Tag Archives: Michelle Rhee

Today is a busy day: Lots of playing outside to do … I’m going to the zoo! So instead of a longer post, I’m just going to point you to what my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow wrote yesterday about Washington DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and “collaboration”: Maybe some think it would be nice that Rhee “collaborated” more with union officials — or career bureaucrats, for that matter. But it certainly isn’t necessary, and may even be counterproductive. Yes, the situation is complicated by politics. Not including the Washington Teachers Union at the table may end up unleashing various obstructions from an entrenched group. In his piece, Mr. Ben takes on two very different comments about Michelle Rhee’s recent visit to Denver — the one I was so sad to have missed. Have I mentioned how much I really like Rhee? Maybe she’ll play Legos with me sometime… or come to the zoo and look at the tigers with me – I love the Tigers!

I am bummed. Not only did school not get canceled today, but I also missed my chance to see Washington DC school chancellor Michelle Rhee. She was in Denver last night. (Follow that link to read the story and watch a video of her.) Where was I, you ask? Getting a long timeout and an early bedtime for excessive Lego-throwing. That made me even angrier, because Michelle Rhee is one of those few education leaders willing to take on a real fight to help make a difference for kids. Don’t believe me? Look at the article by Jeremy Meyer in the Denver Post: “We have public schools so that every kid can have an equal shot in life,” Rhee said. “That is not the reality for children in Washington, D.C., today or many children in urban cities today. That is the biggest social injustice imaginable.” Rhee said radical changes are necessary. “Unless we do something massive about this right now, unless we are willing to turn the system on its head . . . then all of the ideals of this country are actually hollow,” she said. Not that I agree with everything Rhee has to say, but it is […]

I just wanted to leave you with a quick reading assignment before the weekend comes. Writing over at National Review, Dan Lips from the Heritage Foundation says conservatives can’t give up on fighting for school choice but also need to focus their agenda broadly on a range of effective changes to the education system: First, principled support for aggressive reforms like vouchers has cleared a space for the types of reform policies that leaders like [Washington DC schools chancellor Michelle] Rhee are advocating. And, second, when it comes to systemic reform, conservatives have a broad agenda of policies that strengthen public education — and the results to prove it. Education reformers from across the political spectrum should give thanks to those who have spent decades promoting school choice. These efforts have yielded only modest (but increasing) enactment of voucher programs. But they have created political breathing room for less aggressive reforms — such as public school choice and teacher merit pay. Fordham’s Eric Osberg praises Dan’s article, adding: Of course we’ve said for years that choice and accountability go hand-in-hand, but also that such reforms to the structure of schooling have to be accompanied by changes in how schools and […]

Things are changing in Washington, DC, and my friends in the Education Policy Center are wondering what the new presidential administration will mean for school reform. That’s why they agreed to publish a paper by a really smart group of people – three professors from the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. The new paper is called The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Will President Obama’s School Reform Bring the Change Kids Need? (PDF). The authors are Robert Maranto, Gary Ritter, and Sandra Stotsky. You really need to read this paper if you care about education and the future of America. As a candidate, Barack Obama gave a lot of different messages about education reform. The authors of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly sort out the different competing proposals, and encourage the President-elect to “appoint a Democratic reformer who embraces the good, opposes the bad, and avoids the ugly, to serve as the nation’s next Secretary of Education.” The Fordham Institute’s Education Gadfly has its ears to the Beltway grapevine, running a daily line to see who the favorites are to fill the Cabinet-level post. The latest entry has Chicago Schools CEO Arne Duncan […]

I find it kind of nice to be not-so-famous, without all the media attention. We should just let kids be kids, right? That must be a lot tougher when your dad has just been elected President of the United States. To show its support for the burgeoning public school choice movement, the people over at Democrats for Education Reform were circulating an online petition encouraging the Obamas to send young Sasha and Malia to a Washington, D.C., charter school. In response to the petition, the Center for Education Reform’s Jeannie Allen wrote over at the Edspresso blog why choosing a charter school would be a bad idea for the First Family: While my organization is the nation’s leading advocate for charter school choices, I’m not so sure I want to see the Obamas choose a charter school. Though I disagree with our president-elect on many issues and fear that obsessive government solutions and spending will push us further into a government dependency, I want the best for him and his family when they come to Washington. I want him to have no distractions other than those that impact us all. With a clever, tongue-in-cheek tone, Allen explains the rigorous challenges, […]

Washington, DC, schools chancellor Michelle Rhee is fast approaching a critical crossroads that will put her bold leadership to the test, as her showdown with the teachers union reaches the moment of truth. The Washington Post reports that union leaders are giving in to cries from older tenured teachers insecure about their professional abilities: [Union president George] Parker said many older teachers believe that they have been targeted for dismissal by Rhee, who has proposed a two-tiered salary plan that would pay many instructors more than $100,000 annually in pay and performance bonuses. Those choosing the “green tier” would be required to spend a year on probation, risking termination. Teachers have the option of selecting a “red tier” that would allow them to keep tenure and accept lower raises. Union leaders can’t only be concerned about the promising young teachers in their midst. They have to fight for the interests of mediocre and overpaid teachers, too. It’s the nature of the beast. Michelle Rhee is going to need a lot of focus, resolve, and determination to bring major innovation to one of the nation’s poorest school districts: promoting high-quality instruction as a priority for the district’s neediest and most disadvantaged […]

I earlier told you about the tough teacher union negotiations here in Denver that got resolved at the last minute. But there’s even more momentous negotiations going on in Washington, D.C. – a school district that has earned a poor reputation for wasteful and corrupt bureaucracy and dismal academic performance. New D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee (of Teach For America fame) is trying to clean house, though, as the Washington Post‘s Steven Pearlstein notes: Negotiations are stalled over Rhee’s proposal to give teachers the option of earning up to $131,000 during the 10-month school year in exchange for giving up absolute job security and a personnel-and-pay system based almost exclusively on years served. If Rhee succeeds in ending tenure and seniority as we know them while introducing merit pay into one of the country’s most expensive and underperforming school systems, it would be a watershed event in U.S. labor history, on a par with President Ronald Reagan’s firing of striking air traffic controllers in 1981. It would trigger a national debate on why public employees continue to enjoy what amounts to ironclad job security without accountability while the taxpayers who fund their salaries have long since been forced to accept […]