It's a teacher-bashing fest in D.C. -- but will it improve the schools?

August 27, 10:13 PMSF Education ExaminerCaroline Grannan

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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.