Wall $treet “Rheeform” in Washington, D.C.

[Panaconda]

The Proving Grounds: School “Rheeform” in Washington, D.C.
Fall 2010
By Leigh Dingerson

Washington, D.C., is leading the transformation of urban public education across the country—at least according to Time magazine, which featured D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee on its cover, wearing black and holding a broom. Or perhaps you read it in Newsweek or heard it from Oprah, who named Rhee to her “power list” of “remarkable visionaries.”

But there’s nothing remarkably visionary going on in Washington. The model of school reform that’s being implemented here is popping up around the country, heavily promoted by the same network of conservative think tanks and philanthropists like Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and the Walton Family Foundation that has been driving the school reform debate for the past decade. It is reform based on the corporate practices of Wall Street, not on education research or theory. Indications so far are that, on top of the upheaval and distress Rhee leaves in her wake, the persistent racial gaps that plague D.C. student outcomes are only increasing.

Chancellor Rhee helicoptered into Washington in 2007 promising to change the culture of the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS). Everyone cheered. But we weren’t counting on the new culture coming straight out of Goldman Sachs. Suddenly, decisions were being made at the top and carried out with atomic force. Parents have been treated like consumers—informed about options and outcomes but denied a seat at the table. The district’s teachers have been insulted in the national media, fired or laid off in record numbers, and replaced by less credentialed and less experienced newcomers. The model views teachers as a delivery system, not as professionals. High turnover is not just the result—it’s the goal. Principals, too, are isolated and expendable. The district lauds the educational mavericks—principals whose “crusades” are described as “relentless” and “methodical”—those who see themselves as an army of one. We are becoming a district where the frontline workers are demoralized, people are looking out for themselves, and trust is all but gone.

Chancellor Rhee is the army of one at the top of the district’s lurching reform. An articulate and supremely confident 39-year-old, Rhee is, for now, the movement’s national poster child. Pundits debate her occasionally tactless comments in the media, but there has been little analysis of the reform model itself and how its “my way or the highway” culture affects students, parents, and teachers. Adopting the rhetoric for just one moment, in a cost-benefit analysis, are D.C. students gaining the benefits, or are we all paying the price?

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http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/rheeform.shtml

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. She is so awful

Her inconsistency exploded into the media in December 2009 when she announced the replacement of the principal at Hardy Middle School—one of the top performing schools in the city, and also one of the most racially mixed. Hardy’s art-centered curriculum draws students from across the city to fill seats not taken by students from the surrounding affluent Georgetown community. When a $48 million renovation at the school was completed in 2009, it became at least a more physically attractive option for neighborhood parents. But apparently there was still concern. After the chancellor abruptly announced that she was removing the popular (and by all measures, successful) principal, it was revealed that she had met in a private living room with a dozen Georgetown parents. The group had complained that they didn’t feel “welcome” at Hardy.

The announcement set off a firestorm at Hardy, where teachers and parents—even the school’s LSRT—had not been consulted or informed of the chancellor’s decision. At a subsequent community meeting at the school, emotions were raw. The racial implications of the move were unavoidable, as Rhee tried to explain why she had met privately with a small group of white parents but failed to discuss the move with the school’s mostly African American parent leadership. Jeffrey Watson, a parent of two Hardy students, charged that Georgetown neighborhood parents stayed away because they were not comfortable with the racial composition of the school, reported the Washington Post. “Don’t play games with people in here. We’re not stupid,” Watson said at the school hearing. “Rather than having private meetings with them, tell them to walk on over.” Despite impassioned pleas from teachers, parents, and students to reinstate the principal, Rhee refused to budge.

[kwassa]

2. Rhee may be out of a job tomorrow night

or soon thereafter.

Her boss, Mayor Adrian Fenty, is way down in the polls to Vincent Gray, and the primary is tomorrow. Gray is not likely to keep Rhee; she has been openly campaigning for Fenty, and many of the DC voters dislike her.