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Info Please Support Michelle Rhee
2011.01.21 11:44
Dear SNUCMAA Almni; Latest update of her status: Michelle has successfully lead the Wasgington DC school sytem but the mayor, Adrian Fenty, her principal supporter, failed to be re-elected in the mayoral election in 2010. As her adversary won the election, she resigned her post and went into creating a grass-root educational reform movement. It is "Students First". Success of Michelle's movement should be good for America. Please support her organization, so that she can proceed with her ideals and goals. Please click the following and simply join yourself with no obligation. Your effort will be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advnace. SNUMA Website Manager |
A Letter from Michelle Rhee America's children have been left waiting long enough. In a country as great as ours, there is no excuse for even one child to be denied the opportunity to get a great education. And yet millions are robbed of the chance at a better future every day. The wait is over. The time to achieve comprehensive education reform in America is now. In the first three days over 100,000 people, just like you, came to StudentsFirst.org and signed up to be a part of this movement. Teachers, parents, concerned citizens, and students have known for years that access to great teachers should not be left to luck. Every child in America deserves an excellent teacher, and every teacher deserves the resources they need to succeed. For the first time, we have all the pieces we need to make a lasting change to our education system: proven models of successful reform and a nation outraged over the conditions of our schools. Now it's time we turn our outrage into action. Get started right now: We cannot let America's schools continue to fail our children. Add your name to our pledge to reform America's schools now. Together, we will shift the balance of power from the broken educational bureaucracy to a newly empowered movement to meet the needs of children. With American voices behind it, StudentsFirst will change the direction of public education in this country. By growing our cause in small towns and key communities across the country, we'll change the public debate about education policy. I'll be in touch with next steps shortly -- but for now thank you for standing up for our nation's kids. -- Michelle Michelle Rhee
"StudentsFirst" Policy Agenda: Summary The ChallengeThe American public education system is losing its capability to prepare our children for the modern workforce. The most recent international data shows that U.S. students are lagging far behind students in other industrialized nations. U.S. students scored “below average” in math on the PISA examination placing the U.S. 25th out of the 34 OECD participant nations.1 Only 69 percent of teen-agers complete high school in four years, only 40 percent of young people hold an associate’s or higher college degree and fully half of U.S. employers report a gap between their needs and the skills of their workforce.2 As our students fall further behind, the economic downturn is forcing states and local governments to make even deeper cuts to education. In the last year, 46 states have faced budget deficits of more than $130 billion. In response: Colorado cut $260 million from public education, about $400 per student; Georgia solved part of their $4.2 billion shortfall by slashing $403 million from K-12 funding; Illinois cut $311 million from their education budget; California—which ranks last in per-student K-12 spending—addressed a $17.9 billion deficit by cutting billions from public education and will likely announce more cuts this week.3 The fiscal challenges in 2011 will be even more severe, with 40 states already predicting a budget shortfall, totaling an additional $113 billion (and that’s on top of the combined shortfall of $191 billion from 2010). While many states have been able to stave off cuts thanks to the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, that money is now gone. The fact of the matter is the well has dried up and we have to do everything we can to make sure our policies and laws reflect the smartest ways to ensure our students not only receive the best education possible, but that they have new opportunities to excel. We must re-dedicate our collective attention to putting in place state and district level policies that put students at the center of every decision we make in education. Our students deserve nothing less. It’s time for a new direction. Right now, at the start of a new year and new legislative sessions in states across the country, we have a clear opportunity to make smart policy choices in education that put the best interests of students at the center of these tough decisions. If we do not act now, we risk spending more money on policies and programs that don’t work and don’t give students the best chance at success. We cannot afford to let another year pass by without changing our priorities. How can we drive change? StudentsFirst has taken the feedback from our membership and dozens of education policy experts and crafted a policy roadmap for lawmakers to consider as the new legislative year begins. We know that many of the policies we advance in this document will invite debate, and we encourage that debate as an important step to making the most important issue in America a top priority for all Americans. Thanks to the hard work of many of our partners in education reform, we have the evidence backing these as the most effective changes we can make to put students first in our public education systems. This policy agenda serves to help guide state and district policy makers in putting students first in their decisions as they face tough choices in the coming year. Top Policy Priorities for Change The StudentsFirst Policy Agenda challenges states and districts to take action now by fighting for and implementing change in three critical areas. We will support policies that will:
Each of these three priority areas and the corresponding strategies build off each other, outlining a system of reforms necessary for states to create an environment where students have the best opportunity to perform. This policy agenda is a living document from which we will continue to build. Undoubtedly, some of these changes require tough decision making by local leaders and legislators, but the benefits of driving these uncompromising policies today will ignite staggering results in the long run. Research shows that if we can turn our education system into a top performer by 2025, our 2037 GDP would improve by five percent.4 With our members, resources, partners, and the facts behind us, we will fight to shift the balance of power to effective educators, parents and most importantly, students. When this dynamic is reflected in all our policies governing public education in America, our students will rise to the top of international rankings with the skills and knowledge necessary to solve the many greater challenges that lie ahead.
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national movement on behalf of students.
We join her parents in taking pride in whatever she has been doing and is doing
to improve the public education of this country.