Teachers Unions Discover Andrew Cuomo Is A Cheat And A Liar

Jessica Bakeman at Capital NY has a piece out this morning suggesting Governor Cuomo never attended to amend his teacher evaluation law to "shield" teachers who were harmed by the Common Core test scores even though he called for such a shield bill himself.

She reports that NYSED changed the release date for teacher evaluation ratings this year, moving it from October to December, something which Cuomo used to beat back the bill he himself had called for:

Cuomo said last week during a cabinet meeting at the Capitol that new data regarding the results of the second year of the evaluation system, which included New York City for the first time, caused him to reconsider signing the bill.

“I think we should reevaluate the evaluation system in light of this data, and I don’t know that those changes would make a significant difference to this data," Cuomo said when asked if he would sign the bill.

It turned out to be convenient for Cuomo that the Education Department released the data—which showed that the vast majority of teachers were high performing under the system—the day before the “safety net” bill was sent to Cuomo’s desk.

Last year, the education department released the results from the first round of teacher evaluations in October. This year, officials presented the data two months later, allowing Cuomo to explain his plans to veto the bill after re-election by arguing that new information had changed his mind.

The bill was among the last to be sent for Cuomo’s approval after the recent session; more than 600 bills were delivered to the governor before this one, and a recent Capital analysis showed that the later a bill is sent to Cuomo’s desk, the more likely he is to veto it. If he vetoes the bill, it will be a first for Cuomo; so far, he has signed all 67 of the program bills that made it to his desk.

Did Cuomo's office coordinate with NYSED to have the release date of the evalation system ratings coincide with the exact time that the "shield bill" was being sent to his desk to sign?

It certainly was a fortuitous change in ratings release, wasn't it?

And Bakeman spends much of the article reporting how Cuomo really didn't want to change anything about the evaluation system at all.

Teachers union leaders tell her they're mad over this:

Leaders of local teachers’ unions are offended by what they argue is a reversal on Cuomo’s part.

“He should be a man of his word and honor his commitments to sign the bill,” said Phil Rumore, Buffalo Teachers Federation president and another active member in the W.F.P.

Adam Urbanski, president of the Rochester Teachers Association, said Cuomo is using teachers’ union as scapegoats for New York’s education problems in order to pander to pro-charter school billionaire hedge funders who have donated millions to the governor’s campaign.

“Even if he prevails, he is no closer to the solution, because the real problem is not teachers and their unions,” Urbanski said. “The real problem is concentration of poverty and wrong-headed policies that are clueless about how teaching and learning really work.”

NYSUT did not respond to requests for comment but released a statement last week quoting the governor’s previous comments on the “safety net” bill.

“This is the governor’s own bill,” the union said. “He proposed it, and it was negotiated in good faith.”

NYSUT is wrong, of course.

As the Bakeman article makes clear, Cuomo did NOT negotiate the "shield bill" in good faith.

It was a pre-election head fake, that's all.

And this does have consequences for teachers, despite Cuomo's and State Senator John Flanagan's insistence that it doesn't:

And Cuomo’s delay in signing this bill was especially impactful because the legislation, which would have taken effect immediately upon its signing, had implications for the start of the school year. Some teachers and principals are months into completing intensive professional development plans individualized for their improvement that they wouldn’t be required to undergo if Cuomo had signed the bill by September.

The lesson the teachers union leaders MUST finally learn here:

Andrew Cuomo does not negotiate in good faith - he is a cheat and a liar and they should not trust him in any negotiation.

His track record is there for all to see.

Just ask the teachers who got dinged on the Common Core test scores and now have to live with the "intensive professional development plans individualized for their improvement."

Just Make Every Student A Former ESL Student And You'll Magically Raise Your Test Scores!

In case you missed this story in the NY Post:

Students at the troubled William Cullen Bryant High School in Queens were falsely labeled as not fluent in English — to grant them extra time to finish last week’s Regents exams, The Post has learned.

More than 100 teens in one teacher’s English classes were recently marked “FELL,” for “former English language learner.” The label grants students exam “accommodations” up to two years after they test proficient on the New York state English as a Second Language Achievement Test.

But many students given extra time on the Regents exams are native English speakers, staffers said. Others had once taken English as a Second Language but became proficient long ago.

“I was born in New York. I grew up in this country. I speak perfect English,” said a senior at the Astoria school who took the English Regents exam on Thursday — and got an extra hour.

...

Student rosters dated in March list 110 of 154 students, or 71 percent, in one teacher’s classes as former English language learners. Almost none was so identified on rosters last October, records show.

Teachers suspect a scheme by Principal ­Namita Dwarka and her administrators.

“It may be a way to skew the Regents results, or skew the credit the school gets for graduating these students,” a teacher wrote to the city’s Special Commissioner of Investigation last week.

An SCI spokeswoman said the matter was referred to city and state education officials.

If Namita Dwarka survives all the scandals and investigations she's under by the SCI and the DOE, then you know that de Blasio's and Farina's claims about a new kind of DOE, one that is different than the Bloomberg DOE, is a lie.

Let Us Count The Ways Andrew Cuomo Is A Despicable Human Being

Yeah, I know - technically this is Sandra Lee that was hit with a lawsuit for being a deadbeat, but don't forget who shares that home with her:

Food Network star Sandra Lee has made good on an $800 overdue bill from a Putnam company that removed snow from the roof of her $1.2 million home earlier this year, a court clerk said Tuesday.

Lee had been scheduled to appear in Town Court last Thursday after The Honey Do Men Gutters and Roofing Corp. of Mahopac sued her for $800 plus interest, claiming she paid only part of a $4,000 bill after company workers spent two hours clearing snow from her roof in February.

But the matter was settled prior to Thursday evening's court date, which was then canceled, the clerk said. The company's attorney, Francis J. O'Reilly, confirmed Lee paid.

A message left through the website of Lee, 47, seeking comment was not immediately returned.

Lee is known for her "semi-homemade" cooking method in which she primarily uses prepackaged products along with fresh products. She shares the New Castle home with her boyfriend, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo,

In the lawsuit filed in Town Court, the company claimed a representative of Lee, a woman named Irma Martinez, called them Feb. 20 to remove snow from the roof of Lee's home at 4 Bittersweet Lane.

Honey Do Men said it did $4,294 worth of work but that Lee only paid them $3,494 after they contacted her three times for payment.

Now if only Deadbeat Cuomo would let the town assessor into his home to do a proper assessment of improvements he and Sandra Lee had done to it:

Lee's home has been in the news in recent weeks after lohud.com Tax Watchdog David McKay Wilson reported that Lee had made many improvements to the property without town approval.

By improving the home without proper permits, Lee likely had avoided paying higher taxes because town officials had not been aware of any changes that could potentially increase its value, Wilson concluded.

In the wake of Wilson's reporting, a town assessor visited the house and came up with a tentative reassessment raising its value by 29 percent. The value was based on an exterior inspection of the home because the assessor was not allowed inside. Cuomo later told Wilson he was not aware the assessor was not allowed inside.

Can you imagine what the Cuomo campaign would be doing if his GOP challenger, Rob Astorino, were as big a deadbeat as Sheriff Andy Cuomo and Sandra Lee are?

Hell, Cuomo sent David Paterson out after Astorino yesterday to dredge up some political corruption Astorino's father was involved in over 20 years ago.

I noted the following in a comment on State of Politics:

Wait, so Paterson calls the girlfriend of his aide who's filed domestic abuse charges to get her to drop the charges against his aide, but he's bringing up a 20 year old criminal conviction of Astorino's father?
 
Seriously?

I'm a Democrat, been one since I could first vote, but I have to tell you, the criminality and sheer gall that comes out of the Democratic Party leadership in this state makes me sick.

David Paterson should be in jail for witness tampering.

Had there been a real attorney general at the time and not Quid Pro Cuomo in that office, maybe there would have been a real investigation into Paterson.

Hey, you know what? Maybe you folks at State of Politics can ask Paterson where he gets the nerve to let these statements go out with his name attached after he barely got out of Albany without a perp walk?

There's just so much to despise about Andrew Cuomo and his consorts, both political and otherwise.

Sleazy, nasty, criminal deadbeats.

That's Cuomo and Company.

And yeah, I'm including Sandra Lee in that mix.

Take A Tour Of Sandra Lee's House With Jenna Bush

Tried embedding the code, for some reason, doesn't want to embed right, but here's a must watch video with Jenna Bush taking us on a Christmas tour of the house Sandra Lee and Governor Andrew Cuomo share together.

Do not watch on a full stomach - it's that nauseating.

Just gives you some context for the "Sheriff Andy and Sandra Lee didn't get building permits so they could stiff the tax man" story we learned about earlier - a story dangerous enough to Sheriff Andy that he had his secretary, Larry Schwartz, respond to inquiries to Sandra Lee at the Food Network over it himself.

Is it just me or are the Cuomo scandals starting to mount?

Now We Know What Tony Bennett Means By "No Excuses!"

Another education reformer exposed as a cheater and a liar - Chiefs For Change chief, Tony Bennett:

INDIANAPOLIS — Former Indiana and current Florida schools chief Tony Bennett built his national star by promising to hold "failing" schools accountable. But when it appeared an Indianapolis charter school run by a prominent Republican donor might receive a poor grade, Bennett's education team frantically overhauled his signature "A-F" school grading system to improve the school's marks.

Emails obtained by The Associated Press show Bennett and his staff scrambled last fall to ensure influential donor Christel DeHaan's school received an "A," despite poor test scores in algebra that initially earned it a "C."

"They need to understand that anything less than an A for Christel House compromises all of our accountability work," Bennett wrote in a Sept. 12 email to then-chief of staff Heather Neal, who is now Gov. Mike Pence's chief lobbyist.

The emails, which also show Bennett discussed with staff the legality of changing just DeHaan's grade, raise unsettling questions about the validity of a grading system that has broad implications. Indiana uses the A-F grades to determine which schools get taken over by the state and whether students seeking state-funded vouchers to attend private school need to first spend a year in public school. They also help determine how much state funding schools receive. A low grade also can detract from a neighborhood and drive homebuyers elsewhere.

GOP donor's charter school is getting a "C" instead of an "A" on its school report card?

"No problem!" says Chief For Change chief Tony Bennett, "we'll change the formula and make sure that donor - who's given over $2.8 million since 1998 - gets his A"!

The change in formula still doesn't get the school an A?

"No problem!" says Chief For Change chief Tony Bennett, "we'll just change the formula again and make sure it's an A!"

I'd say this story is unbelievable, except that it's not.

Another education reform "hero" exposed as a crook and a liar.

Rhee and Bennett - Chiefs For Cheating.

Rhee/D.C. Cheating Memo Leaked - But Will It Lead To A REAL Investigation Of Rhee's DCPS Tenure?

Someone leaked a memo from outside data consultant to Michelle Rhee that informed her that widespread cheating on the high stakes tests in the DC school system had taken place.

John Merrow was the recipient of that leaked memo and went public with it last night:

Michelle A. Rhee, America’s most famous school reformer, was fully aware of the extent of the problem when she glossed over what appeared to be widespread cheating during her first year as Schools Chancellor in Washington, DC.  A long-buried confidential memo from her outside data consultant suggests that the problem was far more serious than kids copying off other kids’ answer sheets.  (“191 teachers representing 70 schools”).  Twice in just four pages the consultant suggests that Rhee’s own principals, some of whom she had hired, may have been responsible (“Could the erasures in some cases have been done by someone other than the students and the teachers?”).

Merrow reports there is a "reliable witness" who says Michelle Rhee, then chancellor of the DCPS, discussed the memo with her deputy chancellor (now the current DCPS chancellor) Kaya Henderson:

The rash of “wrong to right” (WTR) erasures was first noticed by the DC official in charge of testing, who, after consulting with the test-maker, asked Rhee to investigate, in November, 2008.  Through her data chief,  Rhee turned to Dr. Fay G. “Sandy” Sanford for outside analysis.

I have a copy of the memo[2] and have confirmed its authenticity with two highly placed and reputable sources. The anonymous source is in DCPS; the other is DC Inspector General Charles Willoughby. A reliable source has confirmed that Rhee and Deputy Chancellor Kaya Henderson discussed the memo in staff gatherings. Sanford came to Washington to present his findings in late January, 2009, after which he wrote his memo.

In response to my request for comment, Rhee issued the following careful statement:  “As chancellor I received countless reports, memoranda and presentations. I don’t recall receiving a report from Sandy Sanford regarding erasure data from the DC CAS, but I’m pleased, as has been previously reported, that both inspectors general (DOE and DCPS) reviewed the memo and confirmed my belief that there was no wide spread cheating.” After receiving this statement, I sent her the memo; her spokesman responded by saying that she stood by her earlier statement.

Chancellor Henderson did not respond to my request for a response.

Sanford wanted the memo to be kept confidential. At the top and bottom of each page he wrote “Sensitive Information–Treat as Confidential,” and he urged, “Don’t make hard copies and leave them around.” (The memo.)

The gist of his message: the many ‘wrong to right’ erasures on the students’ answer sheets suggested widespread cheating by adults.

This "smoking gun" memo that shows Rhee, Henderson and other DCPS brass knew of the allegations of widespread cheating in DCPS and did nothing to investigate them shows us why there needs to be an independent, Atlanta-style investigation of Rhee's tenure at DCPS.

But who's going to call for that investigation?

The education reform establishment long ago hitched their wagons to the Rhee wagon train.

They're not calling for an investigation.

The Obama administration has close ties to Rhee and Arne Duncan in particular has a conflict of interest in the matter.

There is no way you're going to get the USDOE to conduct an independent investigation of Rhee and DCPS.

And those in power in the DC municipal government don't seem too interested in learning the truth either.

So far, we have had the USA Today investigation which showed just how many red flags are up over the test scores during Rhee's reign.

Then we had the Frontline investigation wherein a former DCPS prinicipal said she witnessed adults tampering with students' tests at a school that had been flagged by USA Today for an inordinate amount of wrong to right erasures.

Now we have the memo from the outside data consultant telling Rhee and Henderson that something was indeed funky throughout the system and a witness saying Rhee and Henderson discussed this memo at staff meetings.

Yet Rhee denies she had knowledge of the memo and Henderson refuses to respond to questions about it.

Will Rhee and Henderson continue to get help from the Obama administration, the education reform community and even the media in their stonewalling of this scandal?

So far, it seems it doesn't matter what evidence emerges about Rhee - she seems to be impervious to the scandal.

Must be nice to made of this kind of teflon, have such great friends in high places and be so central to the corporate education reform narrative that nothing can happen to you.

Frontline Presents Evidence Of Test-Tampering Under Michelle Rhee

From the Washington Post:

Student standardized-test scores at an award-winning D.C. school dropped dramatically in 2011 after the principal tightened security out of concern about possible cheating, according to a new “Frontline” television documentary to be broadcast Tuesday.

The hour-long program raises questions about whether District officials have adequately investigated persistent suspicions that public school employees may have tampered with tests during the tenure of former Chancellor Michelle Rhee.

Adell Cothorne was principal of the District’s Noyes Education Campus for one year, in 2010-11. She told “Frontline” that just after students took a midyear practice version of the city’s annual standardized test, she stumbled upon three staff members sitting late at night in a room strewn with more than 200 test booklets.

One of the adults was at a desk, holding an eraser. The other two sat at a table, booklets open before them.

“One staff member said to me, in a lighthearted sort of way, ‘Oh, Principal, I can’t believe this kid drew a spider on the test and I have to erase it,’ ” Cothorne told filmmakers, offering the first such direct testimony about potential tampering with answer sheets in D.C. schools.

Cothorne told “Frontline’ that she reported the incident to the central office, but to her knowledge nothing was done. School system officials said Friday that without having seen the documentary, they could not comment on Cothorne’s allegations.

“Broadly speaking, reports about testing impropriety are taken very seriously,” D.C. Public Schools spokeswoman Melissa Salmanowitz wrote in an e-mail. “We have investigated and taken appropriate action for every instance reported to us.” 

One of Rhee’s signature moves was turning the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System, the city’s annual standardized test, into a high-stakes event for teachers and principals. For the first time, their jobs and their pay depended upon raising student scores.

The District’s test scores did rise during Rhee’s tenure, including a particularly dramatic jump after her first year in office.

Rhee left office in 2010 after then-Mayor Adrian Fenty, who had hired her, lost his bid for reelection. She then launched Students First, a national lobbying organization to spread the reforms she championed in Washington.

But in 2011, USA Today published an investigation that raised questions about the validity of the District’s test scores — and, by proxy, about the effectiveness of Rhee’s reforms.

The newspaper’s report revealed an unusually high number of wrong-to-right erasures on students’ answer sheets at more than 100 D.C. schools between 2008 and 2010. Such erasure rates aren’t proof of cheating, but they are signals of potential tampering.

Current Chancellor Kaya Henderson asked the District’s inspector general, Charles J. Willoughby, to investigate further. Willoughby reported in August that he’d found no evidence of answer-sheet tampering, a conclusion that Henderson said should finally put cheating allegations to rest.

“Frontline’s” documentary, however, suggests the inspector general’s investigation may have been incomplete.

The 17-month probe focused on just one school: Noyes, which was named a National Blue Ribbon School in 2009 after students made impressive gains on reading and math tests. It also twice won an award from Rhee that brought cash bonuses for staff, and it had some of the highest erasure rates in the city.

Investigators found some test-security problems at Noyes but no evidence of answer-sheeting tampering. Based on those findings, they decided not to examine other schools.

But Cothorne, the former principal who alleges that she saw staff members after hours with erasers and test booklets, said investigators never interviewed her.

“My speculation, they didn’t want to hear what I had to say,” she told “Frontline.”

The inspector general’s office declined “Frontline’s” request for an interview about its investigation, saying the report speaks for itself. The IG’s office also declined The Post’s request for comment on Friday.

DCPS spokeswoman Salmanowitz said school officials remain confident in the inspector general’s work.

Salmanowitz also said records show that Cothorne did not mention the incident when she was interviewed in March 2011 by Caveon, a company retained by the school system to examine potential cheating over several years.

Cothorne denied that she was interviewed by Caveon, but said as a new principal in D.C. schools, she was scared about speaking up.

Cothorne told the “Frontline” filmmakers that when she arrived at Noyes in 2010, she noticed that students’ academic abilities didn’t match their test scores.

Then she said she found the three staff members with test booklets from the midyear D.C. Benchmark Assessment System, a standardized exam that tracks students’ progress toward the end-of-year test — the one that matters for teachers’ and principals’ jobs.

Why would a teacher be motivated to inflate practice-test scores? Perhaps to make high end-of-year scores more believable, Cothorne said in an interview Friday.

Cothorne told “Frontline” that she tightened test security. On the end-of-the-year test, math and reading scores dropped more than 25 percentage points from the year before. The principal left Noyes at the end of that school year and opened a cupcake shop in Ellicott City.

Several other D.C. schools that made impressive test-score gains under Rhee saw double-digit declines after test security was tightened.

Asked for her reaction, Rhee told Merrow that such large swings should be investigated. There may have been some problems, she allowed — but they were isolated.

“I can point to . . . dozens and dozens of schools where, you know, they saw very steady gains,” Rhee said, “or even saw some dramatic gains that were maintained.”

It is clear the fix was in.

In Atlanta, they did a thorough investigation of test tampering and got to the bottom of the problem.

In Washington, they have done a limited investigation that was meant to exonerate Rhee and Henderson and the DCPS.

The USA Today report, along with the Frontline documentary, show the need for a thorough investigation independent of DCPS or the Obama USDOE.

Both of these entities have reason to want Rhee and Henderson to be exonerated for test cheating.

The same goes for the education reform movement.

Michelle Rhee is, along with Joel Klein, the face of the "No Excuses!", fire your way to the top education reform movement.

Klein's legacy on test scores is already in tatters.

If a thorough investigation of DCPS is done, Rhee's legacy will likely follow suit.

Even worse, she could be found to have either knowingly cheated or turned the other way as cheating went on around her.

There is a reason why Atlanta had a thorough investigation of cheating allegations, but DC hasn't.

If Michelle Rhee's DC chancellorship is found to have been rife with cheating, one more cog in the education reform machine breaks down.

Best And Brightest Cheat Once Again: Harvard Edition

Earlier this year, seventy of the "Best and Brightest" students this city has to offer were implicated in a test cheating scandal at Stuyvesant High School.

Now comes word that the college many of those kids would love to go to - Harvard - has a cheating scandal of its own:

Harvard College’s disciplinary board is investigating nearly half of the 279 students who enrolled in Government 1310: "Introduction to Congress" last spring for allegedly plagiarizing answers or inappropriately collaborating on the class’ final take-home exam.

Dean of Undergraduate Education Jay M. Harris said the magnitude of the case was “unprecedented in anyone’s living memory.”

Harris declined to name the course, but several students familiar with the investigation confirmed that Professor Matthew B. Platt's spring government lecture course was the class in question.

The exam was a take home and students were allowed to use their notes, books, Internet, etc. to respond to the questions, but they weren't supposed to collaborate with anybody else - not classmates, dorm mates, tutors, etc.

It seems half of the students enrolled did collaborate, however, since many of the test reponses were similar.

If found guilty of academic dishonesty, these students could be forced to withdraw from the college for a year.

But since they are the "Best and Brightest' this country has to offer, no doubt what happened at Stuyvesant is what will happen here - a pat on the wrist and a stern admonition not to cheat again.

No wonder these "Best and Brightest" go into government, finance, business, or whatever and cheat their asses off.

They've learned their lessons well from childhood.

They're special and nothing bad happens to them, no matter how badly they act.

The Best and Brightest indeed.

Post Editors Wring Their Hands Over Stuyvesant Cheaters

The NY Post editors work for Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation - you know, the company embroiled in a hacking/corruption scandal that has seen over 60 of its current and former employees arrested on hacking, bribery, conspiracy and/or corruption charges. The latest arrested was a Sun journalist on suspicion of corruption on August 7th. This followed another Sun journalist who was arrested on July 20th on computer hacking charges and made "Employee of the Month" a day after his arrest.

News Corporation is currently enjoying not one, not two, but three different police investigations into its criminal activities in Britain as well as a Parliamentary investigation. The SEC and the FBI are looking into allegations of corruption here in the U.S. and could bring charges against the company for breaking the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Bloomberg News reported on August 1 that News Corp. is also facing corporate hacking offenses over phone hacking.

In addition, the company faces numerous lawsuits from hacking victims in Britain and will soon face at least three suits brought by victims allegedly hacked by News Corp. reporters here on U.S. soil.

The former head of News International (Rebekah Brooks) and the former News of the World editor and aide to Prime Minister David Cameron (Andy Coulson) are both set to face hacking and corruption charges in the case. Brooks also faces charges of corruption and cover-up in the bribery case and Coulson faces conspiracy charges in Scotland relating the case.

News Corporation paid out over $315 million in costs related to the hacking scandal and faces hundreds of millions more the next fiscal year.

The scandal has been so damaging to the company that they have been forced to split into two, relegating the damaged newspaper properties to a smaller corporate entity while the more lucrative entertainment properties will go it on their own.

I give this context as background to note that the Post editors decry the culture of cheating at Stuyvesant high school and are - shocked, shocked - to find out that neither the new interim principal at Stuyvesant nor the NYCDOE brain trust seem all that concerned about the cheating:

Good news, Stuyvesant HS cheaters: Your new principal sees nothing amiss at your school — despite a massive cheating scandal recently that involved 71 students.

And despite reports in The Post from Stuyvesant sources, including students, of a serious “culture of cheating” at the school.

No, obviously, this is terrible news — even for the cheaters. Because if new principal Jie Zhang doesn’t end that twisted mindset fast, she won’t be doing the kids, the school or anyone else any favors.

First, as they say, she needs to recognize the problem. “I have not been made aware or have a reason to believe there is ongoing cheating there,” she says.

Willful blindness? As one source told The Post, “Everybody cheats all the time — on homework, on tests, on everything.”

As recent Stuyvesant grad Daniel Solomon reported on these pages, a school-newspaper survey found some 90 percent of seniors had advance knowledge of test questions and 5 percent ’fess up to cheating on SATs and AP exams.

Either Zhang has some quick learning to do — or she finds the scams tolerable.

Neither bodes well for the school.

Or perhaps she’s just taking cues from the Department of Education, which let off six of the 71 cheaters with just suspensions and the other 65 with no penalties at all.

The DOE wouldn’t even expel ringleader Nayeem Ahsan, who used his cellphone to photograph and distribute a Spanish exam.

It was encouraging that long-time principal Stanley Teitel left after the scandal broke. But what will that have accomplished if Zhang carries on his tradition?

Let’s face it. Eventually, cheating is likely to catch up with kids sometime in their lives, and the school’s sterling rep will fade.

That wouldn’t be a mere scandal — but a full-blown tragedy.

OK, before I get to the hypocrisy of the Posties, let's deal with the editorial itself.

The Post is wrong to say that cheating will catch up with these kids sometime in their lives.

In American culture, cheating is a privileged thing.

The guys on Wall Street do it all the time and nothing - I mean nothing - ever happens to them.

The hedge fundies cheat, the big banks rigged LIBOR rates and so far only one has received a slap on the wrist (but promises of no criminal prosecution!), the Obama administration has refused to prosecute even one person responsible for the financial collapse of '08, former NY State attorney general Andrew Cuomo also refused to bring charges against anyone for the same crimes, and current Treasury Secretary Geithner knew 16 Big Banks were fixing LIBOR rates in order to enrich themselves and make their balance sheets look better than they were and did nothing about it - tell me exactly how the culture of cheating the kids at Stuyvesant are learning won't be rewarded in Big Business, especially on Wall Street, in the future?

Seriously, learning how to cheat and get away with it is an indispensable lesson every member of the American elite must learn before adulthood.

Next, let's deal with the allegations of cheating.

The Post is decrying the whitewashing of the Stuyvesant cheating scandal which involved one school and 71 or so students, and rightfully so, but nowhere in the paper (or its sister paper, the Wall Street Journal) do we see any story of the whitewashing of the massive cheating scandal that took place in Washington D.C. under education reform darling Michelle Rhee that involved over 100 schools, more than half of all D.C. schools.

Erasure rates of answers from wrong to right were so frequent at many of these D.C. schools that statisticians say you would have a better chance of winning the Powerball lottery twice than having all of those wrong answers in all of those schools erased and right answers put in their place by real kids.

Yesterday, the Washington D.C. school system exonerated itself by limiting the cheating scandal investigation to one school, the one with the most egregious erasures and the one focused upon by USA Today when they brought this scandal to light back in 2011.

Yesterday USA Today reported that D.C. officials limited the scope of the investigation because

they believed news coverage of the scandal would limit future cheating — and because schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson handed over "no additional evidence" of cheating or "investigative leads to pursue."

There you have it - news reports of a limited, whitewashed investigation of past cheating ought to discourage future cheating and how can we expect to investigate this thing fully when the DCPS chancellor refuses to hand over additional evidence? Gollee, we just have to go with what we have here, folks.

Clearly there is a cover-up going on in the DCPS and city officials in Washington D.C. are helping, along with officials at the USDOE who don't seem to want to get to the bottom of the matter either, perhaps because an investigation of Rhee's D.C. tenure that found widespread cheating would undercut so many of the "Rheeforms" the USDOE is pursuing nationwide, with D.C. as one of the "models" for where these "Rheeforms" have supposedly worked.

It seems to me this is a much bigger scandal than the Stuyvesant scandal, and while I have no problem with the Posties decrying the cover-up at Stuyvesant over cheating, I do take issue with their refusal to call for a wide and "rigorous" investigation into their education reform darling, Michelle Rhee and her tenure of cheating at DCPS. I understand that the DCPS is not in New York, but since the DCPS reforms and evaluation system have been promoted by many education reformers around the country - including those at the Post - I think it is only fair and honest that the Posties decry the whitewashed investigation of Rhee and DCPS while they're decrying the Stuyvesant whitewash.

Finally, let's look at the hypocrisy of the Post editorial writers, decrying what they allege is a culture of cheating and cover-up at Stuyvesant.

Given that the NY Post's parent company is embroiled in a scandal that stems from a culture of cheating (hacking into people's phones for stories, hacking into people's computers for stories, paying public officials for privileged info about people and using that info in stories, threatening to use damaging info against enemies) and a culture of cover-up (even Rupert Murdoch himself has admitted that News Corporation spent more time trying to make the hacking scandal go away than trying to fix it and right the wrongs done), it sees quite hypocritical for the Posties to write so indignantly about the harm done by the Stuyvesant cheating and cover-up.

After all, it seems to me that these kids who engaged in the cheating can grow up to be very successful businessmen or women, very successful hedge fund managers or Big Bank CEO's, real estate moguls, or even - gosh, we can only hope - journalists who work for ethically-challenged News Corporation.

And therein lies the crux of the hypocrisy in this story.

Even as we say we don't tolerate cheating as a culture, the fact of the matter is, we reward it constantly.

America is not some meritocracy where those who work the hardest and the longest, who are the most forward-thinking and most innovative, are the ones who rise to the top.

America is a kleptocracy where those who are the most ruthless, the least ethical, the most willing to act criminally are the ones who rise to the top.

We see this again and again - from Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase to Michelle Rhee to Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation, the most ruthless, the least ethical, the most selfish and (often) the most willing to engage in criminal acts survive and thrive while the rest of us who play by the rules get screwed again and again.

So really, those kids at Stuyvesant have learned the best lesson possible for them.

As members of the elite, they have cheated and gotten away with it.

Just as most members of the American elite cheat and get away with it.

Seems to me this lesson has simply reinforced the reality in 21st Century America.

NYSED Announces High Level "Test Security Unit"

When did the New York State Education Department start to paramilitarize?

NYSED announces that creation of a high level "Test Security Unit" staffed with experiences investigators to conduct their own probes.

Will this be anything like Arne Duncan's high security team?

You know, there's nothing more important in this world than test security.

Except for the last fifteen years that Merryl Tisch was sitting on the Regents board as the NYSED was watering down tests and rubrics while inflating scores.

When the onus and responsibility of scores was on institutions and politicians rather than individual teachers, they weren't so worried about test security at the NYSED or the Regents offices.

But now that individual teacher evaluations will be based upon test scores - oh, yeah, we need a special "test security unit" to insure the integrity of the system.

Uh, huh.

If they want to check the integrity of the system, they ought to start with the error-riddled value-added measurements they're using on the teacher evaluations.

But that would be too much trouble.

Instead they're going to hire Halliburton goons to work test security - Arne Duncan-style!

So Much For Michelle Rhee's "Miracle" In D.C.

From Bill Turque at the Washington Post:

Michael Casserly is not a reporter, so he can’t be accused of “burying the lead,” newspaper parlance for failing to place what’s new and most significant at the beginning of a story. Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, a non-profit that provides research and other support to urban school systems, wrote an opinion piece for Sunday’s Post (“A Chancellor Up to the Challenge” ) supporting the nomination of Acting Chancellor Kaya Henderson for the permanent post. Henderson is scheduled to appear before D.C. Council on Thursday.

Casserly, also a strong supporter of Henderson’s predecessor, Michelle A. Rhee, walks through the signs of progress in the District, including increased enrollment and graduation rates, and impressive growth in fourth and eighth grade scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

But wedged into the seventh paragraph is this caveat:

“An analysis by my organization also indicates that the D.C. public schools score well below what one would expect statistically, compared with other cities with similar poverty, language, race, disability and family characteristics. Students show unusual difficulty reading and interpreting texts, evaluating and critiquing information, identifying appropriate measurement instruments, and solving problems involving geometric shapes. There is much more work to be done.”

Casserly says the full report will be available soon. It’s likely to generate a news story or two.

Casserly can try and hide the truth all he wants - if the NAEP scores for D.C. do not compare well to other cities with similar poverty, language, race, disability and family characteristics, but D.C.'s own test scores show great improvement even as allegations of widespread cheating abound under Rhee, something funky happened in D.C. under Rhee.

It is amazing to me that the two most prominent "education miracle workers" - Klein and Rhee - still have cache in D.C. and other power broker circles.

Klein left NYC with the test scores as low as when he came in and the achievement gap between white and Asian students and black and Hispanic students was larger than before he took over the school system.

Rhee is under scrutiny for widespread cheating on D.C. tests and now an NAEP analysis will show that D.C. does not score as well as other cities with similar poverty, language, race, disability and family characteristics. This indicates that those vaunted D.C. test score gains Rhee bragged about may have indeed come from cheating.

And yet, even after all this Rhee, Klein still gets to write jive opinion pieces in the Washington Post and Rhee gets to do the same in the NY Daily News.

Both stand to make millions from their "education reform" work.

What a country.

Study: Illegal Immigrants Paid $11.2 Billion In Taxes, General Electric Paid $0

But illegal immigrants are the freeloaders, right?

I bet most of you didn't know undocumented immigrants contributed more - much more - to the national treasury last year than General Electric. Surprised? Yet it's true.

While GE - which earned a whopping $14 billion last year - is reported to have paid nothing, nada, zero in taxes (GE denies it), the undocumented paid billions in state and local taxes in 2010.

No, it's not me talking; it's the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (itepnet.org), a prestigious, nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that works on federal, state and local tax policy issues.

Obviously the old saying, "Nothing is certain but death and taxes," is not to be believed anymore. Or rather, only half of it can be believed.

Because death, of course, remains as dreaded and inevitable as ever, but with taxes the story is different.

"The rich are different from you and me," the famous F. Scott Fitzgerald quote, is a much more accurate description of what's going on in the country.

To no one's surprise, taxes are still as certain for working people - and whatever is left of the middle class - as they ever were. But for, well, GE and other corporate giants, the only certainty is that many found ways to contribute as little to the country's coffers as possible.

At the same time, Republicans in Washington are involved in a mighty struggle to protect the tax breaks of the country's richest 2%, while happily proposing to cut the most basic social services to Americans who really need them.

Closer to home, Gov. Cuomo has announced the so-called millionaires tax will not be renewed once it expires in December, although since it was established in 2009 it has brought in as much as $5 billion annually.

There is no doubt, when it comes to taxes the rich are really different.

Ironically the vilified undocumented population, among the poorest and most vulnerable in the country, does its part when it comes to taxes.

They pay sales taxes and property taxes - even if they rent, ITEP said. At least half of them pay income taxes. And, I believe, if they were ever legalized, close to 100% would do the same. "Add this all up," ITEP said, "and it amounts to billions in revenue to state and local governments."

ITEP estimates that households that are headed by undocumented immigrants (which may include members who are U.S. citizens or legal immigrants) paid $11.2 billion in state and local taxes last year. That included $1.2 billion in personal income taxes, $1.6 billion in property taxes and $8.4 billion in sales taxes.

New York is fourth in the country in tax revenue - $662.4 million - from households headed by undocumented immigrants, after California, Texas and Florida.

"These figures should be kept in mind as politicians and commentators continue with the seemingly endless debate over what to do with unauthorized immigrants already living in the United States," ITEP wisely advises.

"[These] immigrants - and their family members - are adding value to the U.S. economy; not only as taxpayers, but as workers, consumers and entrepreneurs as well."

General Electric of course has added value to the economy as well.

Think about all the money people will make trying to clean up the nuclear holocaust the GE-designed power plants in Japan have wrought.

Walcott Accuses "Both Sides Of Reform" Of Poisoning Education Debate

Oh, this is a laugh and a half:

In his first speech since being named chancellor, Dennis Walcott poured on the charm, asking everyone to “dial down the rhetoric” and giving no hints of any new reforms he’s planning.

Walcott spoke at Columbia University’s Teachers College on Saturday morning, filling in for ousted Chancellor Cathie Black, who was originally scheduled to speak as part of the day-long “academic festival.”

Carefully avoiding new policy announcements, Walcott focused most of his speech on trying to bridge different sides in the reform debate. He told the crowd about his childhood in Queens — noting that he grew up, and attended public schools, in the same borough as ex-Chancellor Joel Klein — and the role that great teachers had in his success.

“Unfortunately that’s not a storyline we hear as often as we should, especially when it comes to education,” Walcott said. “The conversation we hear about is poor versus the wealthy. Charter schools versus district schools. And who is to blame for the failures of our education system.

“People on both sides of this debate have been guilty of contributing to the current polarized atmosphere,” he said.

“The poisonous debate is hurting our children, plain and simple. And they don’t have time to wait for us to grow up,” he continued. “The problems facing our schools are extremely complicated. They can’t be summed up in 10-word sound-bites. And above all they can’t be solved until we start listening and working together.”

So the men you have worked both with and for - Michael Bloomberg and Joel Klein - have NOT been majorly responsible for poisoning the debate?

How about some of the "reformers" and charter operators you have worked with - like Michelle Rhee and Mistress Eva Moskowitz?

How about the men who are funding so much of the corporate reform - Bill Gates and Eli Broad? Are they not part of the poisoning problem when they talk all the time about having to fire "bad teachers" as the only way to solve public education problems?

And how about the Davis Guggenheim film so many of these people were involved with that demonized teachers and traditional public schools while exalting Rhee and charter schools with false data and phonied up stats?

Walcott needs to be called on this when he does it - because what he is doing is the same thing Paul Krugman noted people on that right do when they been called on their shit by opponents - they accuse people of being "uncivil".

The corporate education reform movement has had its way in city after city, state after state and in federal education policy for at least the last ten years.

The results - increased standardized tests (but stagnant test scores), diminished curricula but increased test prep, traditional public schools pitted against charter schools for money and space, an accountability movement that only holds teachers, administrators and schools accountable (but never children, parents or politicians), and an education system that is rife with fear and loathing as business CEO's replace education professionals in leadership roles and run their schools like businesses - speak pretty much for themselves.

There is nothing "poisonous" or "uncivil" about pointing any of these things out.

There is also nothing poisonous or uncivil about pointing out how charter schools do not serve many of the neediest students or students who need the most services, how KIPP loses 60% of its black male students from the 6th grade to the 8th grade, how despite all the advantages of money and power that the charters have, they STILL do NOT outperform traditional public schools.

There is also nothing poisonous or uncivil about pointing out how Michelle Rhee faked her own test score gains as a teacher and the Rhee miracle (and legacy) in D.C. was actually based on cheating.

There is also nothing poisonous or uncivil about pointing out that test scores plummeted under the reign of Klein and Bloomberg here in NYC or how the achievement gap between white and Asian students and black and Hispanic students was the SAME when Klein left than it was before he got here.

Walcott calls the pointing of this stuff out "poisonous" because it does not serve his interests well - he wants to move reform forward as the nicer, kinder reformer, a sort of anti-Klein, if you will.

Bloomberg thought Cathie Black was going to be his anti-Klein, but she turned into a p.r. disaster worse than Klein, so now he's got Walcott to do the dirty work in a "civil" way.

But make no mistake - the destructive policies are the same. And so no matter how "nice" Walcott seems and no matter how much we might want to ratchet the debate down and be "civil," remember that the very same people who have been demonizing teachers and traditional public schools and unions are STILL running the corporate education reform movement, STILL throwing in their billions to bust the unions and privatize the system and make teaching into an an at-will job with no protections and no dignity, STILL working the politics behind the scenes to get what they want.

There is nothing either civil or nice about any of this no matter how much Walcott smiles and coos and says nice, soothing words about changing the tone of the debate.

If he REALLY wanted to change the tone of the debate, he would open up the policies FOR debate.

But he has said repeatedly, he will not do that.

So let us acknowledge that the poison and vitriol from the reform side continues.

And let us acknowledge that Dennis Walcott, nice guy that he may be, is FULL OF SHIT when he opens his mouth.

Michelle Rhee Delights In Publicly Humiliating Others

She would say this comes from her relish in "holding others accountable." I see it more as her need to publicly humiliate others while aggrandizing herself:

The most chilling episode in Richard Whitmire’s biography of Michelle Rhee occurs near the end, when Rhee says to a PBS camera crew, “I’m going to fire somebody in a little while. Do you want to see that?” Of course they did, and they taped the chancellor of the District of Columbia public schools firing a principal. The victim’s face was not shown, but the episode revealed a woman who relishes humiliating those who have the misfortune to work for her.

The irony of all of the Rhee stuff is that when the true accountability moment arrives and it becomes clearer and clearer that the test score gains achieved under her reign were due to cheating, not her educational expertise, she tries to dodge accountability for herself, first by blaming the "enemies of reform" for the scandal, then teachers and principals.

But never herself, oh no.

Like Cathie Black who played the vagina card and blamed her failure as New York City schools chancellor on sexism and misogyny (NOTE to Ms. Black: The criticism you took as schools chancellor had NOTHING to do with your genitals and EVERYTHING to do with your lack of interest in education issues and your lack of experience in schools), Michelle Rhee never misses an opportunity to hold other people accountable for alleged sins and transgressions while avoiding all accountability for herself (and her sex offender fiance.)

The accountability movement delights in accountability for other people, but never themselves.

And they definitely seem to delight in humiliating others - all in the name of "accountability."

Gene Lyons Calls Michelle Rhee A Huckster

It's a good column in Slate, really gets at the jive that is Michelle Rhee and can be summed up by Lyons calling Rhee's StudentsFirst group MichelleFirst.

Give it a read.

More and more, we're seeing these anti-Rhee pieces showing up in the mainstream media.

And that's BEFORE the investigation into the test score scandal in D.C.

Still, Rhee hasn't done an appearance on Oprah a la James Frey to plead for forgiveness from the Queen of Daytime for perpetrating a Thousand Points Of Fraud onto the nation with her reform jive.

But there's still time for that.

There's still time.

Rhee Admits Testing Irregularities

The more Michelle Rhee realizes that an investigation of her tenure as D.C. schools chancellor is going to happen, the more she seems willing to admit that some cheating might have, you know, happened.

But of course, she's blaming teachers:

WASHINGTON (WUSA) -- Former DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee says she welcomes an investigation into erasures on standardized tests during her tenure.

Rhee was talking in DC Monday, more than a week after USA Today uncovered an incredibly high number of erasures that suggest the improved test scores by some students may not have been earned.

The former chancellor is standing by those results, but she is also admitting they found an incredibly high number of erasures on some standardized tests, and it could mean there was cheating. She admits her administration found some irregularities, but Rhee won't confirm information that irregularities were so high in four classrooms that people charged with administering the tests were removed from their positions.

Exclusive reports in USA Today targeted the high erasures on student test papers at Noyes Elementary in Northeast. Rhee said on WAMU-FM that Caveon consulting firm looked into the erasure rates from Noyes and other schools in 2009. She said investigators found no evidence to indicate there was widespread cheating.

Sure, they didn't find any cheating - but they also didn't look very hard.

Here is USA Today on how the "investigation" went:

When Atlanta investigators announced in August that teacher-led cheating on standardized tests appeared to be limited, then-governor Sonny Perdue slammed the investigation as "woefully inadequate" and appointed his own team to reopen the probe — with the weight of law behind it.

Now, after a USA TODAY investigation found high rates of erasures on tests in Washington, D.C., public schools, schools officials there are considering how to reopen a probe into possible cheating.

On Wednesday, the D.C. education board will convene a hearing to discuss the matter, and investigators and testing experts familiar with such cases say they should take basic but decisive steps.

"You've got to ask yourself this simple question," says former DeKalb County district attorney Bob Wilson, one of two high-profile attorneys now leading the Georgia probe. "Do you really want to investigate the matter? Because if the answer is 'Oh yes, we really do,' you've got to put the right tools in place to do it."

Those include criminal penalties and permission to pursue a wide-ranging probe — with a team large enough to handle it.

In August, Perdue brought in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to handle the matter. GBI spokesman John Bankhead quickly set the tone. He said any educator found to have tampered with student test papers could face up to 10 years in prison for falsifying public documents; anyone who lied to state investigators faced a $1,000 fine and up to five years behind bars.

The state team initially included 50 GBI investigators. Since August, it has conducted 1,700 interviews and plans to analyze almost 750,000 documents.

"This is not an audit," Wilson says. "This is an investigation."

Yeah, threatening teachers with jail and fines ought to open the spigot on who engaged in cheating.

But how about the people who put these policies into place that created this mess in the first place?

Let's be honest here - politicians at all levels have encouraged this garbage by emphasizing tests and test scores as the only legitimate way to assess students, schools and teachers.

They looked the other way while teachers and administrators did anything they could to save their schools from closure and themselves from firing.

Then when they KNEW that something odd was happening as school after school reported double digit increases in scores, they did nothing or papered over the "irregularities" with nominal investigations.

But it is only when they were blatantly caught that they actually investigated and then they only held the little people - the teachers - accountable for this stuff.

That's what is happening in Atlanta and I suspect the same will happen in D.C.

The investigation will pursue teachers and administrators at the school level, but you can bet they won't go after Rhee or her deputy at the time and now the current schools chancellor, Kaya Henderson.

It's just like in the economy at large where wide scale fraud by financial players and real estate moguls was ignored while little people have their homes foreclosed upon and lose their savings and retirement accounts to the crooks.

Teachers will be fired in D.C., perhaps even jailed for cheating - but Rhee will continue on with her fundraising and education lobbying.

Hope I'm wrong about this, but given the current level of oligarchy, this is just how things go.

Cheating Is Fundamental

Michelle Rhee bringing the Wall Street/Enron ethos to the public school system.

CIF!

Michelle Rhee's House Of Reform Cards Comes Crashing Down

In the same week she gets a front cover story in New York magazine, USA Today reports there is a pretty good probability that there has been MASSIVE fraud in the DC school system on standardized testing.

Here is the list of schools that are involved.

There are 103.

Rhee initially attacked the USA Today report and the journalists behind it with some Nixonian "These are just enemies of reform!" jive (what Alex Pareene called the "Haters Gonna Hate Defense" in Slate.)

But she had to walk that back when she realized even her water carriers like Jay Matthews at the Kaplan Test Prep Post weren't buying that excuse.

Now Valerie Strauss at that same Kaplan Test Prep Post is calling for subpoenas in this case for all involved:

One surefire way to learn whether a D.C. public school that made big gains when Michelle Rhee was chancellor actually cheated — a possibility raised by a newspaper investigation -- is to subpoena everybody in D.C. with potential involvement or knowledge and have them testify under oath. That includes Rhee.

An investigation published this week by USA Today brought new focus to previous concerns about erasures on standardized tests at D.C. schools. USA Today mentioned there were erasures that were flagged as outside the norm at 103 schools at least once since 2008 but it focused on one, Crosby S. Noyes Education Campus, where big gains on tests were reported during the Rhee era.

...

Six out of eight classes taking the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System test in 2007-08 were initially cited by CTB/McGraw-Hill, the testing company used by D.C. schools, as having higher-than-average erasures that turned wrong answers into the right ones, USA Today said. Then, in 2008-09 and 2009-10, the same pattern was reported by McGraw-Hill, which cited 80 percent of the classrooms at Noyes.

My colleague Bill Turque wrote back in 2009 about an investigation into possible cheating at 26 public and public charter schools where reading and math scores had shot up in 2008. The Rhee administration never got to the bottom of the allegations then.

Now USA Today has looked hard at subsequent years, drilling down into the data and interviewing some D.C. officials, but only some: Acting Chancellor Kaya Henderson would not allow the newspaper to interview Wayne Ryan, who had been principal at Noyes when the tests inspected by USA Today were taken and is now instructional superintendent.

Henderson was Rhee’s deputy, and was recently tapped by Mayor Vincent Gray (D) as his choice as Rhee’s successor; her approval by the D.C. Council is a foregone conclusion, at least at the moment.

Henderson repeatedly said on Monday that no cheating occurred, but then, on Tuesday, she asked the D.C. inspector general to investigate the controversy.

None of this, of course, proves that adults took the answer sheets from the kids, erased wrong answers and scribbled in the right ones so that the school would look good to Rhee.

But there is a way to find out: Subpoena everyone in the District who had potential involvement or knowledge of what happened. That includes Rhee and Henderson and Ryan and Michael Moody, who had served as special advisor to Rhee on academics, and the adults at Noyes.

There isn’t always fire where there is smoke, but, it’s time D.C. officials found out.

It is time to get to the bottom of this.

Rhee is the face of corporate education reform, a "rock star" in Oprah's words - if the most famous and visible of ed reform rock stars cheated her way to the top, or put into place a system that encouraged teachers and administrators to cheat in order to save their jobs, then it is very important we know that.

Especially since the Obama administration has basically replicated her corporate deform model for the NCLB Jr. blueprint.

So let's get these people under oath and find out what REALLY happened.

Time to talk, Ms. Rhee. Same goes for you, Ms. Henderson.

Raise your right hands, please.

Who knows, maybe Oprah will even do a show about the importance of firing crooked school chancellors.

Nahh........

When Michelle Rhee Attacks

Michelle Rhee's education miracle in Washington D.C. has been revealed as fraudulent - so how does Rhee respond?

With an attack, of course:

"It isn't surprising," Rhee said in a statement Monday, "that the enemies of school reform once again are trying to argue that the Earth is flat and that there is no way test scores could have improved ... unless someone cheated."

USA TODAY's investigation into test scores "is an insult to the dedicated teachers and schoolchildren who worked hard to improve their academic achievement levels," Rhee said.

Rhee, who said Monday night that the investigation "absolutely lacked credibility," had declined to speak with USA TODAY despite numerous attempts before an article ran online and in Monday's newspaper. Her comments were made during the taping of PBS' Tavis Smiley show to air on Tuesday night.

If Rhee thought the story lacked credibility, why didn't she go on the record with USA Today BEFORE the story?

Dunno, but she didn't.

She never does say why the investigation lacks credibility in any case, so clearly she is just trying to deflect the criticism from herself.

Notice the jive tools she uses - she says USA Today is attacking those school kids and teachers who worked so hard to increase their scores.

Except that this is not what the USA Today story does at all.

Instead it points out that there is a better probability of winning the grand prize in Powerball than having all those kids at Noyes Campus School erase wrong answers and bubble in the correct ones.

If Rhee has an answer for this probability (and the allegations made by parents that they complained about testing irregularities at the school but were ignored), she should say what it is.

But she has no response.

So she attacks.

She is the Michelle Malkin of the education reform world.

But now she has been exposed twice - first for her own scores in Baltimore, which did not hold up to scrutiny, and now for the scores in D.C.

There needs to be a TIME magazine cover with some teachers sweeping Rhee into obscurity and poverty, where she belongs.

Instead she continues to cash in on her celebrity and has been hanging out with all kinds of Republican governors.

Tonight Ohio governor and union-buster John Kasich is up.

Before that it was union-busters Chris Christie from Jersey and Lex Luthor from Florida.

But her fund-raising days may be numbered if she cannot respond to the USA Today article and the subsequent investigations with something better than "This is just people who hate reform!"

Because the facts are piling up, like little value-added data points, and they clearly point to reality that the Michelle Rhee education miracle in both Baltimore and Washington DC is horseshit.

What High Stakes Testing Brings

When you threaten to fire teachers and administrators and close schools based solely upon test scores, you set up the environment for this:

WASHINGTON — In just two years, Crosby S. Noyes Education Campus went from a school deemed in need of improvement to a place that the District of Columbia Public Schools called one of its "shining stars."

Standardized test scores improved dramatically. In 2006, only 10% of Noyes' students scored "proficient" or "advanced" in math on the standardized tests required by the federal No Child Left Behind law. Two years later, 58% achieved that level. The school showed similar gains in reading.

Because of the remarkable turnaround, the U.S. Department of Education named the school in northeast Washington a National Blue Ribbon School. Noyes was one of 264 public schools nationwide given that award in 2009.

Michelle Rhee, then chancellor of D.C. schools, took a special interest in Noyes. She touted the school, which now serves preschoolers through eighth-graders, as an example of how the sweeping changes she championed could transform even the lowest-performing Washington schools. Twice in three years, she rewarded Noyes' staff for boosting scores: In 2008 and again in 2010, each teacher won an $8,000 bonus, and the principal won $10,000.

A closer look at Noyes, however, raises questions about its test scores from 2006 to 2010. Its proficiency rates rose at a much faster rate than the average for D.C. schools. Then, in 2010, when scores dipped for most of the district's elementary schools, Noyes' proficiency rates fell further than average.

A USA TODAY investigation, based on documents and data secured under D.C.'s Freedom of Information Act, found that for the past three school years most of Noyes' classrooms had extraordinarily high numbers of erasures on standardized tests. The consistent pattern was that wrong answers were erased and changed to right ones.

Noyes is one of 103 public schools here that have had erasure rates that surpassed D.C. averages at least once since 2008. That's more than half of D.C. schools.

Erasures are detected by the same electronic scanners that CTB/McGraw-Hill, D.C.'s testing company, uses to score the tests. When test-takers change answers, they erase penciled-in bubble marks that leave behind a smudge; the machines tally the erasures as well as the new answers for each student.

In 2007-08, six classrooms out of the eight taking tests at Noyes were flagged by McGraw-Hill because of high wrong-to-right erasure rates. The pattern was repeated in the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years, when 80% of Noyes classrooms were flagged by McGraw-Hill.

On the 2009 reading test, for example, seventh-graders in one Noyes classroom averaged 12.7 wrong-to-right erasures per student on answer sheets; the average for seventh-graders in all D.C. schools on that test was less than 1. The odds are better for winning the Powerball grand prize than having that many erasures by chance, according to statisticians consulted by USA TODAY.

Another Michelle Rhee "victory" turned to garbage when light is shone upon it.