COLUMBUS, Ohio (CGE) - Michelle A. Rhee, the outspoken and controversial education advocate who closed schools, fired teachers and took on administrators in an unprecedented way as the former Chancellor of schools for Washington D.C., has launched a call to "Save Great Teachers" in Ohio in advance of her appearance Thursday at the City Club of Cleveland.
Rhee in Cleveland Thursday
Rhee, who resigned her D.C. schools Chancellor position last year when Mayor Adrian Fenty, who appointed her to lead what some said was the worst school system in the nation at the time, lost his bid for reelection, became the founder and CEO of Studentsfirst.org, an advocacy group whose mission to transform public education includes waging war against teacher unions, whose hiring and firing policies rest exclusively on seniority and are blind to factors of performance.
Because of Washington's unique structure, Rhee did not have to negotiate with a school board before imposing a teacher evaluation system, reports said, noting that she would never have been able to do that in any other district in America. As recently as last week, Rhee spoke in Michigan, Ohio's neighbor to the north, where reports say she blamed the outsourcing epidemic on teachers unions, whose seniority-based hiring practices will eventually create workers so poorly skilled that "75 million jobs" will be outsourced to China and India.
"Great teachers make a tremendous difference in students' lives. This year we risk losing some of the best teachers in America," Rhee wrote in a Monday email calling on members and supporters of Studentsfirst.org to write Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Rep. Gerald L. 'Jerry' Stebelton, Chair of the Ohio House Education Committee, and Senator Peggy Lehner, Chairman of the Senate Education Committee.
For Ohio, Rhee says at least 160,000 teachers face layoffs and warns that most layoffs will be based solely on seniority, not on performance. The result, she says, will be that "many of our most effective teachers will lose their jobs...Even if there have to be layoffs, we can save great teachers."
Her Studentsfirst.org website says that Ohio's projected budget gap is $3 billion when Gov. Kasich, legislative leaders and agency professionals work from the much higher figure of $8 billion in budget shortfall. Over the last two years, when Ohio's used millions in soon to disappear federal stimulus funds to keep various public sector workers on the job, Studentsfirst.org says 14,300 teachers were spared pink slips.
Rhee issues call to "High Risk" Ohio
What Rhee wants is for Ohioans to contact their government leaders and ask them to change teacher layoffs from a seniority based system to one that allows for performance based criteria to be used. Particularly egregious to Rhee is the so-called 'Last in, first out" system, or LIFO, that mistakenly and erroneously confuses seniority with quality.
Rhee considers Ohio a "High Risk" state and offers the following template letter for backers to send to Kasich and others:
"I urge you to Save Great Teachers!
"As many as 160,000 teachers across the country will lose their jobs this year due to massive budget cuts that states, including Ohio, are facing. What’s even more devastating is that our children will lose thousands of great teachers because of antiquated “last in, first out” LIFO policies, which force out some of our best teachers, regardless of how good they are.
"Ohio currently requires the use of these types of policies, which essentially base layoff decisions on seniority rather than performance quality. I don’t believe tenure should dictate the quality of our children’s education. Research shows that when districts conduct seniority-based layoffs, we end up firing some of our most effective teachers.
"So it’s up to you to lead the important effort to enact laws that Save Great Teachers by requiring school districts to keep our best teachers in the classrooms where they belong.
Please put our students first, and champion legislation that eliminates LIFO polices."
LIFO
Rhee reasons that LIFO hurts students, teachers, and whole communities in the following ways:
1. Research indicates that when districts with LIFO conduct layoffs, they end up firing some of their most highly effective educators.
2. LIFO policies increase the number of teachers that districts have to lay off. Because junior teachers make less money, districts have to lay off more of them in order to fill their budget gaps.
3. LIFO disproportionately and negatively impacts the highest need schools. These schools have larger numbers of new teachers, who are the first to lose their jobs in a layoff.
Rhee not adored by all
But while Kasich fawned over Rhee and the movie she was in, "Waiting for Superman," that he gushed over in his State of the State speech last week, not everyone is sold on Rhee's aggressive style and agenda, despite a press that seems unwilling to take her to task with the same vigor she's taking on teachers unions.
Diane Ravitch, who served as Assistant Secretary of Education in George H.W. Bush's administration, is also author of "The Death and LIfe of the Great American School System - How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education." Published reports say Ravitch came by her fiercely pro-teachers union views the hard way. An early and ardent supporter of No Child Left Behind, Ravitch backed charter schools, merit pay, and school vouchers. Sometime around 2004, when the effects started to become apparent, Ravitch changed her mind and now "opposes aggressive Michelle-Rhee-style education reforms." Her work, reports say, "provides important 'fact-checking' on proposals that overstate their capacity for solutions (like charters or using student test scores to evaluate teachers)...This matters when reformers like Rhee sometimes receive 'untempered adoration in media and policy circles.'"
Rob Nichols, Gov. Kasich's press secretary, told CGE last week that Kasich has spoken with Rhee before, and "invites her to the discussion on education in Ohio."
Although the Governor will not be in Cleveland Thursday to hear her presentation at the Cleveland City Club, Robert Sommers, his $110,000 director of the Office of 21st Century Education who has more than 25 years of experience in education, has been dispatched to attend the event.
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