Closing the Gap

People in education love to hate on Michelle Rhee due to the painful changes that she championed in DC schools. Well, how did DC schools do under Rhee's leadership? Although her methods were unpopular, aren't student gains (or losses) what truly matters?

Despite the poor press, Paul Peterson says that "a case against Rhee has yet to be established," in a recent article. He refutes a couple of major studies, one by Alan Ginsburg and one by the the National Research Council. We all know that academics can never agree! Based on Peterson's analysis, the acheivement gap appears to have closed under Rhee on NAEP test data - although admittedly the time horizon was fairly short. What about the cheating scandal you might ask? The suspicious erasures appear to be limited to the DC high stakes tests to my knowledge. The only subject that lagged during Rhee's tenure was 8th grade reading. See the graphics below via Educationnext.org. The article is here,and here is a brief podcast with Paul Peterson. Does he have a point?

 

Additional links:

The Rhee DC Record by Alan Ginsburg that Peterson refutes.