From New York Times Why won't Michelle Rhee talk to the USA today?

Michelle Rhee during happier times sweeping away her district's teachers

Hats off to the New York Times for this. For awhile it appeared that if Ms. Rhee was convicted of fraud and sent to jail the main stream media would completely ignore the conviction and keep returning to the prison for jail house interviews, with Ms. Rhee, on how the public could turn around failing schools. I guess in the movie they were "Waiting for Superman" but it really turned out it was superwoman and her superpowers came in the form of one big eraser and a pile of recently changed tests.

From the NYTimes:

WASHINGTON — Why won’t Michelle Rhee talk to USA Today?


Ms. Rhee, the chancellor of the Washington public schools from 2007 to 2010, is the national symbol of the data-driven, take-no-prisoners education reform movement.

It’s hard to find a media outlet, big or small, that she hasn’t talked to. She’s been interviewed by Katie Couric, Tom Brokaw and Oprah Winfrey. She’s been featured on a Time magazine cover holding a broom (to sweep away bad teachers). She was one of the stars of the documentary “Waiting for Superman.”

These days, as director of an advocacy group she founded, StudentsFirst, she crisscrosses the country pushing her education politics: she’s for vouchers and charter schools, against tenure, for teachers, but against their unions.
Always, she preens for the cameras. Early in her chancellorship, she was trailed for a story by the education correspondent of “PBS NewsHour,” John Merrow.

At one point, Ms. Rhee asked if his crew wanted to watch her fire a principal. “We were totally stunned,” Mr. Merrow said.

She let them set up the camera behind the principal and videotape the entire firing. “The principal seemed dazed,” said Mr. Merrow. “I’ve been reporting 35 years and never seen anything like it.”

And yet, as voracious as she is for the media spotlight, Ms. Rhee will not talk to USA Today.

Full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/education/22winerip.html

At the end of March, three of the paper’s reporters — Marisol Bello, Jack Gillum and Greg Toppo — broke a story about the high rate of erasures and suspiciously high test-score gains at 41 Washington schools while Ms. Rhee was chancellor.