““If someone said that to me, I’d have said, ‘You may need more time to fix the system but my kid doesn’t have time. She has only one chance to attend first grade, and if she can’t learn to read by the end of first grade, her chances for success in life will be compromised. So with all due respect - heck, no!’”

The above quote of Rhee, is commonly found among parents of different shapes and sizes in the public schools. ‘My kid has only one chance’, of various versions of hues and colours cited by parents is usually in reference to request additional education services, new knowledge and aid to help their children, on what the schools are no longer willing to provide.

In and around the year 2005, I was on a well-known American LD blog site. One thread was the responses of schools, when parents cite the many different versions of, “My kid only has one chance to get it right” tied to the parents requests. The thread was overwhelmed by parents of different sizes and shapes, of schools denying education services and more importantly, denying the parents the ability to access other alternative education options for their children.

In Canada, we could used a few more Michelle Rhees’ who truly understand that kids have only once chance to get it right. Instead, parents are told to ‘suck it up’ and just accept your kid’s future is paved with obstacles by the very public education system who have erected the obstacles, to prevent parents the ability to access other alternative education options.

Rhee is quoted - ““After my listening tour of families, and hearing so many parents plead for an immediate solution to their desire for a quality education, I came out in favor of the voucher program….” 

Want to know something? In Canada, if the education gurus had their listening ears on, they too would overwhelmingly come down in favour of vouchers. Otherwise, be forever known as in favour of the discrimination of children and their education.

POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

Michelle Rhee is not about students. That is just her vehicle for her outsized ego and her plan to get rich off education. Her star is very dim now. A few billionaire backers still hire her to shill for them so them can profit from educational privatization, but her disgraceful exit from DC has left her damaged goods.

She will soon be on the “What ever happened to….” list.

I have far more interest in Geoffrey Canada who is attempting to use the tools of both the left (social services) and the right (strict focused discipline, longer hours…) to make something. There are serious flaws such as his expulsion rate. The problem for him is this. IS IT SCALABLE (meaning can it be brought to the level of a school board a state or a nation). The answer for most of these experiments is NO. If the answer is really no then what are we doing?