Mostly because she sucked:
StudentsFirst was hobbled by a high staff turnover
rate, embarrassing PR blunders and a lack of focus. But several leading
education reformers say Rhee’s biggest weakness was her failure to build
coalitions; instead, she alienated activists who should have been her
natural allies with tactics they perceived as imperious, inflexible and
often illogical. Several said her biggest contribution to the cause was
drawing fire away from them as she positioned herself as the face of the
national education reform movement.
“There was a growing consensus in the education reform community that
she didn’t play well in the sandbox,” one reform leader said.
Gee, I am shocked, shocked to find out Michelle Rhee was imperious, illogical, inflexible and didn't play well with others.
Now we're starting to get stories of Rhee's hubris not from her "enemies" but her former allies:
And her fellow education reformers tell remarkably consistent stories
about their frustration with Rhee and the organization she founded.
In Connecticut, Minnesota, Florida and elsewhere, activists said
StudentsFirst often swooped in with pre-fab policy agendas set by
national strategists operating out of its Sacramento headquarters.
Rhee’s state directors then promoted those policies and only those
policies, without regard to local needs or political realities,
according to activists who tried to work with them. In at least one
case, the StudentsFirst team insisted on pushing legislation that
clashed with other state laws and would have been impossible to
implement, sources said.
“They’d walk around with a 15-point legislative agenda and a
legislator would say, ‘What are your top two on the list?’ and they
would say, ‘Nope, we need all 15,’ — so then they got zero,” one
activist said. “They were policy purists in a way that made them seem
oblivious to political reality.”
...
An education reform leader familiar with her tactics said Rhee made
audacious demands of potential backers — once asking for $50 million
from a single donor. (She got $1 million, this source said.)
That's Oprah's "warrior woman" in crystallized form - her way or the highway.
So, she's been told "Hit the highway!"
What more will we learn about Michelle Rhee now that the education reformer knives are out for her?
