Quick Thoughts on the Missing Memo & Erase to the Top

Some quick thoughts on the discovery of the "missing" memo (also see MSN coverage here) in DCPS/ Michelle Rhee cheating allegations:

a) Everyone and their mom, or should I say dad, knew there was something fishy going on. How does this one memo change anything? Rhee doesn't recall receiving the memo? Right. Rhee says all kinds of things all of the time: to reporters, to pundits, under oath, to investigators, on the StudentsFirst blog. How will this lie be different from any of the others?

b) Are DC, DCPS and the Federal Department of Education now going to announce new investigations? Wouldn't that be tantamount to admitting the their initial investigations were not of the rigor they should have been? But they've already said they were definitive. They weren't, at all. The question is why not.

c) People keep asking for indictments. You know what? I'm looking for a better system. I'm looking for an indictment of Rhee's impoverished vision of education. If Michelle Rhee goes to jail but the awful policies she endorses stay in place, who is that helping? In fact, who does it help that all those folks in Atlanta are going to jail? There need to be consequences but jail isn't the appropriate one. Then again, I don't think jail is appropriate for most non-violent crimes.

d) What's going to happen to all of the teachers and principals who got fired for teaching students with low test scores, especially those with low test scores after having high ones in a school that was marked for cheating. Lawsuits?

What a mess.