Rhee: shaking things up
I'm not a fan of blaming and bashing teachers for the problems facing public education. Some critics charge that racist teachers are to blame for the achievement gap; others (as I posted the other day) seem to think that experience is to be scorned and that tossing out the veterans and replacing them with bright-eyed, inexperienced newcomers is the solution. Those attitudes bother me.
Also, the discussion about troubled inner-city schools seems awfully confused. Half the time, education commentators point out that schools serving a critical mass of high-need, low-income children are staffed mostly by inexperienced teachers, since the veterans with seniority tend to move into the less stressful jobs at schools with fewer challenges. But other voices call for fresh-faced newbies to show those old, tired longtimers the way (or for districts to show them the door).
I took a Newsweek columnist, Jon Alter, to task recently for teacher-bashing. Now the current Newsweek continues the theme with a profile of Michelle Rhee, the fairly new head of Washington, D.C. schools. (The article itself is reasonably balanced -- a bit unquestioningly gushy about some "education reforms" for my taste, but I'm not accusing Newsweek of teacher-bashing in this case.)
Put me down as a Rhee skeptic, though if she transforms the schools I'll publicly eat my words.
It stands to reason that Rhee would disdain experience, since she has almost none herself. She taught through Teach for America for two years in Baltimore schools and claims to have transformed a classroom full of failing students into stellar achievers, though there is no backup or documentation to support this claim. If those students, or her colleagues, have spoken up to confirm her boast, it's not showing up on Google.
Rhee is undeniably trying to make bold changes:
Rhee showed she was serious by firing more than a hundred non-union central office workers, including administrators, and 36 principals (one out of four). She even fired the principal of the school where she chose to enroll her own daughters...
She has proposed a new contract for the union that would undermine tenure, the teachers union holy of holies. The carrot is money. By tapping Mayor Fenty and private philanthropists, she is hoping to make D.C. teachers the best-paid in the country. Current teachers would actually have a choice. If they are willing to go on "probation" for a year—giving up their job security—and can successfully prove their talent, they can earn more than $100,000 a year and as much as $130,000, a huge salary for a teacher, after five years. If not, they still get a generous 28 percent raise over five years and keep their tenure. (All new teachers must sign up for the first option and go on probation for four years.)
Not surprisingly, teachers are feeling "insulted," "suspicious and hostile," the story says.Plenty of parents are enraged at Rhee too. And her disdain for her predecessors reveals an ample supply of arrogance:
Rhee is the seventh person to run the D.C. schools in the past 10 years. Most of her predecessors were, according to Rhee, "smart and worked hard and wanted to do the right thing for kids," but "they didn't get a whole lot done." The reason, she says, is that they "caved in" to the city's educational establishment, whose talk of reform was just that.
(Disclosure that I'm an admirer of Arlene Ackerman, currently chief of Philadelphia's schools, who was one of those Rhee predecessors before her controversial tenure in San Francisco.)
This D.C. story matters across the country, of course, because if Rhee succeeds, it's a beacon for the rest of us. If not, we won't have to waste our time and likely harm our own schools replicating her efforts. I wonder how long she gets before the outcome is clear.
Comments
In her first year Rhee got text books ordered and delivered on time for the first time in a generation. She closed 20+ under utilized schools and oversaw a $200 million renovation of all the schools over the summer. Every classroom was ready on time. She fired 100 front office employees, 25 principals, 25 asst. principals, 250 teachers and 500 aides, and yet everything works better. Every class has a teacher, every student has a schedule on opening day. Somethings that never happened before in DC. What she has already accomplished is absolutely without precedent in DC.
So it goes to show that most of the teachers, st pricipals and related school staff are a bunch of worthless, uneducated, union protected, unproductive, unsupervised, low self esteem people who really don't care about educating the young people of America. They only care about their pay checks and the relatively low expectations expected of them from the state and local government. Nice to know they'll be unemployed and now will have to prove themselves in the private sector where they'll have to roll up their sleeves and really do some work ... with no recess or 3 months of paid summer break !!!
I can't argue with Jay. Maybe she really is a miracle worker.
However, Bay Area Taxpayer's unkind description of our teachers is inaccurate and unwarranted. I'm starting my 22nd kid-year as an SFUSD parent and can attest to that firsthand. What creates this vicious antipathy toward an entire profession? It's baffling. And that's the attitude I see behind some of Ms. "why can't the same miracles that I claim to have worked?" Rhee's efforts.
There are a number of high profile School Chancellors/CEOs/Superintendents. To name a few, there is Rudy Crew in Miami/Dade, Joel Klein in New York City, Paul Vallus in New Orleans and Michelle Rhee in Washington DC. All of these individuals are responsible for dealing with school systems which are faced with enormous difficulties.
The Washington Post recently (8/25/2008) published a story on Ms. Rhee (www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/25) entitled, Better or Worse, It's Rhee's School System Now.
Ms. Rhee was hired by the mayor of Washington, Adrian M. Fenty and is directly responsible to him. He has gone on record as staking his political future on fixing the schools in the District of Columbia. A number of mayors have taken on the direct responsibility of fixing the schools in their cities with the belief that schools create jobs. Mrs. Rhee has established as a goal for her administration to establish D.C. schools as "a world-class system." This will be a daunting task because of the following:
* According to a Manhattan Institute Report, November 2001, High School Graduation Rates in the United States, Washington DC schools graduated 59% of its high school class.
* USA Today reported on April, 1, 2008, that there were 2,364 dropouts in the 2007 graduating class or 58.2% of the class graduated.
* The 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAED) reported that the Washington DC 4th and 8th grade scores were lower than any other students in the United States.
* Washington DC schools spend $14,400 per pupil. That is more than any of the 50 states.
In order to improve the DC schools, Ms. Rhee "has closed 23 under-enrolled schools, overhauled 26 academically ailing schools and fired 150 people she considered poor performers including nearly 50 principals and assistant principals, most of them black women over the age of 40." (Washington Post)
She has run into opposition from the teachers union, parent groups, the DC Council, and education activists. Rhee, who is of Korean ancestry, has faced racial discrimination charges over the firings. In addition, she has been criticized for not being responsive to the demands of parents and community representatives. But according to the Washington Post article, she attended 370 community meetings.
Principals, work on year-to-year contracts, and according to Rhee were not rehired based on comments from parents, teachers and from reviews from her staff.
All heads of school systems, face enormous challenges, but if schools are not serving students, there needs to be some sort of immediate action taken.
Children in Washington, DC deserve to have their schools improve.
One of Rhee's striking characteristics is her resume, or lack thereof. In my district, it would be hard to get hired as a classroom teacher with such minimal experience, and a sweeping boast about having turned a classroom full of low-achievers into academic superstars wouldn't impress HR given that it's completely unsubstantiated.
I don't know Joel Klein's background, but Crew and Vallas were hired into their current jobs with extensive experience in top posts in urban school districts.
It may be that Rhee will work -- or is working -- miracles, this time presumably verifiable ones. Hiring her was a near-reckless leap of faith, though, given her total lack of credentials -- and her blame-the-teachers attitude really troubles me.
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