Something was brought to my attention just yesterday and I thought I’d investigate. Emperor Rhee Palpatine is all over the place because of her new book. I was told that she impersonated an African-American student during a welcome speech to DCPS teachers a couple of years back.
As it turns out, Bill Turque for DC Schools Insider already covered this speech in 2010 and raised very similar concerns, that her impersonation was a tad discomforting. Rhee is giving us a little anecdote of her two weeks years teaching in Baltimore City. She had a few students in her car after a field trip and was driving them home. Very hilarious! I’m not going to really go into the story, but here’s the transcript of her impersonation:
“I start to panic…my heart is beating 100 miles a minute,” she said. Then the other three children, sensing her worry, chimed in. She recalled one little boy saying:
“Lawwwd Ms.Rhee whatchu gonna do!!!!??” Rhee boomed, drawing a big laugh. “Lawwwd Ms. Rhee whatchu gonna do!!!!??”
Now, I isolated this part of her speech. Watch it, listen. What do you think? I mean, this is an old issue, nothing earth shattering. But I have to say, this is an Asian-American woman of privileged background giving what to me seems like an almost minstrel like impersonation of a young African-American child. All I have to say, if I did this, my behind would be eviscerated, don’t you think?
What is known about Rhee’s [privileged] background? I am still trying to connect the dots between failed temp-teaching assignment to chancellor of DC schools to respected face of education reform. That is a Bizzaro World career ladder climb if there ever was one, and speaks of more than just privileged upbringing. There is a connection not being revealed. The few yrs in teaching was a PR plan from step one, and it was made under advisement. A “get this under your belt and it will AT LEAST give you a whiff of experience…some stories to tell…”
I think all TFA folks go into it precisely with that goal in mind, to get their street cred, so they have a few anecdotes to share at the boardroom table. “When I was in ‘nam, man, humping the boonies, a grunt, etc., etc.,”
Rhee was with Teach for America for three years in Baltimore in the mid-ninties . The last two years were team teaching. This is the extent of her classroom experience.
In her first year of teaching Rhee’s first year test scores showed a precipitous drop in her class: Average math percentile dropped from 64% to 17%. Average reading percentile dropped from 37% to 21%.
http://gfbrandenburg.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/cohort-effects-at-harlem-park-jpg.jpg
When she left after after the third year she told The New York Times that her students had national standardized test scores that were initially at the 13th percentile but at the end of two years, the class was at grade level, with some students performing at the 90th percentile. Earlier she had said on her resume that 90 percent of her students had attained scores at the 90th percentile. After she left she founded and was CEO of the New Teacher Project. Her supposed student scores became her platform which lead to her becoming a leading spokesperson for the corporate reformers, including the Broad Foundation where she is on the Board.
Retired math teacher B.F. Brandenburg did a study of her claims which he posted on his blog which created heated controversy when an article in the Washington Post’s Class Struggle, on 2/8/2011, highlighted his research.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2011/02/michelle_rhees_early_test_scor.html
The link above is in the article as is B. F. Brandenburg’s post. Also read the comments.
Is there a better-quality version of this out there? I can’t really make out what’s being said or who is saying it, for that matter. The tittering of the audience is the clearest sound.
Here is a better quality version. The whole speech must be heard to be believed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2010/08/13/VI2010081305444.html
Thanks for that. That’s where I found the original, and then I used Quicktime to screen record the specific quote in question. No need, from my perspective, to watch one second more than necessary.
OK. I just think her recounting the taping the students mouths with masking tape must be heard too. At the time of this speech she still thought it was FUNNY!
You’re right.
Rhee is a media whore. This means she will write, say, “perform” anything to make a buck. She’s also a lightning rod on the school reform issue, which explains why she’s left to working the streets of media.
Whoa, harsh.
Harsh but accurate….she is not our savior…her goal is to promote herself. Her rhetoric is all over the place. Recently she can’t even keep her reformy bull$hit straight. My theory: she was mediocre as a temporary teach for awhile scab and never mastered the skill herself. This is a personal vendetta against the caring, competent, masterful, skillful teachers, which is something she never accomplished. She needs therapy and medication not the admiration of the unsuspecting public.
Yes, and her behind should have been pulverized too. it wasn’t. She went on to pulverize and destroy education for those she so lovingly mocked. SInce I try to black out unpleasant memories of Ms Rhee, was that the same ‘pep’ talk where she mentioned her fondness for duct tape?
It certainly was.