Let’s share the rumors

By now, I am sure you have all heard that Michelle Rhee has resigned from the Washington D.C. post after her boss lost his bid for reelection as mayor. So, what is her next gig? Will she stay in education? Who will hire her?  I have a friend on the East Coast who is in the “know,” and rumor has it she is headed to California. Did you know that her fiance is Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson who has had his hand in the schools in our state capital?

So, what have you heard?

While out wandering around

Today was one of those days when I had some time to wander around to other blogs to see what’s going on.  I found a great post  about Michelle Rhee, the Chancellor of Education, Washington, DC.  Sounds like she’s got a very tough job to do there, much like the superintendent in Fresno has.  

I loved this opening paragraph:

In 11th grade, Allante Rhodes spent 50 minutes a day in a Microsoft Word class at Anacostia Senior High School in Washington. He was determined to go to college, and he figured that knowing Word was a prerequisite. But on a good day, only six of the school’s 14 computers worked. He never knew which ones until he sat down and searched for a flicker of life on the screen. “It was like Russian roulette,” says Rhodes

I hear him on the computers.  Although I have 30 in my PC lab, only about 10 have FrontPage on them so the kids have to take turns to make their webpage.  About 10 of them do not have internet connections.  Now, as to my MAC lab, those all work and work well, but the District is not fond of Apple so the new computer I ordered in July still hasn’t shown up, being held captive by purchasing.

Michelle Rhee supposedly wants good teaching and believes that is the answer to education’s problems.  I’m sure she is partially correct, there are some bad teachers out there who are boring our kids to death.  As we would come out of classrooms after talking to freshmen classes, my seniors would comment about the lack of creative learning going on.  ”They’re just sitting there,” was the lament I heard so many times.  But a lot of the problems have to do with the district headquarters and what they want and what they will allow the schools to do.