Do America's public schools need more leaders like Michelle Rhee? Rhee, the controversial chancellor of Washington, D.C.'s public schools announced her resignation Wednesday, after three contentious years working to turn around a system plagued by low test scores, high dropout rates, poverty and violence.
Rhee is featured prominently in Davis Guggenheim's new school-reform documentary, "Waiting for Superman,'' which pits school reformers and charter schools against teachers unions and a hidebound public education establishment. But Rhee's "no excuses" approach to reform won as many enemies as friends, including the Washington Teachers Union and many parents who thought she was more interested in publicity than listening to their concerns.Is Rhee the sort of no-nonsense leader America's schools need? Or does school reform require more give-and-take and compromise? Ben Boychuk and Joel Mathis, the RedBlueAmerica columnists, weigh in.
Ben Boychuk
No question, Michelle Rhee changed the terms of the school reform debate in the United States. Three years ago, the very idea of evaluating and paying teachers on the basis of performance was pie in the sky lunacy. Rhee made it happen this year, persuading the Washington Teachers Union to ratify a labor agreement that weakens tenure rules in exchange for higher pay.
The trouble is, that landmark labor agreement took 2-1/2 years to negotiate and comes up for renewal again in 2012. With Rhee gone and a new, union-friendly mayor taking office in January, what are the odds the contract's innovations survive? When Rhee took over in 2007, Washington's high school dropout rate was a miserable 50 percent.
Today, the dropout rate is closer to 47 percent. Test scores are up slightly, due in large part to DC's strong charter school law, which has exerted competitive pressure on the traditional public schools to improve as students leave in droves.
Rhee helped changed the debate, challenged the status quo made the cover of Time magazine, starred in a hit documentary, and won praise from none other than Oprah Winfrey. But she didn't have time to actually accomplish much.
Michelle Rhee's story is really a cautionary tale. Rhee's resignation shows the perils of placing the mantle of change in the hands of one person, however capable. Fixing what ails education requires total systemic change, taking power away from bureaucrats and putting it in the hands of parents.
Joel Mathis
Certain "reformers" are rushing to make Michelle Rhee's resignation a morality tale for the nation's education system ― an example of the corrupt power of teachers' unions and the rot of public schools. But there's less to the development than meets the eye. If "reform" is the message, then Rhee was an imperfect messenger: It is time for her to move on.
Reform, after all, remains the agenda for D.C. Mayor-in-Waiting Vincent Gray and Interim Chancellor Kaya Henderson ― a Rhee protege ― have promised that efforts begun under Rhee will continue. As Melinda Hennenberger noted at Politics Daily, "The plan under Henderson is Rhee's exact reform agenda, so how does giving someone else a chance to implement it amount to disaster?"
It doesn't. But some conservatives interested in education reform have a second, extra-educational agenda: Politics. They want to undermine teachers' unions that ― not incidentally ― have proven a powerful ally of Democrats in past election seasons. It's in the critics' interest to portray those teachers as obstacles to reform; unfortunately, unions all too often protect the jobs of bad teachers and give those reformers ample material to work with.
There's a better way. In September, the New York Times profiled Brockton High School in Massachusetts, a large and previously underperforming school that has seen dramatic rises in student test scores. How did the school do that? With a renewed emphasis on reading and writing skills, even in classes not devoted to those subjects.
Teachers weren't the adversaries at Brockton; they drove the process.
And, as the Times notes, the school "scrupulously honored the union contract." Teamwork, it turns out, is better for students than constant political bickering.
If education reform is to succeed, teachers cannot be the enemy ― both for political and pedagogical reasons. Michelle Rhee apparently didn't understand that. But her resignation doesn't have to mean the death of reform.
Ben Boychuk is managing editor of School Reform News. Joel Mathis blogs at joellmathis.blogspot.com. Listen to them interview George Washington biographer Ron Chernow at www.infinitemonkeysblog.com//?q=benandjoel. Boychuk and Joel Mathis blog daily at www.infinitemonkeysblog.com and joelmathis.blogspot.com./
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