Rhee Uses Tragedy to Take Her Own Shot

Our children are our most valuable assets ---- Michelle Rhee

For Rhee and her sycophants to call these teachers in Newtown colleagues is not only laughable.... It is vulgar. One of the worst vulgarities I have ever seen. These teachers are career teachers, went into teaching to have a career, a lifetime of education children. Rhee and her ilk stand for everything that is opposite of these.. teachers' belief systems. --- South Bronx School

 What can you say about a person who uses an event as unspeakable as the massacre in Sandy Hook to promote her organization ?-- Raging Horse 

Slimy Michelle Rhee and her slimy Student First didn't miss a beat to jump in on the tragedy. Here is a definition of asset:

A resource with economic value that an individual, corporation or country owns or controls with the expectation that it will provide future benefit.

Enough said.  One more cartoon to indicate how the world views the expression.

Rhee says:

how are we expected to foster an environment in which students can learn, grow, thrive, and set off on positive life-paths when we cannot guarantee basic needs such as their safety?..But events like these also strengthen our resolve to do exactly that -- improve schools for children and thereby improve entire communities.

Oh, EXCUSE ME! What happened to your "no excuses"? You mean kids actually have to feel safe to learn? What about kids living in poverty? Do you think they feel safe? Rhee's organization will not skip a beat talking about how the most important factor is judging teachers based on test scores. The "strengthen our resolve" is code for "we won't stop hounding and vilifying teachers and calling for their scores to be published so they can be further vilified." Student First in Connecticut will still be calling for the teachers at the school to be pilloried in public. Maybe they will exempt the ones who gave their lives for the children.

Read bloggers

• SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL
• (Michelle Rhee Never Misses an Opportunity To Exploit a Tragedy)
• Diane Ravitch (Exploiting a Tragedy) 
• Raginghorseblog (Michelle Rhee Uses Sandy Hook Slaughter to Plug Studentsfirst Organization)
• Jersey Jazzman 

Many bloggers are pointing to the actions of the teacher heroes.
Jersey Jazzman: Do We Remember Heroes For Their Test Scores?

And here's a good piece from a non-teacher who was married to one.

Once the media horror dies down about Soto and her co-workers’ sacrifices, I guarantee you this: public school grade school teachers will go right back to being the despised class. “Union thugs.” “With three-month vacations.” “Teaching kids their ABCs.” All the idiotic, ill-informed, right wing anti-intellectual myths will rev up again as if nothing had happened. And in the meantime the people the Fox pundits despise will go on teaching kids to read and do math and treat each other with respect.

Thank you, teachers

by Chris Clarke

Victoria Soto, age 27, apparently died yesterday while trying to get her students into a safer spot in their classroom at Sandy Hook. She stood between the murderer and her students, and he killed her.
This is Soto right here.
[Updated to add: Andrew Revkin shares more on Soto's colleagues Kaitlin Roig  and Maryrose Kristopik: "Kaitlin Roig locked her students in the bathroom and kept them safe, while Victoria Soto was trying to do the same when she came face-to-face with the gunman and was shot, execution style. Maryrose Kristopik barricaded her music students in a closet, while the gun man fought to get in." Roig and Kristopik survived, thankfully.]
I spent a little time thinking about Soto and her colleagues this morning. I’ve known quite a few grade school teachers over the years. Until 2009, I was married to one. And I realized as I was thinking about Soto that there’s not a single one of those grade school teachers I’ve known, my ex- emphatically included, who I could imagine doing anything but jumping between the gunman and his or her students.

More-

 http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/12/15/thank-you-teachers/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+freethoughtblogs/pharyngula+(FTB:+Pharyngula)