Listen to "The Greatest"

"Obama just got elected promising to bring change to Washington. Michelle Rhee [MR] is already on the job. ... Her top goal: reduce performance disparities between wealthy white students and poor minorities in a system where about 85% of the students are African-American. ... More telling: 'In some Washington, D.C., high schools, only about 6% of the sophomores can read or do math on grade level. While she is realistic that children in her school district come to school with 'significant challenges,' Ms. Rhee said it is 'complete crap' that those students can't perform at a high level because of their environments. 'It's easy to blame external factors as the reason why poor minority kids aren't achieving at the same level. It's a false premise. You have to put supports and mechanisms in place around those kids, but I refuse to allow the adults in the system to use that as an excuse.' ... She graduated from Cornell and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard before teaching in a Baltimore elementary school", Gary Fields at the WSJ, 11 November 2008.

"Guess who recently said the following: 'Tenure is the holy grail of teacher unions, but it has no educational value for kids; it only benefits adults.' ... In going after tenure, Ms. Rhee is taking on the holiest citadel of the education establishment. ... She dismisses as 'complete crap' the argument that students can't learn because of disadvantaged backgrounds. It's about time. Washington is the lowest-performing school district in the nation. Only 12% of D.C. eighth graders are proficient readers, 8% in math. A mere 60% of high schoolers finish in four years with a diploma", my emphasis, Editorial at the WSJ, 22 November 2008.

MR, 38, double Ivy League, politically correct ignoramus, may not have read Arthur Jensen's 1969 classic, which appeared before her birth. Does anyone remember Harvard's flap over Larry Summers (LS) comments about women's inability to be top math students? That LS was right is irrelevant. It's just not "nice" to say it. La Griffe du Lion has two relevant posts, September 1999, http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/women_and_minorities_in_science.htm and July 2005, http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/math.htm. By the way, why are 88% of prisoners men? Why do boys have higher school dropout rates? What is "left-tail" cut off anyway? Washington, DC spends over $15,000 a year per pupil, the highest for any US school district. So? MR, you were at Harvard once. Go back and try to find Alvin Poussaint (AP), 1934-, a Harvard Medical School psychiatry professor. In an October 1966 article, "The Stresses of the White Female Workers in the Civil Rights Movement in the South", American Journal of Psychiatry 123:401-407, AP said some of his Radcliffe patients had "White African Queen Complex", http://www.crmvet.org/docs/poussaint.pdf. How dare AP write this? Easy, he's a "colored person" as they were known in 1966. AP graduated from New York's Stuyversant High School in 1952, long before affirmative action, so we know he's smart. For non-New York readers, the "Stuy" is one of New York City's three entrance exam only admission schools. Minimum IQ of entrants in the 1950s: 130. Last reported average student SAT score, 1408. Not your average high school.

Some quotes from AP's 13 May 1966 address to the American Psychiatric Association, "The white workers must make adjustments to the socio-economic and cultural as well as the racial situation. During this initial period they suffer anxiety which can generally be described as a 'cultural shock' reaction similar to that experienced by Peace Corps volunteers in foreign countries. ... She is treated with adulation and reverence, and frequently over-indulged. ... Needless to say, this makes the white female of a liberal background feel extremely uneasy and guilty and. This leads to a degree of anxiety which is in part determined by the worker's own unconscious attitudes toward 'colored folks'," 3. "However, a number of white females often contribute to their own difficulties in the Negro community (and I would like to direct particular attention to this problem). They may bring with them certain psychological attitudes (often unconscious and in different degrees) which can generally be referred to as the 'White-African-Queen Complex.' At the center of this 'complex' is commonly found a tabooed and repressed fantasy of the intelligent, brave, and beautiful white woman leading the poor, down-trodden, and oppressed black men to freedom. One white worker told me she sometimes felt like 'the master's child come to free the slaves'," 8. "Most of the white girls at some point become aware of the secondary emotional satisfaction of being a 'white queen' among oppressed black people, and of using the special condition of the Negro to satisfy their own somewhat neurotic grandiose needs", 9. The numbers are page references to AP's transcript.

I first heard of MR on 25 July 2008 when she was featured on Nightline. As I watched, I thought, "Poor Washington, DC school kids. To have White African Queen Complex's poster child as their chancellor". I suspect MR was a member of Cornell's "Masterdebate" team, my 5 November 2008 post.

Apparently despite being neither white nor a "Cliffie", MR, a Harvard graduate student of Korean extraction, was not immune to this malady. MR reminds me of Jane Forman's 1953 song, "I Believe" written by Drake, Graham and Shirl. It begins with, "I believe for every drop of rain that falls a flower grows. I believe that somewhere in the darkest night a candle glows. I believe for everyone who goes astray someone will come to show the way. I believe, I believe". MR, I've come for you.

Muhammad Ali got 78 on his Army IQ test in 1964. When asked about it, "The Greatest" remarked, "I never said I was the smartest, I said I was the greatest". Does Ali, in my opinion, one of history's four greatest heavyweights, want MR's post? I think he's made for it! See Ali's greatest boxing display, Ali-Patterson, 1965. He's magnificent! He did "float like a butterfly and sting like a bee". I believe it was after Ali returned from 1974's "Rumble in the Jungle" with George Foreman, Ali exclaimed, "I'm glad my great-grandpa got on that boat", having seen Africa first-hand. Ali, we love you; tell it like is, no matter what!

The WSJ has become so politically correct, its laughable. I think another concept is "the holiest citadel of the education establishment", the dead elephant in the living room, IQ, my 1 September 2008 post. "Lowest-performing school district in the nation"? Measured how? See my 18 September 2008 post. I quote Hugh McInnish, "We are constantly, shrilly condemning 'failing schools' when we should be condemning 'failing students.' But no, that's not quite right either. We should not condemn the students since they are in most cases doing their best with the intellectual talent they were born with. No, condemnation is not justified, either of a school or its students, when both are giving it all they have to give. And as I have seen, that is generally the case. ... I sounded one of the same subvervise ideas that Steve [Sailer] puts forth--namely that a student's ability largely determines his achievement despite any innovations his school may invoke, and that the aggregate ability of a school's students all but dictates that school's performance (at least as measured by standardized test scores)". Good luck MR. You'll need it.