Michelle Rhee, in response to yesterday's damning USA Today article, attacked the messenger instead of addressing the message. She contends that the unbelievable number of answers changed from wrong to right were not an indication of wrong doing. This, even though test experts asked to investigate the allegations concluded, "At one school, Noyes Education Campus, the number of erasures in one class was so high that the odds of winning the Powerball grand prize were better than the erasures occurring by chance." Furthermore, it was revealed that many the same students who made dramatic improvement in one year, showed an equally dramatic decline the following year.
Ms. Rhee apparently believes she is beyond accountability. In a statement she made on the Tavis Smilley show she said 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." Really? Massive irregularities are indicated and taxpayers should not investigate? I know teachers who have been investigated for only two suspicious erasures. But, apparently we should hold those under Ms. Rhee to a different standard. She is acting suspiciously like someone who is afraid of the the truth. There is a chance, a very slim one, that these irregularities are innocent, but the fact remains that she did nothing to investigate them when she was chancellor and is now attacking the investigation instead of supporting it.
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