is the name of the book on Michelle Rhee that I am currently reading. It's not by here but about her. I would love it if she were to write a book about her experiences running the Washington DC schools under former may Fenty.
When Fenty was defeated, Rhee resigned/was fired.
Still, the four years she spent reforming the worst performing school district in our country was a worthy effort.
I know that seems like heresy coming from the EA co-president, but it's true.
Here is what I like that she did -
1. She got rid of inefficiency. So much in school systems is inefficient. This might be in the form of lights being left on (or our case the air conditioner in our English lab being left in - even in the winter. Nothing like running up the heating bill rather than removing it and making sure the window is properly sealed. Or putting wax down on a floor before buffering it. Rhee cleared much of her central office out. It was notoriously incompetent. In fact, on one of her first days she was given a tour of a warehouse full of new books and school supplies. They had been sitting there for years! The system was too ineffective to actually find a way to get the supplies to the teachers who ordered them.
2. Holding principals accountable. She cleaned house with many principals who tolerated ineffective teaching and foolish practice. She was amazed at how 'conflict adverse' her principals were. Instead of taking a lousy teacher on about his poor performance, principals would just fight to have them transferred to another school. This became known as "the dance of the lemons." In what other profession would that be acceptable?
The sad thing is that this is rampant throughout our country. Something like 95% of all teachers are rated as competent. Really? Just think about your own education or that of your children. Are 95% of your or their teachers competent? I think that speaks for itself.
3. Holding teachers accountable. For whatever reason, several large urban school systems signed some really stupid contracts with their local unions. So much so that in some areas it was next to impossible to fire horrible teachers.
No one is in favor of this. Tenure was not designed for that. Tenure was designed to protect a teacher from capricious principals and school boards. It was done to not as a lifetime appointment, but as a safety measure. One of my colleagues brought up an interesting scenario when I mentioned that maybe tenure should be done away with. She said, "Okay, let's say there's an effective teacher at the top o the salary scale making $60,000. What's to keep the school board from replacing that one teacher with two first year teachers who together make less than $60,000? Two for less than the price of one."
I'd like to think a school board wouldn't do that, but I also would like to think that principals wouldn't carry agendas and hold them against teachers. But I've heard plenty of horror stories about that from older teachers who were around prior to tenure.
Rhee's solution was IMPACT, which was a system of rating teachers. I'm not familiar with it, but knowing Rhee it involves test scores and evaluations. If you throw in parent response, student input, and peer review, I think I am in favor of it.
4. Paying teachers more. Now that sounds selfish. I am very pleased with my wage. But Rhee knew that in order to get the best teachers into the worst districts, she needed to really ramp up the pay scale. She tried to do that with her 'Green and Red" track system. If you opted for the red track, you could keep tenure and get a nice raise. If you opted for the green track, though, you had to give up tenure but if your students excelled on high stakes tests you would more than double your salary. That's a very interesting offer. If your scores go up. Talk about a deal with the devil.
5. Making school reform interesting again. School reform was marginalized until Rhee was on the cover of Time magazine with a broomstick in an empty class - the metaphor was clear - "I'm cleaning out all the horrific teachers who have ruined this system." And the education landscape has been front and center ever since : Waiting for "Superman"; The Lottery, and Teached are all documentaries about failing urban school systems. And stories on education form have tripled. Just look at the power Arne Duncan was given with all his RTTT money. Where was that with NCLB?
But with Rhee being so controversial and so hasty to reform her schools, she (and mayor Fenty) made a number of enemies. Those enemies ran a strong campaign and defeated him in the next election. So will all of her changes be undone? Time will tell. But Rhee even has the high-priestess of the union, Randi Weingarten, talking that it's time for pay for performance and to rethink tenure.
So there has been some change.
But the thing that I've learned in education is that change is inevitable. I've seen outcome based education give way to the Profiles of Learning (Grad Standards) to NCLB and its emphasis on high stakes tests to RTTT and now to . . . ? The key is not change for change sake or because there's a new party in office. The key is to change to offer a better education to our young people. You cannot argue for a second that such a motive was not at the heart of every single change Rhee brought about.
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