(Iris Harris/U.S. Department of Commerce)

One of the stories former Washington, D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee has told about her brief stint as a teacher is that one day, to control her students, she put tape (sometimes reported as masking tape, sometimes as duct tape) over their mouths. By her own claim, this resulted in some of the children bleeding after pulling the tape off. It's totally plausible that, like so many of the stories Rhee tells about her record, this is wildly exaggerated. But let's take her at her word for a minute.

In Rhee's telling, the story is about creativity, passion and learning from mistakes—all things she wants from teachers. But do most teachers who tape their students' mouths shut wind up, years later, in a position of power over other teachers and telling the story as a motivational tale? Not so much. In fact, Rhee First has found more than 20 cases in recent years of teachers, substitute teachers, teacher's aides, and other school employees who taped students' mouths and were fired, suspended without pay, placed on administrative leave or resigned. Some even faced criminal charges, though several of those had taped students' hands as well as their mouths. For example:

A Denver school secretary who taped the mouth of a six year old was fired, and sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to misdemeanor child abuse, in February of 2010

In March of 2009, a Rison, AR elementary teacher was fired and charged with false imprisonment and tampering, for taping student’s mouths and taping them to chairs.

A substitute teacher who taped the mouths of two students and restrained them by taping them into their chairs was given two years of probation and eighty hours of community service in July of 2008. The incident took place at Harvard Elementary in McHenry County, IL.

In January of 2009, a Lafayette, Indiana school teacher was fired for taping the mouth of a special needs student.

Quick, someone find all those fired teachers, make them chancellors of major school districts, and put them on the cover of Time!

Or, and here's a thought, start applying the standards to Rhee that are applied to teachers. It doesn't even have to be the punitive standards Rhee herself has made a career out of calling for. Just the normal standards that say you don't tape kids' mouths and then brag about it later.