Let's hear more from commenter who questioned Rhee's test scores

By Jay Mathews

(Updated with response from Michelle Rhee's group, StudentsFirst, at 6 p.m.)



Here is the comment I posted this morning on the Education Writers Association listserve, where topic A is the G.F. Brandenburg blog that proves Michelle Rhee said her students' gains when she taught elementary school were more than they turned out to be. I am posting it here because I want the person who says he pointed out the crucial document to Brandenburg to take some credit, and tell us how he did it. The scoop artist is edlharris, a frequent and often wise commenter in this blog. How did he find the document? Where has it been all these years since it was published in 1995? What could reporters have done to discover it sooner?

Me on the EWA listserve:

I agree that we, including me, did a bad job at this. Actually it was edlharris, the signon for a frequent commenter on my blog, who says he discovered the 1995 UMBC report that reported the scores at Rhee's school. He gave it to blogger G.F. Brandenburg, who has been by far the most persistent in checking what actually happened with Rhee and her students at Harlem Park Elementary School.



Two points to be made. Many people say Rhee lied about this, without any proof that she knew what the real scores were when she recorded her memories of what she was told on her resume. That is a misuse of the word "lie," and we shouldn't fall into the same bad habit. Also, the UMBC report shows some healthy gains at Harlem Park, but not as great as Rhee recalled being told, and included a big downturn her first year that accentuated the size of the gains her last two years.

I didn't report the numbers she gave me, if she gave me any. I don't recall. I just said the scores went up, which proved to be true. She told me she did things in her class that I knew had been effective in many other schools where I had checked the numbers.

But we should have looked harder. There were no state tests then, so we could not go the usual route. I assumed, as I suspect other reporters did, that whatever records there were kept by the private company, which had long since disintegrated when Rhee became a story in 2007. It turns out that the UMBC report was sitting on some shelf somewhere since 1995. I am going to ask edlharris how he got it, and will report back here. ---jay mathews, washpost.

(For Rhee's response, please click here.)