[WS:] I used to think that way, but recently I started appreciating DC. It has a lot of ethnic and cultural diversity - comparably to NYC - but unlike NYC it also has a lot of free culture (in NYC you have to pay through the nose for it,) a variety of good ethnic food (often better than the original), a liberal majority, a lot of green areas & parks and decent public transit system. In other words, while not NYC, DC is head and shoulder above the rest of the US (which generally sucks.)
As to Michelle Rhee - she is a highly polarizing figure. the DC public school system has many serious problems, which even the most staunch liberals admit, and many people (mostly blacks) go to the great lengths to find an alternative placement for their kids. But Rhee try to address these problems with the grace of an elephant in a china shop - by antagonizing about everyone but her staunch supporter Fenty. The culminating point was the mass firing of over 200 teachers (mostly black.) She is an unabashed corporate whore taking private money right and left to support her "merit pay" program that ties teacher salaries to standardized test scores.
Of course she is not alone - she has an alter ego in the person of the Maryland Superintendent of Schools Nancy Grasmick. The current MD governor O'Malley (D) called her a "republican ideologue" (or something to that effect) and vowed to get rid of her, but apparently it is not that easy in MD. The bitch is rabidly anti-union and staunchly pro-standardized testing and routinely earns accolades from the conservative noise machine.
This illustrates that the public school system has the fifth column inside composed of various administrative "reformers" who tirelessly work to make this system unworkable to aid the privatizing efforts from outside the system. Everyone with a half a brain can see that the "race to to the top" and push for standardized test based achievement leaves many children (predominantly minorities) in the dust - they simply drop out from schools, and makes it almost impossible for teachers to teach (as opposed to meeting administratively prescribed goals.) I honestly think that this is what the fifth columnist like Rhee, Grasmick or Obama's flack Duncan deliberately intend to achieve - make the system unworkable, thus creating the grounds for dismantling and privatizing it. They did that with the mental health care in the 1960s, and now they are training their guns on public schools.
And one more point. I do not blame Mr. Obama for not being able to push for real health care system reform or for a tougher regulation of banking industry. The powers that be are aligned against such changes, and even the POTUS cannot do much about it. But education "reform" is different. He can oppose the Republican agenda or at least not to go along with it - yet he chose to implement it. This is a big point against him.
Wojtek
On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 2:55 AM, Chuck Grimes <c123grimes at att.net> wrote:
> the poster bitch of the "market driven" approach to public education seems
> to be on her way out, as her sugar daddy Fenty lost in the primaries. Good
> riddance. Not that it is going to stop the push for marketization wojtek
>
> --------------
>
> I certainly hope so. But I suspect Obama and the Democrats are getting the
> message of what an important mass of people think of their performance. You
> Suck. That consensus seems to have finally made its way into some mainstream
> liberal channels.
>
> I seem to be able to read columns, listen to interviews and gage the general
> outside climate, that a year and half ago, I only saw or heard here or on a
> few leftwing venues. It's now very clear to me that the O team is worried
> about their base and their own ability to pull off yet another con-job. They
> still haven't quite understood this isn't a communication or public
> relations problem. It is a cold appraisal of performance. Greenwald had a
> pretty good interview this morning on Democracy Now. He said, the fear
> campaign waged by the Democrats, vote for us, or else the insane will get
> elected, isn't working.
>
> Maybe its my polyanna tendencies, but I seriously doubt the Repugnants will
> score big---a few seats here or there, which are essentially meaningless in
> terms of a dominant Democratic majority. Whatever. The Democrats will spin
> it as an endorsement.
>
> Here is a piece by Diane Ravitch on the poster bitch:
>
> http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2010/09/why_michelle_rhee_and_adrian_f.html
>
> ``When the results came in, Fenty was trounced in largely black districts.
> In Wards 7 and 8, his opponent, Vincent Gray, won 82 percent of the vote. In
> Northwest Washington, where white voters predominate, Fenty won 76 percent
> of the vote. Fenty decisively lost the black vote and decisively won the
> white vote. D.C. public schools are about 5 percent white, so it is a
> reasonable supposition that the anti-Fenty vote was fueled to a large degree
> by parents of children in the public schools. Gray won handily, 53 percent
> to 46 percent.''
>
> I've been to DC several times over the years and detest the city. Back in
> 1971 it was just about fifteen minutes removed from its antibellum Gone With
> the Wind days. Oh, Beauregard... Yes, dearest Scarlett? They still hadn't
> decided the civil war.
>
> The last time I was there, I begged not to go. No such luck. So there I was
> sitting in an air conditioned crummy overpriced hotel watching the invasion
> of Iraq, covered 24/7 March 2003, on sick color tv. Fucking disgusting.
>
> CG
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