PolitiFact Florida: Michelle Rhee right about per-pupil spending, wrong about student performance

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Florida legislators recently fawned over former Washington, D.C., public school chancellor Michelle Rhee as she addressed House and Senate members. Today, PolitiFact Florida offers its most sincere form of admiration:

We put Rhee in front of the Truth-O-Meter.

Rhee appeared in Tallahassee Feb. 8-9 to support Gov. Rick Scott’s proposals to overhaul the K-12 system by ending teacher tenure and linking teacher pay to student test scores.

She also at least tacitly defended Scott’s proposals to cut public education funding by $703 per student as part of his budget for 2011-12 and 2012-13.

“Money does not necessarily correlate with student achievement,” Rhee said. “In this country in the last 30 years, we have more than doubled the amount of money we are spending per child

Peter Schorsch is the President of Extensive Enterprises and is the publisher of some of Florida’s most influential new media websites, including SaintPetersBlog.com, FloridaPolitics.com, ContextFlorida.com, and Sunburn, the morning read of what’s hot in Florida politics. SaintPetersBlog has for three years running been ranked by the Washington Post as the best state-based blog in Florida. In addition to his publishing efforts, Peter is a political consultant to several of the state’s largest governmental affairs and public relations firms. Peter lives in St. Petersburg with his wife, Michelle, and their daughter, Ella.