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When it comes to education sound managment gets the cold shoulder
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I've written before on my view that not enough emphasis is placed on the practice of fundamental management principles by the leadership staff at charter schools. But the same holds for DCPS. The best example is the current troubles of Chancellor Michelle Rhee. The citizens of Washington, D.C. are mad and it is not just those who have children in the traditional schools or are employees of the system. After watching while local and national publications treat her as some kind of new god, those of us close to the action see something quite different.
We have witnesses first hand Miss Rhee's closing schools and firing staff while keeping as much information to herself as possible. There have been the public skirmishes with the D.C. council and her determined fight to hide her plans from them. Most are aware of the lingering negotiations over the teacher union contract the details of which she pretty much refuses to discuss openly.
So now we have a 229 teachers laid off last week after the hiring of more than 900 over the summer. Watching this in the light of Miss Rhee's record there is really nothing she can say to overcome what everyone is thinking. When it comes to management this woman does not know what she is doing. From a story by Washington Post reporter Bill Turque on a protest yesterday over the most recent RIF's:
Washington Teachers' Union President George Parker said at the rally that the hiring of so many teachers, nearly a quarter of the systemwide total of 3,800, was either malpractice or malice.
"This RIF was one of two things," Parker said. "It was based on complete incompetence, or it's an effort to get rid of folks whose hair is too gray."
You decide.
