Michelle Rhee speaks her mind bluntly and forcefully, not pausing to worry about whether she might be offending anyone in her audience. That’s part of what endears her to people who agree with her positions on school reform. Conversely, it’s what makes her a villain among people opposed to the present-day wave of reform, for which Rhee is the poster child.
Rhee came to Denver Monday at the invitation of the Donnell-Kay Foundation (a funder of Education News Colorado), drumming up support for her new advocacy group, Students First. She launched the group a week ago on the Oprah Winfrey Show, promising to raise $1 billion (yes, that’s billion with a B) and enlist one million people in the organization’s inaugural year.
Thanks in part to Oprah’s legion of followers (“She looked in the camera and said ‘this is great! Everyone should join!’ And they crashed our website,” Rhee said), Students First in its first 48 hours netted 100,000 members and raised $500,000. And the big donors have yet to step up. This money came from the Oprah viewers, the average contribution $63.
For the uninitiated, Rhee spent three-and-a-half years as chancellor of the Washington D.C. Public Schools. She was a polarizing figure with her undiplomatic talk and her aggressive reforms. When her mentor and boss, Mayor Adrian Fenty lost the Democratic primary earlier this fall, the die was cast and Rhee resigned.
She spoke at a lunch Monday at the Hotel Monaco, attended by about 20 political, educational and philanthropic heavyweights, and later to a much larger audience at The Denver Athletic Club. See this story, with embedded video, for highlights of the DAC talk.
In the more intimate setting of the luncheon, Rhee touched on a few notable themes about Students First and education reform in general. Here were her major points:
1. A national education reform organization can act as an effective counterweight to the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers, which “over the last three decades have very effectively been driving the educational agenda in this country.” Unions have been so effective, Rhee said, because they have marshaled “millions of dollars and millions of people and they use those dollars and those people to get the politicians they want elected, the laws that they want passed, and the laws that they don’t want blocked.”
Rather than demonizing the unions, Rhee said, it makes sense to view them as organizations that know how to accomplish their mission. “Their purpose is to protect their members, to maximize their pay and privileges, and they are doing a wonderful job of that,” she said.
“So if we want to change this we’ve got to come with the money, we’ve got to come with the people and that’s what Students First is all about. Realizing that we have to get engaged in the political game, that we have to provide some not only cover for courageous politicians…but we have to provide them with the same kind of financing for their campaigns and boots on the ground that the union does for the candidates they are backing.”
2. Students First will organize the many teachers who don’t buy into the dominant union narrative.
“I talk to teachers all the time who think that tenure and seniority are terrible, who see people in their building who are not doing the right thing by kids, and it impacts them, because they get those kids the next year,” Rhee said. “They don’t want those teachers in the building any more than anyone else does. They are tired of the union protecting them and they want to do something about it.”
Rhee predicted that what she called “this insurgency amongst the ranks” will be a powerful force, because it will show the public that teachers do not speak with the unions’ “monolithic voice” alone.
“Every American knows a teacher who is hard-working, who spends their own money on the kids, and so it’s hard when something gets framed as attacking teachers, because they think about those people that they know and it’s hard for them to swallow,” she said.
“When we actually have people from within the teaching ranks saying this is not good for our profession, then you change the dynamic and it’s not teachers versus other people who want the reform. Now of course you’ve got some teachers who want to keep these (protections) but you’ve got other teachers who are more reform-minded. And getting that activated is one of the best things we will be able to do.”
Rhee said the time is right to organize reform-minded teachers. “I have been in this game for about 20 years now and I have never seen as much momentum among the teacher ranks as I do right now in being willing to speak out on these issues,” she said. If they don’t feel isolated in their buildings, they will quickly become a force to be reckoned with, she predicted.
3. In cities with strong political leadership and troubled school districts, mayoral control is the way to go. (She said this in the presence of three Denver mayoral candidates: Michael Hancock, James Mejia and Chris Romer.)
Rhee worked under the protection of Fenty, who essentially sacrificed his political career by endorsing her bold reforms. When a mayor understands education reform, she said, then mayoral control streamlines the reform effort.
“When you’ve got seven, nine, 11 different (board members) with different agendas and they may have to kowtow to various interest groups, it’s just an impossible dynamic. A lot of my (superintendent) colleagues who work within school board structures tell me they spend 60, 70 percent of their time managing their school boards. Doing the work is hard enough without that.”
Sound familiar, Denver?
4. Ending the “government-run monopoly” over public education is essential to fixing the system. Yes, she means vouchers, at least in dysfunctional urban districts. Here is how the self-professed Democrat explains her view:
“A lot of people will say that the argument against vouchers is ‘well, you’re sucking money away from the system that actually needs those resources to improve.’ But that’s when you’re looking at things from a system perspective. When you’re looking at things from a student perspective, it’s different.”
More than once, she said, she was “faced with a parent who lives in Anacostia whose zoned neighborhood school is a place where I would never send my child, and then they do all the research and apply to the lottery for an out-of-boundary position in one of the few great schools and they don’t get a position there. And they come to me and they say ‘now what?’
“I don’t have a space for them at a school where I’d feel comfortable sending my own kid. Who am I to deny that parent a $7,500 voucher to get a decent education at a Catholic school? I can’t look someone in the face and make that decision because I need that $7,500 to make my system better. That’s not an argument that’s gonna fly with that particular parent.”
Rhee described herself as unusually thick-skinned. She will tell you what she thinks, like it or not. Some people find her an inspiration. Others find her a callous bully lacking in the social graces.
Love her or loathe her, you’d better get used to her. She’s not going away any time soon.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Well, Tea Party members will certainly join the ranks of Rhee supporters. I love the “government-run” pejoritive remark.
The “Teacher in a Strange Land” blog, by Nacy Flanagan, sums up this public education bashing approach for me:
“Who benefits when there is a concerted effort to paint a bedrock-of-democracy institution like free public education as massive failure? Positioning public education as hopeless doesn’t leave room for honest solutions—or allow time for investments in quality to pay off. Schools and teachers become scapegoats, rather than partners in solving an intractable problem. One of the first lessons I learned as a novice teacher was that punishing all my students for the academic lapses of a few was a futile and counterproductive exercise.”
I’d also be curious to hear Rhee’s response to the recent polling in which 68% of Americans blame parents for the struggles of public education.
Blame the teachers…blame the unions…it’s all the fault of public education – Is there anything new here? Frankly many conservatives have been blaming the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers since the Reagan administration for the failings of the schools. The drumbeat keeps coming – “value-added information for parents” and the rest. And of course it’s impossible to get rid of bad teachers because of the unions.
I’ve heard it all – but tell me – where are the administrators in all of this?
I worked with building principals to use the systems in place to either a) help the teacher improve, or b) move to have the teacher dismissed. In the end nothing happened because it was a failure of the building principal to follow the guidelines that were clearly established. I believe that building principals and district level administrators are actually the biggest obstacle to reform. They have moved away from the classroom and seem to forget what some of the issues that teachers face on a daily basis. Frankly the majority of the administrators I’ve seen were NOT very good teachers in the classroom to begin with. I have seen administrators routinely miss the deadlines regarding evaluations, spend barely fifteen minutes in a class to measure instruction and assessment. Districts are more interested in evaluations that reward teachers for placing a “class goal” on the wall instead of evaluating effective instruction. Then when it does come to evaluating instruction – the evaluation is based on a state wide assessment that was NEVER designed to measure effective instruction! I have seen and heard stories of principals who bully teachers NOT to teach subjects like social studies and science in elementary school! Can someone explain what kind of leadership is THAT? Time and again I have seen teachers have put forth proposals to try new techniques, new professional development, new schedules, collaborative efforts, new materials and new resources only to have either building principals or district administrators sabotage those efforts.
There has been much about changing how teachers are trained, evaluated and methods used in the classrooms. These are all fair and necessary discussions. But where is the discussion regarding building and district administrators and how they are trained, evaluated and the methods used in running a building?
For the record – I have been teaching for a number of years and have worked with curriculum coordinators, building principals and assistant principals who were model administrators – sadly the good ones were few and far between. Administrators and teacher SHOULD share a number of things in common – the first being working for the best education for our students. They should work together for reform to improve our school system. However, both teachers and administrators (including former superintendents) also need to realize that they are human – and not some divine being who has all the answers.
Anton speaks about something that has been missing in the SB 191 debate. Principals will be evaluated based on the growth of students in their building. Therefore, it is now in their best interests to timely and accurately evaluate teachers, and supporth those who need the help. If they don’t they won’t be in their buildings for long. it emphasizes a fundamental shift for principals from managers to instrtuctional leaders.
As an administrator, I am in full support of rigorous evaluations of my performance which are directly tied to teacher and student performance. I would argue however that if I am to be evaluated and possibly even compensated based on teacher performance that I need more flexibility to remove poor teachers from my building. Having taken steps to try and get rid of a very poor teacher, I know all too well that my frequent meetings, classroom observations, discussions with parents and pages and pages of documentation over the course of two years resulted in this teacher being moved to another school rather than having her lose her job.
In reality, we have a system where it is nearly impossible to remove a poor teacher once they have reached tenure. I agree that the majority of teachers are very good at what they do, but removing the minority that are doing more harm than good could make a big impact on education and reduce the public cry for changing the system. The system is not broken, but it could use some repair and advocates like Rhee are forcing us to look in places that many of us prefer to ignore.
I wish she would be honest and just label her organization “Michelle Rhee First” and be done with it.
The analogy to a Hurricane is apt, in the sense that a hurricane mindlessly wreaks devastation wherever it lands. As to Rhee being a “force of nature,” whatever. It’s not much of an accomplishment to be arrogant, simplistic, obnoxious, and ignorant – Rhee is the current “Chainsaw Dunlap” of education. She’s also a bit of a cliche – the messianic outsider that leads the charge to “save education from the educators” who then bails in a couple of years has been a recurring theme in American educational history. As has the call to eliminate democratically elected school boards. Anyone with even a basic understanding of American Education History knows that school boards evolved in part to combat the corrupt political structures in big cities (i.e. the “mayoral control” of it’s time.)
As a “reform-minded” teacher who wouldn’t mind a little “insurgency within the ranks,” who went to an elite East Coast college (i.e. if I’d wanted to join TFA I would have,,,) this idea that I’m going to quit a union to organize with Michelle Rhee is laughable. And I’m supposedly Rhee’s target audience. I detest Rhee and everything she represents – she’s just the latest in a long line of top-down “my way or the highway even though I don’t know enough to know that I don’t know what I’m talking about” self-styled “reformer” consultants backed by outside interest groups. It doesn’t sound like Rhee has wrapped her head around the idea that she was rejected by the parents of D.C. when they voted Fenty out of office, in large part due to her, so it’s silly to read this revisionism about how she’s all for the parents and backed by the parents. That Democracy thing got rid of her – no wonder she’s not a big fan of it…
An article I wrote for our local paper:
Parents know why the educational system is good and bad.
It seems everyone has an opinion as to what is wrong with the educational system and what they would do to improve it.
Many don’t get it. But parents do.
What is it that parents know to be good and bad about our educational system? Teachers and teachers. Education comes down to teachers. Period. A good teacher can make a HUGE difference in a childs life and can teach a subject without books, desks, or even a building. A bad teacher can make a child bitter about a subject for a lifetime and couldn’t teach with a million dollars worth of supplies.
Unfortunately, our current system is NOT set up to reward the good teachers and make it easier to get rid of bad ones. I found this out during my first meeting with the St. Vrain Accredidation Committee when I mistakenly asked a school principal if staff changes were in the formula for him improving his school’s test scores. Complete silence. After the meeting, another school principal came up to me and explained to me why the silence; it was not only difficult to make staff changes, it was essentially impossible.
This current system is not the school district’s fault. It is primarily the fault of the teachers union who insist that all teachers are the same and all teachers are good. This attitude undermines the goal of striving for quality education. It should be easy to get rid of bad teachers AND pay the remaining teachers more – a “pay for performance” system. A change like this would fundamentally change education for the better.
One might argue that it’s difficult to “rank” or judge teachers. Nonsense. Maybe it isn’t easy (nothing good is) but every business and almost every organization HAS to do just that in order to be competitive and effective. Schools are no different. At any one time, the school principal pretty much knows which teachers excel and which don’t. Students generally have a pretty good idea who the good teachers are. My experience with teenagers is that they will give a teacher high marks even if the teacher is tough – IF they are an inspiratioinal, good teacher. And parents know. I have talked with dozens of teachers – even they know! There are several proven methods which teachers could be judged fairly and accurately.
One might also argue that there aren’t any bad teachers. If you are a parent you know there are some AMAZING teachers in the district. And you also know there are some horrible ones.
In times of tight budgets, paying good teachers might seem to be a hurdle in a “pay for performance” system. It is not difficult to get individuals and businesses to donate to “the cause” if a system dedicated to improving overall teacher quality is in place. Michelle Rhee, superintendant of schools in Washington DC, came up with a corporate donation program; some of her teachers make over $100,000 per year. Ms. Rhee’s successes have been amazing.
These are our kids. They are our future. Why would we continue to use a system that doesn’t strive to have the best teachers? Even though this is primarily the Teacher’s Union fault (the biggest, most powerful union in the United States), blame cannot be withheld from school administrators who don’t have the guts to do what Michelle Rhee did. It is the job of St. Vrain parents to “encourage” district administrators and principals to do what is right for the kids.
Curtis Jones
The teachers are, quite frankly, beside the point. I say this as a parent of four children who have endured the public school system, one of whom dropped out of the public high school in his junior year with an A average and joined a democratic school. His beef was with the curriculum, which is intricately tied up to the attendance-based system of student certification in our public school system. I concur. Most, if not all of the troubles in our public school system can be traced to attendance-based certification (ABC). From it came the political hurricane for social advancement, heterogenuous grouping and so on, until we have graduates of high school who can’t read. From it, we also have the bureaucracies which grew around the power given by ABC to grant the diploma. So, yes, ABC has given us superintendents, principals who are secondary or tertiary, as well as the teacher’s unions, all the components that gave us Rhee and her platform. Thus, though I agree that Rhee’s ccritique resonates with the people, I find her agenda misdirected. Unless we replace ABC, say with a course-based curriculum with independent course exams where we base the diploma on passing exams for the required courses, the public school bureaucracy will remain entrenched with our children as thralls.
Wow! Some refreshing comments by teachers and not Educational Reform Theologians. The Heretics speak. Alan, Thanks for providing a forum.
Michelle Rhee will work her vitriol and yes, many will love her, while others could give a hoot. The Best and the Brightest will never have all the answers. People like Michelle Rhee will come and go. While she is making headlines our public school teachers with continue patiently working with our toughest kids. Bring on the reforms and reformers, they will tire of slamming public education when they find a new scapegoat for their indignant rants. If you can read this, thank a teacher!
So many facets to this issue–it isn’t just any one thing. I fully concur with Schulzki (glad to see you’re still speaking your mind–I miss Palmer, but not the D-11 pay!) The system in place unfortunately wasn’t used very effectively in the past. And we all know that it’s not just about administrators and teachers, but it’s also about families encouraging and working with their kids, and taking responsibility for their children’s actions and efforts. Additionally, until we hold students accountable for their own learning, we aren’t going to see any major changes.
If a student must pass some type of exit exam at the end of every two years, it seems logical that it would encourage students to make more effort in school. It is also very unreasonable to put ALL students into the same programs. I’ve seen so many bright students who are able to fare extraordinarily well in German, Art, and the Humanities, but struggle greatly in math. Most likely because they weren’t taught good math skills in the early years. I still can’t figure out why I have freshmen who come in and can’t tell time, have horrid penmanship and/or can’t read cursive, and don’t know basic English skills.
We have so much research yet the system fails to integrate it. We know for a fact that teens perform better if school starts later, but due to bussing schedules (based upon sports and the need for daycare/babysitting of younger siblings) nothing is changed. We are the ONLY country that spends education dollars on athletics when we are comparing scores to Germany, Japan, or Sweden. We know that beginning to learn a second language by the 4th grade greatly improves students’ knowledge of their first language AND their math skills (go figure!!!). The U.S. is SO BEHIND in second language acquisition!
As far as Rhee is concerned, I’m sure she did do a thing or two to improve schools if we look at the overall picture. I’m not sure, however, that all of her tatics are exactly admirable. I do agree that there are some teachers in every building (we all know who they are!) who are either not too bright, don’t put forth the effort needed to work with young people, or are burned out. But like Schulzki stated, this is an issue of admin not pointedly dealing with those individuals specifically and in a timely fashion. I’ve seen horrible teachers keep jobs because they were awesome coaches or friends of an administrator; some great teachers get non-renewed because they don’t follow the ‘stepford-wives’ mentality in a building; teachers get bullied by admin because they spoke out about illegal and/or unfair treatment of certain staff members until they quit their jobs; etc., etc. I could go on and on and on. We all know about these things, and unfortunately without tenure, more of these type of things will get brushed under the rug. I want my tenure, but I also am wililng to take responsibility for my workload. It would be nice to see some changes, but I’m certainly not going to give up on the teacher’s union which is the only chance we’ve got. Hopefully both the union AND the legislature will see that there are many teachers who do want some change, but that we still need to be treated like the highly educated professionals we are.
And last but not least, if you want to see people at the top of their game, then you’ve simply got to pay them a decent salary. For nearly having a PhD, plus teaching an extra class at the ten year level, I earned about 38K. Not a shocker that so many highly educated, industrious, and motivated teachers leave the profession or move on to districts where they pay is higher.
And now what for DC and its schools? The excellent mayor is gone. What will happen to the reforms Rhee put into place? What will happen to the schools and the children? I don’t think anyone in the “reform industry cares.” Failure is the manure which keeps the industry growing.
By referring to traditional schools as a “government run monopoly”, she revealed herself to be the corporate tool that many have suspected her to be. Is it to be a “quality education” for the privileged and the lucky and “training” for the masses? Is that why “reform” has become high stakes testing without any meaningful input from teachers, students or parents? Is Michelle Rhee yet another corporate creature sent to break those obstinate teachers’ unions standing in the way of a corporate takeover of public education? At a time when the Chinese educated middle class numbers more than our entire population, why are we engaged in schemes to educate the few when we need to educate the many?