D.C. Schools Chief Michelle Rhee Targets ‘Sacred Cow’ of Tenure

If President Obama is really serious about education reform, he ought to consider putting D.C. school Chancellor Michelle Rhee in charge of the effort.

This lady is not afraid of a major challenge, as evidenced by her latest brawl with the AFT.

Rhee is courageously targeting the sacred cow of teachers unions – tenure. It’s the system that pretty much guarantees a teacher a job for life, if he or she can make it through the first few years. It doesn’t matter if they go on to become good, mediocre or bad teachers. With tenure, they are pretty much protected until retirement.

But Rhee understands that such a system can no longer be tolerated in Washington D.C. schools, which have a dropout rate of nearly 40 percent. She knows that the school district must have the power to sift through the teaching staff, keep the good ones, work with the middle-of-the-roaders, and get rid of the bad apples.

She also understands that it has to work both ways. She’s willing to develop a compensation system that would offer teachers much higher pay, in exchange for the union abandoning, or at least reforming, the concept of tenure.

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Tags: American Federation of Teachers, Barack Obama, DC Public Schools, Michelle Rhee, Randi Weingarten
Posted Nov 23rd 2009 at 4:03 pm in Big Labor, Education, Politics | 3427065 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/kolson/2009/11/23/d-c-schools-chief-rhee-targets-sacred-cow-of-tenure/D.C.+Schools+Chief+Michelle+Rhee+Targets+%27Sacred+Cow%27+of+Tenure2009-11-23+23%3A03%3A19Kyle+Olson

More Gasbaggery from the American Federation of Teachers

When we received a threatening letter a few days ago from the American Federation of Teachers over AFTexposed.com, we knew it was little more than bluster - the typical bullying that the AFT has come to be known for.

I mean, who else could loge personal threats at a “Rally for Respect” (of all things!) against the chancellor of DC Public Schools, Michelle Rhee, right in the heart of the city, and get away with it?

Needless to say, the baseless threats continue from the country’s second largest teachers’ union.

Now comes another letter from October 21, in which the union has apparently dropped its demand for us to stop using the acronym ‘AFT.’  They’re also no longer calling for us to turn over the domain registration to them.  Hopefully the General Counsel of the union, David Strom, saw how absurd and downright pathetic his demand was.

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Tags: AFT, AFTexposed, American Federation of Teachers, David Strom, DC Public Schools
Posted Oct 24th 2009 at 3:57 pm in Big Labor, News, Politics, State Politics | 2012638 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/kolson/2009/10/24/more-gasbaggery-from-the-american-federation-of-teachers/More+Gasbaggery+from+the+American+Federation+of+Teachers2009-10-24+22%3A57%3A15Kyle+Olson

Speaker at D.C. Union Rally Threatens DC School Chief Michelle Rhee

Our stomachs turned a bit this morning when we watched a YouTube video of part of last weekend’s DC AFT rally in Washington, D.C.  You can see it here:

The event was billed as the “Rally for Respect.” If the AFT wants respect, we respectfully submit the following suggestions:

Number one – Stop threatening people. During the rally, an unidentified male speaker was clearly heard on the video threatening D.C. school Chancellor Michelle Rhee. “Michelle Rhee had better watch her back,” the large, angry man chanted into the microphone. That clearly sounds like a physical threat, typically used by street gangs. His next few words were not clear, but then he added something about “She’s going down.”

Perhaps Ms. Rhee would be wise to contact D.C. police. Union thugs may very well have her on their target list. How disturbing.

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Tags: AFT, American Federation of Teachers, DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, education reform, Michelle Rhee
Posted Oct 14th 2009 at 2:00 pm in Big Labor, Education, News, Politics | 1637046 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/kolson/2009/10/14/speaker-at-d-c-union-rally-threatens-dc-school-chief-michelle-rhee/Speaker+at+D.C.+Union+Rally+Threatens+DC+School+Chief+Michelle+Rhee2009-10-14+21%3A00%3A51Kyle+Olson