The Voting Rights Act (VRA) must be upheld by the supreme court:

The numerous despicable attempts to restrict voting made during the last election cycle are proof of that. Anyone who truly believes the VRA is obsolete needs to recognize, given last year's voter suppression efforts, the Jim Crowe era is biding its time.

Now even if you are dumb enough to believe that all is OK with the world and there are no reasons to have the voting rights act on the books. Then why are the the parties at opposite end's on this? Why are the Republicans in America trying to keep people from the poles ?

The argument is that VRA is discriminatory against Southern states to require them but not other states to seek pre-clearance for voting laws; I actually agree. The Voting Rights Act should require *ALL* states to seek pre-clearance. After what we've seen the GOP try to pass in states all across the nation prior to the last 2012 election, I see no reason this safeguard against voter suppression should be limited to just Southern states as suggested by VRA of 1965 but now should be expanded to apply to ALL 50 states.

Ajay Jain
ajain31@gmail.com
1209 Creekwood Drive
Garland TX 75044-2421

Michelle Rhee - The famous former Washington DC School District Chancellor

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=215125001967375&set=vb.145530532162873&type=2&theater

Michelle Rhee on OPRAH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPsqO17f6Lw

Michelle Rhee on abc's ThisWeek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nep1mcaFthU

Michelle Rhee on The DailyShow with Jon Stewart
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-february-4-2013/michelle-rhee
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-february-4-2013/exclusive---michelle-rhee-extended-interview-pt--2
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-february-4-2013/exclusive---michelle-rhee-extended-interview-pt--3

pbs.org FRONTLINE: The Education of Michelle Rhee
http://video.pbs.org/video/2323979463/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/education-of-michelle-rhee/

Why Teach For America works - Michelle Rhee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUs_hsHaqSA

A Two-Tier Proposal for Teacher Pay - Michelle Rhee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pii96AoTPw

Time Magazine: Rhee Tackles Classroom Challenge
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1862444-2,00.html

Michelle Rhee Discusses "Waiting for Superman," Charter Schools And Sch... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLih24QdwH8

Stanford University: A Conversation on "Waiting for Superman" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzrjo7Fvs1A

"Radical" Fighting to Put Students First should be a must read for all studentsfirst.org members! Michelle Rhee's new book, "RADICAL: Fighting to Put Students First," is now in stores! For more information about where you can find it, to read an excerpt from the book, and to share your story about education in America visit the official site at http://www.edradical.com/ or http://www.facebook.com/edradical.
http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/michelle-rhee/510ff3b02b8c2a138f000747

Michelle Rhee at the ACE 2011 Spring Luncheon https://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=mO9F-amHDuw

Michelle Rhee and Kevin Johnson (4/20/11) https://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=OCcNzh7C_Tk&feature=endscreen

To view the Fordham study, "When Teachers Choose Pension Plans: The Florida Story," visit http://www.studentsfirst.org/fordham-study-on-fl-teacher-pension-reform

Watch MAKER videos on StudentFirst Founder Michelle Rhee visit www.makers.com/michelle-rhee

Above all, Michelle Rhee is a capitalist. Thus, warranting the following disclaimer: Buyer beware.

Mr. Hockenberry,
When I heard this interview, and then your comment today about your children's postive experience with their charter school, I realized that you are not functioning as a journalist on your program. You are putting forth your own view point. You allowed Michelle Rhee to characterize teachers' view of parents'responsibility as "bake brownies for the bake sale and cut out letters for the classroom". This is completely wrong and went unchallenged by you. Teachers need parents to read to them, feed them, not abuse them, support them in getting homework and classwork done, teach them how to behave appropriately and show up a school to talk about their children's education. This was not an interview to inform people of accurate information. It was an opportunity for you to present your own view by giving a platform for this woman who has an agenda that is anti public education. My Takeaway? Stop listening to the Takeaway. I will let WNYC know they've lost a listener to this show.

I'm not sure what is behind NPR's love affair with Michelle Rhee, but time and time again various programs have given her a platform to spout her agenda, and rarely, if ever, have her claims been cross referenced or questioned.

NPR needs to do a better job on its HW when it comes to covering the education beat.

I have been impressed by ms. Rhee and think we need more spokespersons like her in school system. It is to bad D.C. did not back her. The let a really good thing go.

S in Oregon

Michelle Rhea's education credentials are specious at best, including her self admitted technique of taping the mouths of black children to punish them as part of her arsenal of educational methodology. Perhaps The Takeaway could interview a real expert on education, like Diane Ravitch.

I hope the Takeaway is going to interview Diane Ravitch, an important voice in education reform.

I caught the tail end of this conversation the other day:

"Why do some children succeed and others fail? Paul Tough went looking for the answer to that question, and in the process learned the answer is changing. He joins Ross Reynolds for a conversation about childhood success."

"How Children Succeed"

http://www.kuow.org/program.php?id=27996

Of what value is knowledge without curiosity, context, application, passion, purpose, inspiration? A sense of wide-eyed wonder, the joy of discovery, creation of something from nothing - the essence of creativity, self actualization?

How does one light that candle? Ignite that spark?

Seems to me, all the data, all the theories, all the money spent on education misses that fundamental point.

We seem to be losing that.

As an educator I just don't get it. How are people like Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein (former NYC chancellor), Dennis Walcott (current NYC chancellor), John King (current NY state commissioner of education) and Arne Duncan (Sec. of Education for Obama) combined have less time in the classroom than I do as a young teacher. I am in my early thirties and currently starting my 11th year teaching. I have taught all levels of students from gifted to students with special needs and I have had success at all levels. But with only 11 years of teaching I wouldn't dare consider myself experienced enough to run a city's, state's, or nation's educational department. What qualifies these people to do so? It is pure arrogance. This was evident in Ms. Rhee's comment today on the program when challenged about parent responsibility. Her response basically boiled down to "if a parent can't bake goods for a bake sale, the student shouldn't suffer." That is not what educators complain about when they ask for parental responsibility. We are asking that parents assure that their children at least attend school daily and respect the adults in the building. The fact that Ms. Rhee did not understand that this is what is meant by parental responsibility shows one of two things. First, she is may be ignorant of the true challenges educators face. Or worse, she is lying about the reality to push her agenda. Either way she is unqualified to hold a position that can influence our educational policy in this nation and it was disappointing that host let her slide on this comment. It is time that real educators change the conversation and start challenging the so called experts on their expertise.

Parent Power and Parent responsibility need a balance...

Somebody has to teach parents to take responsibility for their kids education. Schools can only do so much. I try to listen to my kids, make sure they do their homework, but also listen to the nuances of what interests them. I then try to encourage what they are interested in and buy them books on the topic or take them to a museum of their interest or let them take a class... It sucks because I have my own interests and hate it when I continuously have to take the five year old to the Transit Museum all the damn time!

Lester is right, no video games, no junk food and no t.v. for the parents...

Got the first link to work, at last. I'm not sure the real problem is in what students read, although I would think the more variety the better.

The first link doesn't work. I'm not that familiar with the Pioneer Institute, but at least one person here thinks it has its own agenda:
http://www.publiceye.org/libertarian/pioneer-institute/pi-fore.html

As support for what Rhee says, see:

Gewertz blog http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2012/09/study_decries_literature_defic.html


Pioneer Institute White Paper No. 89, September 2012. How Common Core's ELA Standards Place College Readiness at Risk. http://pioneerinstitute.org/pdf/120917_CommonCoreELAStandards.pdf

A public school building on my block contains 4 standard public schools and one charter school. The charter school opened one week earlier than the other four this year. Will an extra week make a difference? I have no idea. But I understand that the school saw an opportunity to try something different and was able to act on it. This flexibility is what's required for actual reform over time. Public schools, with their commitments to teachers unions do not have this flexibility. As such, public school reforms we hear of amount to little more than tinkering around the edges of what is a failing system.

i'm so sick of hearing about america's education disaster.

PARENTS need to be held more accountable for the education of their children.

they need to "parent up" and participate in their children's educational lives:

1) parents sit with their children and go over and through DAILY homework

2) no more video games

3) no more junk food

4) no more tv

there are infinitely more FAILING PARENTS than failing teachers.

maybe parents should be expected to spend tens of thousands of dollars and 4 years of their lives becoming educated on how to properly raise children since that's exactly what teachers have to do in order to teach.

It is so unfortunate that Ms. Rhee has become a voice for education reform. Her performance as Chancellor of the Washington DC public schools was abysmal at best. Remember her gleeful firing of administrators and teachers as an opportunity to get publicity? What about the documented cheating on "high-stakes" testing in the schools that she held up as examples of the effectiveness of her vision for education. Another area that she holds up with pride is the merit pay plan...a plan that pitted teachers against each other rather than encouraging collaboration. Think how much the private sector business values collaboration then look at the consequence to education when teachers are discouraged from working together for the good of kids.

I would bet that Nation Public Radio could find much better representatives for education reform that have the welfare of children in mind, not someone who has repeatedly shown little respect for the most important people in the education equation; the administrators and teachers. Her disingenuous claims about teacher compensation are downright self-serving in that it makes her appear to support teachers when her record clearly shows she holds most teachers in contempt.

The problem I have with so many of the current education reforms is that they are being applied in a "one size fits all" manner. I live in the Upper Keys, where we have two high performing traditional public K-8 schools and a successful Montessori Charter, established 14 years ago. We are blessed with three great options, but over the last 4 years drastic state level budget cuts and declining property tax revenues have put tremendous budgetary restrictions on our schools, yet they continue to perform well on a shoe string. We are a very small community with around 150 students per grade level (total of all the schools), yet the current trends toward charter education is resulting in more charter schools being approved in our tiny community. Clearly, the more schools, the less efficiency and the more redundancies. Education in our community would be better served but increased funding, not more schools. I realize the situation is different, perhaps, in urban failing schools.

As far as I'm concerned, Rhee showed her true colors when she invited a PBS "Frontline" video crew to come into her office and film her firing a principal. No matter how "incompetent" that individual may have been, no one deserves that kind of humiliation. She's in this for herself, never doubt it.

I'm a special educator and doctoral candidate in the Detroit Metropolitan area. Teach for America is currently fundraising in the area to raise $30 million. With public schools as cash-strapped as they are, and class sizes rising to 40 children in the elementary grades in Detroit, wouldn't it be a public good for the same $30 million to be invested in the Detroit P.S.? I'm concerned that competition is gutting the system by creating a false dichotomy by setting up public schools (where all children must be served) against selective privatized schools of choice?

I am a public school parent of 3 and an elected NYC school board member. Nothing which Michelle Rhee pushes is aupported by parents, teachers. We want collaboration not compettion; teacher support not bashing; accountability at the top; smaller class sizes. Rhee pushes profits first, not students first. Think it's a coincidence that Adrian Fenty lost?

Notice Michele Rhee was so "undedicated" that she left the system in which she "made her name". She didn't stay around long enough to give out that higher salary she promised to teachers who might be interested in giving up tenure.

1) Merit pay:
decreases collaberation: why should teachers share their best ideas if a collegue might then seem to be a better teacher and get the merit pay.

2) Rhee wanted to promise higher wages to teachers who gave up tenure (I'm not sure if she suceeded in getting that through). What is to prevent an administrator to find a reason to determine you are not "worthy" of the raise and have you rated unsatisfactory and then terminated before you get that raise? Most teacher evaluation systems are so broad that an administrator could find anything she claims she does not like about your teaching skills to either deny the raise or rate you unsatisfactory and send you on the way to termination. Appeals from unsatisfactory are very difficult to have overturned. I haven't hear anything about the new/upcoming evakuations systems that will close enough holes.

Regardless of wages/ tenure, lesson observations should be recored and done/written up by totally neutral evaluators. Yes, it is an expense. And the evaluator might need the time to review the recording. But, that would eliminate the he said/she said about what the teacher did or said during the lesson. The recording is the witness and the evaluator would be forced to write up on what actually happened, not what she thinks she saw or heard--or what she invents.

With ever increasing requirments/accountability for teaching, ever increasing stress that (literally) makes you sick [think: blood pressure, less and less time for a personal life and exercise that keeps up your health] and lower benefits (pension/tenure), more teachers than ever will leave the system in the first few years. What will be the motive to stay around and be abused by the system?