LISTEN TO CHRIS BERGFALK HERE:
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D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is regularly touted as a hero by the Washington Post for aggressively pushing so-called “school reform.” How do District of Columbia public schools (DCPS) teachers view Rhee’s so-called “school reform”? (For a perspective from one of the countless teachers who have fled Rhee’s reign, listen to James Boutin HERE.)
- Chris Bergfalk
Chris Bergfalk is a graduate of DCPS, a parent of three children who attend DCPS, as well as teacher who was a finalist for 2009 DCPS Teacher of the Year. Bergfalk said, “[W]hat’s happened under this administration is wrong and taken us in the wrong direction. And it’s really poisoned the core of our educational system: the core of the educational system is the teacher, and is the teacher’s relationship with the student, and is the teacher’s relationship with parents. That’s the core. And now what we’ve seen is [that] Michelle Rhee has been denigrating teachers and blaming teachers for all that’s wrong in the school system and that’s poisoned the relationships that make up the basis of our educational system.”
Nowhere was Rhee’s poisoning of the educational system more apparent than in her comments to the magazine Fast Company following her firing of 266 teachers in October. Rhee said, “I got rid of teachers who had hit children, who had had sex with children, who had missed 78 days of school.” Rhee then asked, “Why wouldn’t we take those things into consideration?”
DCPS Teachers Chris and Ben Bergfalk just prior to announcing their candidacies for president and vice president of the Washington Teachers' Union on "More Room on the Outside" on September 7, 2010 on DCTV.
One reason Rhee might have considered not taking these allegations into consideration is that they are unfounded. Apart from this wild accusation, Rhee “justified” the firing of 266 teachers in October by declaring that DCPS had a severe budget shortfall of more than $40 million. Yet just a few months later – when she needed tens of millions of dollars to magically appear in order move forward with the controversial teachers’ contract – she shocked the D.C. Council by announcing that she had found $34 million.
Bergfalk said, “[Rhee] has really poisoned the education system… Teachers have always been the best advocates for children in the school system. During the school year, children spend more time with their classroom teacher than with their parents. And teachers go into the education field to teach because they care deeply about children and they want to do the best they can for children. And what we’ve seen Michelle Rhee do – with DCPS and with education on the national stage – with her rhetoric is to turn education and schools upside down.”
Rhee Cooks the Books
LISTEN TO CHRIS BERGFALK’s JUNE 2010 INTERVIEW HERE:
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