Michelle Rhee and Anti-Union Movement

For those who have not monitored politics in education, Michelle Rhee is known as a big proponent of testing and using those results to evaluate instructors.  She is now in Sacramento lobbying for many significant changes like the elimination of tenure and the use of test scores to evaluate teachers.  Of course this is K-12, but what happens there often impacts the community colleges later.  In fact, you can see the evolution of student learning outcomes going the same way.    

Taking a crack at California's education system

Michelle Rhee came to prominence as the tough-minded chancellor of Washington, D.C., schools. Now she's in Sacramento, taking on this state's system — and its teachers unions.

By Michael J. Mishak and Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times

March 26, 2013, 4:58 p.m.


SACRAMENTO — When Michelle Rhee wants to make a point about what she sees as the coddling of American children, she refers to her daughters' abundant soccer trophies.

"My daughters suck at soccer," she says to crowds that roar with knowing laughter.

The former District of Columbia schools chancellor is pitch perfect in the role of outraged parent and education reformer, distilling complex policy debates into bare-knuckled banter.

In Rhee's world, as she recently told crowds in Los Angeles and Sacramento, teacher seniority protections are "whack," principals can be "nutty" and charter schools can be "crappy." Such frank talk has made the controversial former teacher a celebrity and potential political powerhouse.

StudentsFirst, the advocacy group Rhee founded in California's capital, where she lives with her husband, Mayor Kevin Johnson, is positioning itself as the political counterweight to teachers unions. Funded by entrepreneurs and philanthropists, it's pushing to elect candidates and rewrite policies on charter schools, teacher assessment and other charged issues in at least 17 states, including California.

Teachers unions and other critics say the group, which spent $250,000 to boost three candidates for the Los Angeles Board of Education in the March 5 election, promotes unproven policy proposals with cash from sources whose main goal is crushing organized labor. Among StudentsFirst's major donors is the Walton Family Foundation, funded by heirs to the fortune generated by Wal-Mart, which has vigorously opposed unions.

"StudentsFirst," said Randi Weingarten, president of theAmerican Federation of Teachers, "has found a way to be the education flank of a broader anti-union movement."

Continued here.