She said that at the RNC convention this week as the anti-union, anti-teacher, pro-parent trigger movie called Won't Back Down was shown.
Next week she will showing the very same movie at the DNC convention. And she will be interviewed at the DNC meet as well by Chelsea Clinton.
For the DNC to feature her so prominently shows public school teachers where they stand with the Democratic party leaders. That makes me bitter.
They had to know that having her at the convention would send up a red flag to public school teachers who have been victims of her scorn for several years.
From Huff Post:
Michelle Rhee At Republican Convention..Education Reform Will Require 'Getting Ready For A Fight'Former D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee called for classroom teachers unhappy with the system to brace themselves for battle. She spoke during a panel following the showing of “Won’t Back Down,” a film to be released this fall about a parent and teacher fighting to take over a failing school.
.."“Won’t Back Down” features Maggie Gyllenhaal as the parent of a dyslexic daughter with a clearly incompetent teacher, and Viola Davis as a teacher who is convinced to try to shake up the system. Together, they work to get 50 percent of parents and teachers on their side to take advantage of a “fail-safe” trigger law that allows parents to take over a failing school. Along the way they battle the teachers’ union and school-board bureaucracy.
The film was shown at an event sponsored by Rhee’s advocacy organization, StudentsFirst, and the Foundation for Excellence in Education, a group founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
“Won’t Back Down” has already been criticized for ignoring realities of the education system and overinflating the efficacy of parent trigger laws. These laws, which in theory allow a school takeover if 50 percent of parents sign a petition demanding so, have yet to be successfully implemented. In the past two years, such laws have been passed in seven states. Despite some attempts, no school has undergone a takeover as a result.
There is a school in California undergoing the change now, Desert Trails Elementary. The parents are large and in charge...at least until the charter company takes it over.
I guess we should not be surprised that she is being pandered to so much by the Democratic party. After all there is
big big money behind the Parent Trigger law push.It's a way to get more charters more quickly by manipulating parents.
With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wasserman Foundation, the Eli and Edyth Broad Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation, Parent Revolution has more than enough dinero to keep up the rhetoric and the supporting antics. But that obscures real educational issues and keeps their followers from asking about the group’s real agenda, which unfortunately is all about charter schools, and not about Julio and Jamal or their sisters and brothers ever becoming educated.
..."Our team works directly with parents at underperforming schools in Los Angeles and throughout California to help parents organize to transform their children’s under-performing schools using California’s historic Parent Trigger law. We use sophisticated and cutting edge community organizing techniques to help parents organize, create Parents Union chapters, build power, analyze their school’s performance, and fight for kids-first reforms that will dramatically improve academic outcomes for their children.
I find myself wondering just how many of our Democratic leaders are aware that this movie pushing such a corporately funded "movement" is being shown at their convention? If they don't know they should, as it gives credibility to this shameless manipulation of parents at the expense of public education.
