct was a relatively minor part of the report, which focused on misappropriation of federal funds and other serious-but-less-salacious charges. But allow LL to share what Walpin turned up---the first instance related in the report is what was described to Rhee by Wong-Hernandez; it's unknown if Rhee was aware of the other allegations below:

G. Improper Sexual Physical Conduct

Our investigation disclosed evidence of sexual misconduct towards young female Members by Mr. Johnson. One Member, [REDACTED] (Ex. 19 hereto), reported that, in the February/March 2007 time frame, she was entering grades into the SAC High database system per Mr. Johnson's instructions at the St. HOPE office at night, purportedly as part of her AmeriCorps service. [REDACTED] contacted Mr. Johnson to inform him that she had completed the grades and wanted him to review them. About 11:00 pm, Mr. Johnson arrived at St. HOPE and instructed [REDACTED] to gather her things and come with him. Mr. Johnson drove to [REDACTED] apartment, which is managed by St. HOPE Development and houses its AmeriCorps Members, purportedly so that they could review the students' grades. While in [REDACTED], in which another AmeriCorps Member had a separate bedroom, Mr, Johnson laid down on [REDACTED's] bed, [REDACTED] sat on the edge of the bed to show him the grades, at which time Mr. Johnson "layed down behind me, cupping his body around mine like the letter C. After about 2-3 minutes or so, I felt his hand on my left side where my hip bone is." Further, although not detailed in her written statement, [REDACTED], during the interview, demonstrated, while explaining, that Mr. Johnson's hand went under her untucked shirt and moved until his hand was on her hip. [REDACTED] immediately got up and stated she was done and left the room. When she returned, Mr. Johnson was still in her bed, but now apparently sleeping. Only after [REDACTED] sought to take a blanket to sleep elsewhere did Mr. Johnson exit to the living room of the apartment. [REDACTED] related that Mr. Johnson slept on the couch in her apartment living room that night and subsequently left the apartment at approximately 6 a.m. the next day.

After, as [REDACTED] put it, she "got the courage to tell... my supervisors," she reported the incident, which, she was informed, was communicated to St. HOPE Academy's Human Resources Department and the Chief Financial Officer. The night after [REDACTED] made her report, Mr. Johnson approached her and apologized. Subsequently, Kevin Hiestand, Johnson's personal attorney, met with [REDACTED], described himself only "as a friend of Johnson," and "basically asked me to keep quiet." Also, about one week after this incident, when [REDACTED] told Mr. Johnson she was going to quit because of financial and family reasons, Mr. Johnson "offered to give me $1,000 a month until the end of the program," stating that it would be confidential "between him and I." As [REDACTED] related that conversation, Mr. Johnson "said all he needed was my savings account number," he would make the deposit and "no one needed to know about it." [REDACTED] did not accept this offer by giving Mr. Johnson her account number.

Another former Member, [REDACTED] (Ex. 20 hereto), reported that, while attending a St. HOPE sponsored trip to Harlem, NY, from June 26 to July 16, 2006, Mr. Johnson, on three occasions, "brushed [her] leg with his hand," including once "flip[ingj up the edge of her skirt. Other times, she stated, Mr. Johnson kissed her cheek, brushed up against her as he walked past, and massaged her shoulders. ([REDACTED] reported another incident that occurred in Sacramento, CA, in which Mr. Johnson touched [REDACTED's] inner thigh with his hand while enroute to a restaurant. [REDACTED] said she did not report the incidents to AmeriCorps officials at that time because she feared she would be terminated from the program and because Mr. Johnson was assisting her in obtaining acceptance into the United States Military Academy, where she subsequently enrolled.

In addition, former SAC High teacher Mr. Erik Jones (Ex. 12 hereto) reported that a former AmeriCorps Member, [REDACTED], reported to him, sometime in 2007, that, while at SAC High, Mr. Johnson had inappropriately touched her. Mr. Jones stated that [REDACTED] had reported that Mr. Johnson started massaging her shoulders and then reached over and touched her breasts. (Attempts to interview [REDACTED] have been so far unsuccessful.) Mr. Jones related that, after he reported this incident to St. HOPE Academy officials, he was contacted by Mr. Hiestand, Mr. Johnson's attorney, but who identified himself solely as St. HOPE'S counsel, and stated he was conducting an internal investigation. Mr. Hiestand told Mr. Jones that [REDACTED's] "story" was different from Mr, Jones' and told Mr. Jones to change his "story" and then go back to work. Mr. Jones, realizing what he was being asked to do, elected to resign as a teacher and left SAC High.

More Tsouris for Rhee

We've had a week of startling revelations about two of the latest Fenty administration scandals. We've heard how the administration manipulated city funds so that it could steer construction contracts to cronies and hide the contracts from the city council and the public. We've heard how Chancellor Rhee fiddled with the DC public schools' budget so that she could fire a few hundred teachers and other employees. Rhee testified at a city council hearing that she didn't plan the Reduction in Force, that she didn't intentionally hire several hundred more teachers than she needed over the summer in order to break the union contract. No, she insisted, she wasn't being malicious; she had simply been incompetent, bumbling, and unable to plan ahead. She had the right to ignore the legal budget of DCPS that the council passed and the mayor signed because she was the head of the agency, and that meant she had the ultimate power. The city council had approved her nomination, so from then on she wasn't accountable to them or anyone else for her actions. And she used, over and over again, the magic words, “for the children.” As long as she was doing it “for the children,” she could do whatever she wanted with the budget, with the staff of DCPS, with the teachers, the principals, and the students. She didn't have to report to the council and her budget officer didn't have to report to the Chief Financial Officer. The only way she could think of to improve management of DCPS was to make a vague promise to in some way “improve communications.” (See Chancellor Rhee's and Chief Financial Officer Gandhi's testimony at http://www.dcpswatch.com/rif, and the video of the hearing at http://octt.dc.gov/services/on_demand_video/channel13/october2009/10_29_09_COW_1.asx, http://octt.dc.gov/services/on_demand_video/channel13/october2009/10_29_09_COW_2.asx, and http://octt.dc.gov/services/on_demand_video/channel13/october2009/10_29_09_COW_3.asx.

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

Rhee ignored instructions about cuts, council says

By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 30, 2009

D.C. Council members angrily accused Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee on Thursday of skirting the law by deciding unilaterally to lay off teachers and staff -- instead of trimming summer school operations -- to save $9 million in the school system's budget.

The decision, which Rhee defended on legal and policy grounds, was one of a series of disclosures during a contentious day-long oversight hearing that shed new light on the layoffs. The dismissals have sparked vociferous street protests, a union lawsuit and the most intense public debate of Rhee's 28-month tenure.

For some council members, the revelations confirmed suspicions that Rhee ignored a council directive to trim the summer school program and manipulated this year's budget process to further her goal of replacing a large portion of the city's 4,000 teachers. They vowed to press their investigation of the dismissals.

The hearing also laid bare festering tensions between Rhee and D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D), a possible mayoral candidate next year, who has for months criticized the school leader for a lack of communication and transparency. He said her decision, which he called "incredibly cavalier," violated legal requirements that she submit a "reprogramming" request to the council when shifting funds.

"I'm talking about the law," Gray said. "Why bother to have a legislative body if the people in the executive branch do whatever they choose because they don't like the decision of the legislative body?"

Others took issue with Gray's analysis, but even some of Rhee's most steadfast supporters on the council rebuked her for the bitter state of relations between the school system and elected officials.

"We cannot continue to have this kind of craziness," said Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), who noted encouraging signs of progress in the schools but lamented that "we are sitting in a chamber where tensions couldn't be higher." Under Rhee, test scores have risen recently, and enrollment appears to have stabilized after a long decline.

'Change is hard'

Testifying under oath, Rhee said she was open to improving communications but added: "Change is hard. Some of the decisions we are making are going to cause some opposition and push-back. We can't shy away from those decisions because we don't want to hear the noise."

Rhee said the Oct. 2 layoffs of 266 teachers and other educators were needed to help close a $43.9 million shortfall in the 2010 budget. Union leaders have denounced the action as an illegal mass firing designed to purge older educators. They have gone to court to have the teachers reinstated.

Rhee also revealed new information about the teachers who were fired and the 934 she hired during the spring and summer. In written testimony delivered Wednesday night, she told Gray that the average age of the District's teachers is 42 and that the average age of those who were laid off is 48. The average age of the 934 new hires is 32.

Rhee had deflected claims of age discrimination in interviews this month, saying that the average age of the laid-off educators was consistent with the age of the school workforce.

Thursday's hearing centered on $20.7 million the council cut from the school budget July 31, part of a citywide belt-tightening because of declining tax revenue. About $9 million of the cut came in the form of a reduction in 2010 summer school operations.

Rhee said that summer school has become a critical component in helping high school students catch up academically, recover course credits and stay on a path toward graduation. Given a choice between protecting the interests of adults and students, she said, she chose to protect students. The $9 million represents a little more than 100 of the 266 teacher layoffs.

A visibly exasperated Gray was not swayed, citing what he called Rhee's violation of city regulations.

"You think that's inconsequential?" he asked. "You think that's okay?"

Rhee responded: "I think that at times you are making difficult decisions, and things don't always happen in the ideal manner," adding that Attorney General Peter Nickles and James Sandman, the school system's general counsel, advised her that she was on firm legal ground. She added that she will submit the reprogramming request next year before the beginning of summer school.

Mixed phone signals

Gray asked why the council had to wait until Thursday to learn that rerouting summer school funds was part of her strategy for meeting the shortfall. Rhee, in turn, accused Gray of being unwilling to pick up the phone.

"There have been multiple occasions in the last few months where I have tried to get on the phone to talk to you about these issues," she said, describing one particular day in which two scheduled conference calls fell through because he was not available.

Council members also denounced Rhee's chief financial deputy, Noah Wepman, who acknowledged that he was aware in mid-July that as the school system was hiring hundreds of new teachers it faced a deficit of between $12 million and 13 million in its 2009 budget. Wepman said he briefed Rhee on the deficit, which eventually grew to $20 million, and said she would need to adjust the 2010 budget to close the gap. One of the options discussed, Wepman said, was layoffs.

Wepman also acknowledged that he never shared information about the deficit with his superior, the District's chief financial officer, Natwar M. Gandhi, who certified the 2010 budget without knowing of the potential shortfall. Wepman conceded that he should have been more communicative.

Joyce E. Smithey, an employment lawyer with Rifkin, Livingston, Levitan & Silver, said in an interview that "if the evidence shows that the chancellor hired employees in bad faith, then the question is whether she did so with the goal of forcing a layoff of older employees. If that's the case, then any admission about advanced knowledge of budget troubles could be damaging."

Rhee's pride could trip up admirable effort

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/31/AR2009103101696_pf.html

by Robert McCartney
Sunday, November 1, 2009

The future of the District's school system may well be decided by whether Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's forceful reform campaign becomes mired in a swamp of her own self-defeating hubris.

A lively, dramatic D.C. Council hearing Thursday illustrated again the need for Rhee to temper her autocratic approach, especially by communicating and collaborating better with the body that approves her budget.

On balance, I think she'll continue to move forward despite the emergence of potential legal problems. Her admirable, ambitious efforts are showing results in the form of higher test scores, spruced-up buildings and stabilized enrollment.

However, part of any schools chief's job is dealing effectively with the city's elected representatives, and there, Rhee is coming up short. The hearing revealed instances in which she circumvented the council's action and delayed giving it important information about the origins of last month's controversial teacher layoffs.

For now, Rhee can count on just enough support in the council to keep it from blocking her and her patron, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), from pushing ahead. That could change, though, if she doesn't wise up.

Admittedly, some council members postured for television at the hearings and bullied Rhee to show how tough they are. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) has a political motive for bludgeoning her, as he is considering running for mayor partly on an anti-Rhee platform.

But even some of Rhee's strongest allies were practically begging her to share more information with them and get along better with Gray.

"I will continue to support your reform. I need you to be a better communicator," David A. Catania (I-At Large) said. "I need more respect and understanding directed toward the chairman, and I don't know how many more times we can have this discussion."

Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) told Rhee: "I do know you were making progress. . . . Now I think you're further apart from our labor force."

The strained relations between Fenty and Rhee, on one side, and the council and the Washington Teachers' Union seem to be out of sync with the goals of some powerful people in the Obama administration. Recently, Education Secretary Arne Duncan strongly praised the cooperative spirit that led to a labor agreement between the city of New Haven, Conn., and the American Federation of Teachers, the WTU's parent organization.

"This is a really important progressive labor agreement. It's one that folks around the country should take note of. Basically, everyone came together, the school district, the union, the city," Duncan said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

Two-year-old negotiations between Rhee and the union over a new contract are currently in a deep freeze while the union fights the layoffs.

At the hearing, Rhee was poised and even conciliatory at times. She also sounded self-righteous, though, especially in her repeated statements that she acts only in the interest of children. That maddened some council members, who said they, too, care about children first.

Three revelations at the hearing illustrated the communication problems, and some could mean legal difficulties for the D.C. school system:

-- Rhee acknowledged that she decided on her own in August to reverse a council decision to cut back sharply on summer school. She chose to save money instead through the Oct. 2 layoffs. Gray and other critics apparently were wrong to suggest that Rhee's switch broke the law. But they had every right to complain that she should have told them earlier.

-- Rhee said she was aware in July of a budget shortfall of at least $12 million but didn't tell the council until September. Meanwhile, the council approved the 2010 budget on July 31 and Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi certified it, without knowing about the deficit. Rhee said she planned to cut central office spending to cover the gap, but it widened unexpectedly in early August.

-- Even staunch Rhee supporters, including Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) and Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), said they didn't fully understand what caused the deficit of $43.9 million that Rhee blamed for the dismissals of 266 teachers and others. Several council members accused her of creating it artificially, at least in part, by such actions as hiring 934 teachers from April to August. The union is saying the same in a lawsuit seeking to reverse the layoffs. Rhee denies concocting the shortfall.

Rhee said after the hearing that she plans to reach out. "Everyone agrees that we want to move toward a more productive and positive climate," she said. "I am going to talk to as many council members as I can to get as much input as possible in the steps that we can take to move in that direction."

She can still rely on the backing of at least five of the council's 13 members -- Catania, Wells, Evans, Graham and Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4). That number is significant, because it's just enough to keep the council from getting the nine votes necessary to override a Fenty veto.

Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3), who supports school reform but is growing more critical of Rhee, said in an interview that the chancellor should see the world less starkly. "She has this dichotomy which is not a correct one: Either do what I want, everybody be damned, or I'm giving up," Cheh said. "You can accomplish your goals and work with other people. "

E-mail me at mccartneyr@washpost.com.