Michelle Rhee: Won't debate without friends, doesn't have enough friends to debate at all.
Michelle Rhee became a media star during her time as chancellor of the Washington, DC, schools because she was supposedly soooo tough. She'd stand up to powerful people—like teachers she had the power to fire. Why, she'd fire someone right on camera! Turns out, though, she's not quite so tough when it comes to a free and open exchange of ideas in public.
Rhee was supposed to debate Diane Ravitch in February at Lehigh University, but, Ravitch writes, Rhee backed out of the debate. Why?Rhee first demanded that we have two people on each team, then three people on each team.I readily assented and selected a wonderful second and third for the debate.
Early on, Rhee said her second would be Rod Paige.
My choices were the Finnish educator Pasi Sahlberg (a visiting scholar at Harvard this year) and Philadelphia parent activist Helen Gym.
Rhee and I–through our agents– mutually agreed on the date.
However, the debate is off because Rhee says she cannot find a third partner.
Ha ha ha ha ha! "I need an extra person on my team." "Fine." "I choose George W. Bush's education secretary." "Fine." "I need a second extra person on my team." "Fine" "Oops, I can't find a second extra person, guess we can't do it!"
It's tempting to compare this approach to the corporate education reform movement: change the rules and stack the deck in your own favor, and if failure seems imminent, change the rules again. Or run away, apparently.
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