Rhee bails out Archdiocese

If you want to know what Michelle Rhee’s touted D.C. “school reform” plan is all about, you have to go no further than Saturday’s Washington Post, “Funds Found for New Charters.”

Despite district shortfalls and mismanagement that have led to the firings of hundreds of D.C. teachers and support staff, Rhee and the board have dipped into the district’s dwindling reserve fund for up to $16 million for a bailout of the city’s Catholic Schools.

The District will use a $7.5 million education reserve fund to pay for the seven former Catholic schools slated to reopen as secular charter schools next month, and it will be able to find more money if necessary, officials said this week.. Estimates of how much the schools will cost the city range from $7 million to $16 million…. If surpluses do not occur or if more funds are needed, the city will find the money, said David Umansky, a spokesman for Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi.

The trick, perfected by Rhee’s mentor, Paul Vallas, is to turn inner-city parochial schools, abandoned by white flight, into charters. That way, the Archdiocese can continue operate them on the public dole, primarily with uncertified and underpaid, non-union teachers, teaching the church’s prescribed curriculum. After all, isn’t that what an Ownership Society is all about?

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Ednotes Online makes some good points about the new Klein/ Sharpton,/Rhee /McCaincurrent dust-up between Diane Ravitch and Checker Finn, group (EEP) and the in his response to my brother Fred’s Friday posts:

Also note who funds Nightline and John Merrow: Broad and Gates… all of the players on the Rhee/Joel Klein team.

Merrow, in case you missed it, has become Rhee’s and Paul Vallas’ personal privatization cheerleader. Shame on him, especially for his cheerleading on post-Katrina /New Orleans schools debacle.

As I pointed out several months ago, Ravitch is quickly becoming radicalized, or should I say, rationalized, by the deepening crisis in N.Y. ed reform, her ongoing Bridging Differences debate with Deb Meier, the amazing collapse of neocon influence, and the emerging cracks within the ranks at Fordham.

Also see Peter Goodman’s post on Edwize, about EEP, "Klein, Inc., Spreading the Brand Across the Nation."