Rather than Choosing "Best" Teacher, Parents Should Seek Best Match

I have another guest post up, this one over at Nacy Flanagan's Education Week blog, Teacher in a Strange Land. In it, I respond to the matter of letting parents choose their children's teachers.

Check it out.

My Year-End Post: No Matter the Reforms, No One Likes Tyranny

Education blogger/journalist Alexander Russo asked via twitter and then via his blog with Scholastic where all the smart, interesting pro-reform teacher and principal bloggers were. For now, he said the "reform critics" seemed to be dominating the conversation on-line.

Lots of people responded to this already including Nancy Flanagan, Anthony Cody (here and here), Shaun Johnson, Katie Osgood, Mike Klonsky, Teacher Ken, and Leonie Haimson. I'm not going to get into everything they said because I think at least some of the controversy generated by his post is due to clumsiness on his part, rather than any malice or an agenda (other than to chase down a prescribed narrative) and some misunderstanding on some of their parts. I also criticized him for using the pro- versus anti-reform labels, but I can see that sometimes using such dichotomous terms is just expedient and may not reflect a belief in them--it's important to get beyond semantics even if I personally am a stickler for them.

However, I did agree when many of the bloggers above pointed out that one reason Russo perceives that the "traditional" (a poor choice of words, for example) teacher voice winning on-line is because social media provide virtually the only forums where independent and grassroots voices get heard and can gain prominence. The neo-liberal reformers are dominating the mainstream media and have gobs and gobs of money with which to do so. This, of course, brings up a whole 'nother fascinating topic about power and the dynamic between social media, grassroots advocacy and organizing but that's for another post for another time. . .

So, I agree with that point. But mostly I think there aren't too many teacher bloggers out there independently (and for free) plugging for Students First, for example, because there aren't too many teachers who support the group of reforms that SF is pushing, either in principle or in their execution. But while most teachers and principals are pro-reform, just as Russo doesn't want to interact with an organization (haha--that guy is comically cranky), neither do independent and smart educators want to; and neither do they want to let organizations promoting superficial and short-sighted policies that often detrimentally affect their day-to-day work speak for them.

These organizations don't really represent educators or parents or students (no matter how they're named); they represent the education reform industry. That industry has a slate of reforms that it lobbies for. This, as education journalist Joy Resmovitz so astutely put it, is part of their "branding." Of course, since these reformers sincerely believe their agenda will improve education, it's probably of no consequence to them and presents no conflict of interest that the industry they've created would have the added bonus of benefiting them in the form of financial rewards and jobs.

But if you're an educator, you have to really buy into that brand to promote it. And then you have to go around marketing it, for free, to your co-workers who don't have much time to listen to sales pitches in the teachers lounge for Mark Kay or Pampered Chef-like products (teachers, you know what I'm talking about), let alone pitches for ed reform products. And no one wants to be a salesperson if they don't have to be. Furthermore, the ed reform products, I mean, solutions being proposed are not ones that come from ideas about education or teaching and learning, but rather from ideas about business and finance. If educators wanted to play Corporation or Free Markets, that's where they'd be working.

That all being said, there is a huge diversity of ideas, opinions, and approaches among educators. As I wrote about before, framing education reform as a debate between reformers and status quo defenders is reductive and contributes to misinformation. And if you actually pay attention to and listen to all of the edu-noise out there, you figure this out pretty quickly. There are lots and lots of educators who support some of the reforms, but not all of them. Even so, these people consider themselves professionals and still don't like being told what to do in their classroom by the likes of Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, and Bill Gates. Lots of educators are in favor of a common curriculum (though they may have reservations about the Common Core in particular). Lots of educators are in favor of community-generated and innovative charter schools. I bet some are even in favor of vouchers. Lots of educators are in favor of a more educated and better trained teaching corps and in favor of making it harder to gain entry to the profession. Lots of educators are against strict seniority-based firings. Lots of educators want better and more useful teacher evaluations. Lots of educators think that standardized testing and data-informed instruction is useful. Lots of educators embrace technology and certain forms of virtual learning.* Lots of educators think that the teacher dismissal process should be streamlined (which is not the same thing is getting rid of due process). Lots of educators are in favor of mayoral control, or at least they were. (I would say that lots of educators support Race to the Top but it's pretty clear that only the truest of believers like Race to the Top.) And there are lots of parents and other education reform advocates and scholars who are on board with a lot of this stuff.

Journalist Natalie Hopkinson, like many, many DC parents initially backed Michelle Rhee's chancellorship, until she didn't. Teacher blogger James Boutin also initially went to DC to teach because he thought Rhee had the right idea, but after working in DCPS, he changed his mind (read here, here, here, and here). This principal did the same thing, leaving Maryland to become a principal at Hearst Elementary School in DC. He became so disillusioned he decided to sell cupcakes instead. Teacher Stephanie Black subscribes to KIPP's no excuses philosophy and teaches for DCPS. She's perfect for Russo's theory. Oh, except she quit because she didn't like how she was being forced to teach badly under the reformers (see here and here). Education writer Robert Pondiscio is no longer an NYCPS teacher, but he used to be. Guess what? He's not that into the agenda of these particular reformers even though he does support accountability and choice. Dan Brown has been very critical of Rhee-Klein-Gates reform, but he teaches at a charter school in DC, so it's probably safe to say he's pro-charter to a certain extent. Chad Sansing, a teacher at a charter school in Virginia, is very much in favor of choice, just not in the non-choice between schools that meet testing benchmarks and schools that are trying to meet testing benchmarks. Mark Anderson is very supportive of a common core curriculum (full disclosure: so I am, in theory) and probably some of the other reforms, but he's an independent thinker and a thoughtful teacher. VCU assistant professor of educational leadership Jon Becker is "bullish" on on-line education and was very critical of  a recent NEPC report on K-12 on-line education, but he's skeptical of many of the current reforms.* Christina Lordeman (speaking of whom, where is Christina? I haven't seen her around lately) is often very critical of Diane Ravitch and I imagine that she supports many of the reforms in theory, but from what I can tell she is a principled and thoughtful teacher who wants to be treated like a professional and she has also expressed some real criticisms of some of the current reforms. According to her book, even Diane Ravitch was in favor of mayoral control until fairly recently. I know of other long-time education reformers who favored mayoral control, that is until they experienced it. Even those educators who are "pro-reform" (to use Russo's label) figure out they like democracy once they are denied it. And this is just a sampling of some of the people whose ideas I enjoy listening to on a regular basis--imagine how many more there are.

Finally, I'll mention my father-in-law who has guest blogged here and who was fired via IMPACT for not tailoring his lessons to please the IMPACT gods and, basically, for having principles about his craft. He has taught AP and grade-level English for over ten years in DCPS and is known for his rigorous curriculum, preparing kids for college-level English, being interesting, and providing lots of feedback on student writing (see some parent feedback here). He was teaching in DCPS when I started there and I remember saying after not getting paid on time or properly for the second or third time that I could finally understand why some of my DCPS teachers burned out and stopped doing their jobs. Look how badly they were treated, look at how poorly the system is run, I pointed out. Joe shook his head before I could finish my thought. No, he told me, sorry, but there's no excuse for that. If you burn out, it's time to go.

Yet Joe is precisely the kind of teacher--principled, intellectual, and independent-minded--who's vulnerable to getting fired from these reformy systems, for doing their jobs as their experience and knowledge dictates them to. One of the things he was fired for was for covering the clock up in his classroom. He was losing the last ten minutes of class to kids peering at the clock and its presence was rushing and stressing everyone involved. This came to mind because Russo just blogged about how he thinks there's too many clocks in classrooms and that they're stressing people out. Joe agrees and because Joe stood by his reasonable, thoughtful decision to disobey the reformy principal's clock mandate, Joe was fired.

Now, Russo, do you get why smart teachers aren't on-line proselytizing for the likes of Stand for Children, Students First, and TFA? What educator wants to advocate for an education reform organization whose ideas include distrust for educators' professional judgement? Why would educators support education reform leaders who don't respect independent, critical thinking or listen to what the communities they serve say they want for themselves? Who wants to advocate for pressing themselves into a job not of social utility and intellectual stimulation, but of busy work and obedience? The premise that there is some group of educators just waiting for the likes of Leonie, Nancy, Anthony, John, and Ken to tone it down so that they can get busy undermining their own work is a false one. Educators and education advocates, including those just listed, are of very different minds when it comes to the fine details of teaching, learning, and reforming public education. But no one likes tyranny or plutocracy, except for tyrants and plutocrats of course.

(* = Updated content)

Bridging Philosophical Differences

Yesterday evening I posted on twitter a link to this post in Bridging Differences by Diane Ravitch, saying that I thought she made very compelling arguments against Parent Trigger-like legislation, that it's bad for democracy.

I got some push back on that. One of my favorite push-backers said that a) Teacher Trigger laws existed first and that b) Diane's post was "pure ad hominem."

Normally I don't mix my tweeting and my blogging. I generally think it's silly when people blog about what people say on twitter. Blogs and twitter are two very different mediums--I have different expectations and standards for each of them. That being said, I want to respond to what my critics said and I want to explain what I found so compelling; twitter is a terrible place to try to accomplish this.

First of all, I'd have to learn more about the particular ones being referred to, but I can't imagine that "Teacher Trigger" laws would be a good idea, either.

Second of all, "pure adhominem" (emphasis mine)? I don't see it, not purely. I can see why someone might find that in the piece, but it's certainly not the only thing there. Several months ago (see here and here) I decided that unless they are blatantly stated, divining people's motives is impossible. It's also not productive or often relevant to any given problem. I also, frankly, have a hard time getting through the day if I look at the world through such a dark lens, so though I don't always succeed, I try really hard not to, at least not publicly.

But what I found compelling in Diane's post was not who's doing the Parent Trigger and for what reasons, but rather, the philosophical arguments. Here's what I found compelling (emphasis mine):  

"To me, a public school is a public trust. It doesn't belong to the students who are currently enrolled in it or their parents or to the teachers who currently teach in it. All of them are part of the school community, and that community needs to collaborate to make the school better for everyone. Together, they should be able to redesign or create or discontinue programs and services. But collaboration is not the same as ownership. The school belongs to the public, to the commonwealth. It belongs to everyone who ever attended it (and their parents) and to future generations. It is part of the public patrimony, not an asset that can be closed or privatized by its current constituents.

If a school is dysfunctional, those who are in charge of the district are obliged to find out why and to do whatever they can to fix the problems. If the principal is incompetent, he or she should be removed. If there are teachers who are incompetent, they should be removed. If the school is doing poorly because it lacks necessary resources, the district is obliged to do whatever it can to improve the school.

But giving the current parents the power to close the school or to hand it over to a private management company is akin to saying that whoever uses any public facility should have the same power, the power to transfer control to a private entity. It means if those who use Central Park in Manhattan don't like the way the city of New York takes care of it, they should be able to sign a petition and privatize it. If a majority of those who patronize a national park sign a petition, they should be able to hand control of the park over to private managers. This makes no sense."

I agree philosophically with what Diane is saying here. I value public democratic institutions and I want to see them preserved. I agree that democratic public institutions are in a tenuous state right now and I agree that they belong to the public: to past, present, and future generations. Maybe others don't agree with this. Maybe they think I over-value public democratic institutions or that they've failed. Maybe they think the free market can do better. But I don't think so. I'm certainly not anti-commerce, but I don't think free market mechanisms work in every context, particularly not if the markets have been rigged. That's not an ad hominem attack, that's expressing a philosophically different way of looking at the world; it's expressing a different value system.

So let's protest what we see as ad hominem and address its wrongs specifically, or, even better, let's minimize their distraction by brushing them aside, and instead focus on the philosophical (and yes, factual) heart of our common ground and differences.

Is Michelle Rhee Truly Putting Students First?

Last week, Michelle Rhee took the next logical step of a bona fide revolutionary: she announced her new position as a lobbyist on "Oprah" and in Newsweek magazine.  Valerie Strauss at The Washington Post, Trip Gabriel of The New York Times, and Alan Gottlieb of Education News Colorado summarize well Rhee's intentions, but in brief, Students First, a non-profit political organization of parents, students, and teachers, will advocate for:

• taking on special interests, such as teachers' unions,
• "smart" spending on instructional programs,
• encouraging parental involvement,
• "excellent" schools for every child,
• getting talented teachers in every classroom,
• dismantling teacher tenure and seniority-based incentives,
• merit pay for teachers,
• vouchers,
• using standardized tests to evaluate teachers, and
• firing the bottom five to ten percent of teachers.

These ideas are not novel ones and as I outline below, aren't likely to be successful in helping school children.

I should have known from her appearance on the "Colbert Report" the week before that Rhee was warming up for this blitz. I had rather hoped that she would fade into the woodwork of conservative think tanks and empty motivational speech giving, but no such luck. Rhee has always talked about how she wants what's best for children and how our current public education system is designed for what's best for the adults, but I don't see how her policies, which I detailed here and on The Washington Post website here, are best for school children. Also, don't fairly common instances of union ineptitude plus low pay and poor working conditions for many public school educators refute the claim that the system is currently working well for the adults?

One thing I neglected to add in my critique of her tenure at DCPS were the exceedingly high rates of teacher turnover and attrition, often caused by low morale, mass firings, and budget problems. For example, the RIF of October 2009 caused terrible disruptions and chaos. There were classrooms without teachers, students without necessary classes, and schools without counselors. Consolidating freshmen and seniors in the same English class, cancelling foreign language courses, and having elementary school students start over in October with a new or no teacher can hardly be good for those students or serve as an example of "smart" spending. Rhee was not known for her fiscal competence, to say the least.

Rhee claims that this is the first organization to advocate for children, but that's just not true, and saying as much is an insult to child advocates and parents everywhere. What about the work of organizations like Voices for America's Children and the Children's Defense Fund? And what of parents and parent groups? Does she think public school parents like me join the PTA to advocate for ourselves? Because we like to attend tedious meetings and peddle wrapping paper? Was Michelle Rhee active in the PTA at Harlem Park Elementary where she taught in Baltimore or at Oyster Elementary where her own children attend in DC?

Rhee says that she should have communicated and expressed herself better in DC, but as NYU education historian Diane Ravitch explains," it is hard to think of any figure in the world of American education who had as much media attention as she has had over the past three years. Certainly, she did not lack for opportunities to communicate." In fact, a famous Rhee-ism is that "collaboration and consensus are way over-rated." Her problem was not that she didn't communicate, but rather, that she does not collaborate. How can she engage parents in the process of education reform if she doesn't believe in collaborating with them?

When she talks about "excellent" schools for each child, what she is getting at is choice, which means charters and vouchers. I am still forming my opinions on charters, but for now I'll concede that while I prefer magnets, charters can be valuable, but only when they are community-based, feature rich and challenging curricula, are kept on a short leash, and don't supplant neighborhood-based options. More on this topic later, but for now these pieces in the New York Review of Books, Miller-McCune, and The Wall Street Journal show why charters are not the panacea Rhee thinks they are. As for vouchers, public money should not be funding religious and private schools. Period. Furthermore, the expansion of charters and vouchers will not be successful as a long-term strategy for reforming public education, especially if they move a public system in the direction of privatization. Why doesn't Rhee, instead, raise money to directly fund financial aid and scholarships for needy kids who want to attend private and religious schools? 

Michelle Rhee is a firm believer that talent and not practice makes the teacher. She stated that newly hired teachers are probably superior to veterans, because they'd be more innovative and creative. First of all, she's already stated that she doesn't value creativity; she once said, "Creativity is good and whatever. But if the children don’t know how to read, I don’t care how creative you are. You’re not doing your job." Second of all, studies have shown that teachers from TFA, and this could probably extend to NTP teachers as well, are not more effective and that they're costly, particularly because they leave the profession so quickly. Finally, firing the bottom five to ten percent of teachers would be risky. How would the bottom five to ten percent be determined? By test scores? I don't agree with that. Would doing this actually lead to higher quality teaching and education? After reading this, I'm dubious we can fire our way to educational greatness.

As for Rhee's emphasis on standardized tests and improved evaluations of teachers, while teachers do need a fair and rigorous evaluation system, standardized test scores shouldn't be part of the equation, and should only be used to glean information about students. Merit pay based on test scores isn't fair and it doesn't work. The use of value-added measures doesn't matter--those are equally problematic.  Her own evaluation system, IMPACT, is flawed and statistically faulty. Finally, while seniority-based lay-offs are problematic, the alternatives she advocates for don't seem to be any less so.

Isn't it ironic that in order to take on these "heavily funded special interests," Rhee is creating one herself? (And I'm sorry but, "textbook companies"? I don't disagree with this on some level, but what of other bigger and better funded actors in the education marketplace? Or do they not count as special interests when they're headed by Rhee's mentor or align with her interests?) Michelle Rhee and her initiatives have the backing of some of the wealthiest people in the country.  I find it troubling that she feels the need to spin her initiatives via a PR firm, the same one that she used as DC schools chancellor. She is her own heavily-funded special interest! The last thing our children, our public schools, and our besieged democracy needs is yet another corporate-backed lobbying organization headed by a politically inept it girl with a stated disdain for democratic principles and processes. And where would the money raised by Students First go? To politicians and political campaigns, not to schools and not to children. As I have written about here, more big money in our political system is a problem, not a solution.

To her credit, I do think that Michelle Rhee believes that she is doing what's best for children, that she has good intentions. The problem is that she is not actually doing what's best for children. More and more, Michelle Rhee, seems to be suffering from a blinding and pathological narcissism, the kind that develops from excessive media attention and intensive rationalizing. As I study and observe Rhee, I am reminded of other ideologically-driven political leaders who in the face of a crisis do great wrong in the name of right. Especially instructive in understanding Michelle Rhee's cult of personality is Jeffrey Toobin's recent profile in The New Yorker of Rachel Yould, an extraordinarily bright and talented young woman who in her quest for fame and socially useful significance manages to con even the smartest and most altruistic of actors, not to mention herself, securing funding and resources for herself that would be better and more justly spent on the causes of those more sincerely and urgently in need of them. 

If Michelle Rhee truly wants to put students first then she should put aside her bankrupt ideology, her failing policies, and her monstrous ego and let the real needs of America's public school children come first. She would be my hero if she would change course and, quite simply, raise money that would go directly to helping poor children. As a former public school student and teacher and one of the public school parents she is trying to engage, I'm asking her to truly put our children, and the future of the communities they so desperately need, first.

As New York City Public Schools Go, So Goes the World: Fight the Appointment of Cathie Black

I told myself yesterday that I would stop thinking about the whole NYCPS New Chancellor debacle, yet, here I am.


While I find the choice of Cathie Black deeply troubling (I don't live in New York, but it's the most or the second most populous school system in the country), I am buoyed by The New York Times surprisingly and sensibly critical coverage of this development, especially given my current grief over the death of quality journalism as I know it.


As The Washington Post provided near rubber stamp coverage and editorials (folks such as Bill Turque and Valerie Strauss excepted) of the Rhee/Fenty administration, so has The New York Times for Klein/Bloomberg and their mayoral and new education reform proteges.


The NYT coverage has expressed skepticism in the appointment of someone so inexperienced here. They've reported on the secret and undemocratic path that Bloomberg took in deciding to replace Klein with Black, and this piece implies cronyism in the choice. There's this article on all the challenges that would face Black. And then there's the coverage which depicts legitimate obstacles to Black's appointment. Finally, there's this "Room for Debate" forum which asks, "Who's Qualified to Run New York City Schools?" I was pleased by the thoughtfulness of many of the responses. Now, I haven't seen the New York Times editorials or columns yet. I'm dubious, though, because, for example, The Washington Post's education journalism has been far superior to the commentary.


New York University education historian Diane Ravitch wrote this illuminating blog post on the decision for The New York Review of Books. It's a scholarly look at the history of New York City Public Schools, specifically at their central administration, and while her tone is skeptical, she ends with the sentiment that New Yorkers should "give her [Black] a chance" and "wish her luck." A commenter says that her "graciousness and let's wait and see attitude should be emulated."


I agree, but only with half of this. Many Washingtonians greeted Adrian Fenty and Michelle Rhee with cautious optimism only to wish they hadn't. Even New Yorkers who supported Klein aren't happy with Black's impending appointment. I mean, haven't we given these business oligarchs enough of a chance to know their approach isn't appropriate for education (not to mention business--look at our economy!)? Haven't at least some of their reforms been tried previously and been shown not to work? Are the people of New York City now supposed to bend over while their public school system is being spanked into annihilation? Cathie Black has asked for "patience" while she "gets up to speed on the issues facing K-12 education." I thought that education reform was "urgent" and that we weren't supposed to waste our time "joining hands and singing 'Kumbaya'."


I say: Fight Black's appointment first. If that fails, then New York City will see if they are forced to be patient and to wish her luck.




UPDATE I: I am starting to wonder if maybe Cathie Black isn't being used as some theorize Harriet Miers was--as a sacrificial lamb so that Bush could appoint John Roberts without much protest. Bloomberg does have a history of appointing people from the business sector for public sector jobs, though, and I'm not sure who John Roberts' educational equivalent would be. Michelle Rhee? Howard Fuller?

What Happened to Joel Klein?

I've been thinking all day:


What is up with Joel Klein becoming Darth Vader? What happened to that guy? How does someone go from being a nice Jewish boy from Queens, a Supreme Court clerk, and a Department of Justice anti-trust lawyer to being the grim reaper of public education? 


Anyone? (Please comment.)

A Corporate Executive for Corporate-style Reforms

In case you haven't heard the news. . .


Name of the New York City Chancellor who resigned:  Joel Klein


Job he's going to take: Executive vice-president for News Corp


His replacement: Cathie Black, a publishing executive/ oligarch


Process by which she was chosen: A public search was conducted, in some public somewhere. Gotham Schools says they know nothing of this.


Black's experience with education: Zero, except her own children were educated at Connecticut boarding schools and she sits on the board of an NYC charter school.


My reaction: Sarah Palin is starting to look reeaaally qualified.


So much for Bloomberg's being subtle about what his real agenda is.


Wow.


UPDATE I: For Dana Goldstein's thoughts, go here.

What's the Matter with Rhee-form

Michelle Rhee's last day as Chancellor of DC Public Schools will be Monday, November 1st. The common wisdom is that the soon-to-be former DC mayor, Adrian Fenty, was defeated this past September because Rhee had become a political liability. Her policies were on target, and progress was made, but she didn't play well with others, and wasn't nice. In their own way, Fenty and Rhee admit as much here.


While I agree that she was abrasive, I disagree that the reforms were good policy in the first place. The criticism that she was too hard-charging, which stifled her own well-intentioned reforms, such as is made here misses the point. Her ideas about education reform were misinformed and ineffective. She was incompetent and ignorant of the history of the city and community she was supposed to serve. In short, she was charging hard in the wrong direction, or as NYU education historian Diane Ravitch has said, "It’s difficult to win a war when you’re firing on your own troops.”


Just prior to the election and now that she has resigned, various reviews of her tenure have been written. This well-written and comprehensive report by Leigh Dingerson in Rethinking Schools on Rhee's tenure proves my point that it wasn't just her tone that was wrong. "The Proving Grounds: School 'Rheeform' in Washington, D.C." carefully chronicles the history of DCPS, Rhee's belligerent approach to teachers, administrators, and parents, her connection to right-wing conservatives, the lack of attention given to curriculum and instruction, and the problems with her teacher-evaluation tool, IMPACT. Not all of Rhee's critics are liberal defenders of teachers unions; in this article in The American Spectator, Roger Kaplan makes several great points about problems with Rhee's reign. Finally, Bill Turque, the fantastic education beat reporter for the Metro section of the Washington Post, published this succinct summary detailing the Rhee administration's accomplishments and failures.


I remember well some events of her first few days--they were a disturbing harbinger of what was to come. Without any notice or thought to a smooth transition, Fenty fired the then current DCPS Superintendent Clifford Janey late at night and subsequently locked him out of his office and e-mail account. Fenty announced his succesor's appointment and everyone said, "Michelle who?" Shortly after coming to town, Rhee took a tour of the city and pronounced at a press conference something along the lines of, "I drove through Anacostia and it was a very emotional experience for me." (Anacostia is a historic neighborhood in DC that is majority African-American.) What's that supposed to mean? And what do her emotions have to do with this? I remember thinking it was an oddly narcissistic thing to say. 


Rhee met perfunctorily with the professionals and community leaders who had a long history of working to improve DC's schools and promptly decided she didn't have anything to learn from them. It was apparent then and it became even more apparent by the end of her tenure that Rhee knew little about the community she was supposed to serve. Rhee not only didn't understand DC's African-American community, but she didn't have any sense of the particular history of DC--of its history of political disenfranchisement, taxation without representation, and paternal federal control. DCPS was a source of empowerment, autonomy, and even pride, for that community. People's parents and extended families were educated and employed by DCPS. From Dingerson, 

"The vast public sector employment created by the federal government helped establish a significant black middle class that supported its public schools. Many African American parents and grandparents remember their schools as neighborhood institutions and gateways to success." 

While usurping more power from an already disempowered population of a powerless city, Rhee paid no respect to members of the community whose elders had helped to build the school system she was charged with leading. 


There is no denying that DCPS was a dysfunctional system when Rhee got there. Transformation, change, and improvement were needed on many fronts. I have yet to be convinced of the ultimate effectiveness of such a style, but perhaps the task could only be done by a ruthless, hard-charging, autonomous leader. Even so, if Rhee or whomever was appointed to the position had to have such an approach, such a leader should know something about education, instruction, curriculum, management, fiscal matters, and community relations. To be fair, again, that's not what Fenty hired her for. Rhee was hired to be Fenty's henchwoman-autocrat on education and that's what she was. The democratically elected DC Council had voted to give Fenty full power over the DC schools and then he turned around and gave Rhee the most powerful education position the city has ever had.  As Kaplan says,

". . . reformers have tended to think they understand the problems and challenges of educating undisciplined if lovable savages (children and teenagers) better than the people whose job it is to do it, and furthermore that they have a system for teaching math and reading that will work better than any other.. . . the simple truth of the matter is that if she is in charge, by virtue of commonly acknowledged rules, and she does not want someone, she should do exactly what she did. She was the boss."

A common refrain echoed by Fenty and his supporters is I know there were mistakes, but look at how Rhee has gotten people excited about urban public education. In the search for a silver lining, I thought something similar about the propagandistic Waiting for Superman and the bogus manifesto that was signed by Rhee and fifteen other school district chiefs: At least people are talking about public education and this is an opportunity to showcase the bankruptcy of the new education reformers' ideas. Then I realized that was kind of like saying that, on the positive side, John Yoo and his torture memos got people taking about the immorality and ineffectiveness of torturing detainees to get information. Michelle Rhee did get a lot of people to pay attention to public education, but who are these people? Mostly unelected billionaires and conservative ideologues without any education expertise who are looking to privatize the public school system. Finally, I'll concede that Rhee got people interested in the profession of teaching who may not have been otherwise, but, again, who are they? Inexperienced, recently graduated from highly selective-college amateurs who probably don't want to become professional teachers and who know very little about inner-city communities. Ultimately, Rhee attracted the wrong kind of attention from the wrong kind of people with the wrong kind of solutions.


Rhee has been credited with improvements to the physical conditions of school facilities, but since June 2007 all capital planning, construction, renovation, and major repairs of DCPS school buildings have been the responsibility of the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization (OPEFM), which is an agency that is completely separate from DCPS. Facilities maintenance was moved from DCPS to OPEFM in 2008. One of the reasons OPEFM has been able to make so many improvements to public school facilities is that Mayor Fenty and the Council have increased the schools' capital budget to amounts unheard of prior to the mayoral takeover.

Rhee and Fenty and their supporters have also claimed that under her leadership test scores went up. Even some of her critics have credited her with this. First of all, standardized tests should only be used as one of many teaching tools, so test scores should certainly not be the only standard by which we measure student achievement or teacher effectiveness. Standardized tests tell you a lot about the students who are taking the test, but very little about who is teaching the students taking the test. Furthermore, an emphasis on standardized tests is problematic because standardized test-based content makes for lousy curricula. Or as Kaplan puts it,

". . . the substantive issue is whether it serves a useful educational purpose to turn schools into fill-the-bubble-test cram boxes instead of teaching content-rich courses."

Even if, in the interest of compromise, it is conceded that, okay, we can consider test scores as one factor of many in the evaluation of a school and a teacher, Rhee's reforms have thus far not proven themselves to be effective. Kaplan says,

"No one who has looked seriously at the way achievements in math and reading are assessed under the No Child Left Behind rules believes you can judge a district on the basis of scarcely a couple of years. The D.C. schools implemented reforms aimed at improving scores, anyway, in 2006, so at most Miss Rhee should claim credit for staying with them, notwithstanding her stated plan to break with business as usual."

Furthermore, according to Dingerson (and she has the data and analysis to back this up thanks to seven-year DCPS math teacher and 2010 finalist for DC Teacher of the Year, Chris Bergfalk):

"There have been dramatic drops in standardized assessment scores, and, on closer analysis, the highly touted increases in D.C. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores are a reflection of the changing demographics of the schools, not the result of any real improvement in the quality of education provided to D.C.’s poorest and neediest students."

Finally, in this timeline of events that was developed from a series Washington Post articles and a July 2009 DCPS press release, former DCPS math teacher Guy Brandenburg shows that there were questions raised about possible cheating on the DC Comprehensive Assessment System (DCCAS) tests, but that despite being asked to investigate by Deborah A. Gist, the State Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia (OSSE), the Rhee administration failed to do so.


I will discuss this trend in education reform in a later post, but for now I will point out that Rhee spent her time emphasizing the people teaching over the practice of teaching. There was no focus on the quality of the teaching or what teachers were teaching. As Dingerson rightly notes, 

"It is worth noting that, as a so-called 'education reformer,' Rhee has not focused on content or pedagogy. There have been no initiatives to improve teacher induction or strengthen instructional practice. The focus has remained on management and staffing, and the tone has been judgmental rather than supportive."

Kaplan hits the nail on the head,

"The core of the matter is not this or that lapse of judgment or a clumsy manner with people. She is said to be abrasive, texts even while in the midst of formal meetings. Well, you can put that down to an American get-to-the-point spirit. However, Miss Rhee never bothered to explain just what all this reform and professional development and search for 'excellent' teachers is supposed to mean. She did not explain it to the parents. Or to anybody. And the reason she did not is that . . . she does not know or does not care. Should our kids be studying Latin and classical music? Should sports be compulsory; should ROTC? Should Shakespeare be on the finals and should a ninth grader be able to recite the Second Inaugural? Should every kid learn a trade as well as a foreign language? The distinct impression D.C. voters got was that Miss Rhee does not think about these things. Like her beloved, who is now mayor of Sacramento, and, frankly, like so much of the political-administrative leadership of our country today, these are unimportant questions because they do not matter to them. In the world they inhabit they do, of course matter. Michelle Rhee is surely concerned that her children . . . learn calculus and foreign languages and violin. . ."

Rhee herself shows her questionable knowledge of teaching practices in this stunningly inappropriate account told during a Welcome to Teachers address ( I highly recommend listening to this) of taping shut the mouths of her inner-city Baltimore students such that they bled. Rhee was having a classroom management crisis in her classroom and chose to respond in an unprofessional and crude way. Similarly, in responding to the perceived crisis in DCPS, she has chosen narrow and crude solutions. Her view, it seems, is that inner-city children and their teachers do not require a humane approach, let alone content-rich or arts-infused education. While I agree that all students, and not just middle class white ones like my own, should be able to acquire basic reading and math skills, that can be in conjunction with practical, content-rich, and creative curricula. In fact, it must be; teaching content, for example, is teaching reading.


Besides being unconcerned with the quality or the content of the teaching, Rhee also failed at the how of the teaching. Although IMPACT has been touted by some as "ground-breaking," it's a terribly flawed instrument. Valerie Strauss, a long-time education journalist at The Washington Post, discusses the flaws of IMPACT in this recent column. 

"IMPACT is actually a collection of 20 different evaluation systems for teachers in different capacities and other school personnel. In its first iteration, teachers were to be evaluated five times a year by principals and master teachers who went into the classroom unannounced for 30 minutes and scored the teacher on 22 different teaching elements. They were, for example, supposed to show that they could tailor instruction to at least three 'learning styles,' demonstrate that they were instilling student belief in success through "affirmation chants, poems and cheers," and a lot more. It was so nutty to think that any teacher would show all 22 elements in 30 minutes that officials modified it. Now the number is a still unrealistic 10 or so. Some teachers, fearing that their professional careers were being based on an unfair system, got someone in the front office to alert them to when the principal or master teacher was to show up, according to interviews with a number of teachers who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Then they would send difficult kids out of the classroom, and, in some cases, pull out a specially prepared lesson plan tailored to meet IMPACT requirements. Meanwhile, some teachers never got five evaluations, apparently because a number of master teachers hired to do the jobs quit, according to sources in the school system."

Furthermore, just as many of the educators that were fired during her tenure and RIFed in 2009 were strong teachers, many who were deemed "ineffective" were actually solid, experienced teachers, while others who were deemed "effective" were some of the weakest teachers in their schools. 


Michelle Rhee's tenure has been awash in allegations of dishonesty, corruption, and fraud. Some of these allegations may sound like conspiracy theory-type paranoia, and may later prove to be thus, but many of these instances have been well-documented by others or are even a matter of connecting the dots in public records. Brandenburg lists them in this post, "Why Michelle Rhee Had to Go."  Even if some of these instances, for example the budget problems, weren't intentionally dishonest or corrupt, they demonstrate at best grave incompetence.


While certain people, such as President Obama, who also has no background or experience with public schools, have seen "great progress" in DCPS in recent years, many of the people whose children are educated in the system, and who have worked in the system for decades (not just teachers but community activists) not only haven't seen improvement but see real harm being done to their institution and to their communities. It's not just a question of "liking" or "disliking" Rhee or of her being "nice" or "not nice." Rather, was she qualified to do the job she did? Did she have sound and informed ideas about curriculum, fiscal and personnel management, education, and the craft of teaching? Did her policies and reforms actually work? Were they effective? Did they actually improve the quality of public education in the District of Columbia? Did she adequately serve the communities and families she'd been hired to serve? The answer to all of those questions is "no." 


Vincent Gray, the victor in the democratic primary, asked Adrian Fenty to appoint Kaya Henderson, Rhee's right hand woman, as Interim Chancellor. Henderson is similarly inexperienced (a few years of teaching in TFA before going into administration) and holds carbon-copy ideas about education to her former boss. Rhee supporters have been pleased with the appointment, saying that she'll continue the reforms, but that she's nicer, more collaborative, and is more likely to seek consensus. 


Teacher Sabrina Stevens of Denver, Colorado, describes her experience with changes being proposed in Denver Public Schools and explains the significant difference between consensus and buy-in. Is Henderson actually going to collaborate, or is she going to be as nice as she can to get buy-in? Collaboration and consensus would mean that Henderson would actually have to compromise on some of the pieces of new school reform movement's platform, and that platform is inherently narrow, ideological, and inflexible. How can someone be collaborative while subscribing to an ideology that is inherently antithetical to the ideals of consensus and compromise? Is Ms. Henderson prepared to give up her ideology or will she continue along the same misinformed and bankrupt path as Rhee, but just be kinder about it? I, for one, am dubious that she'll be more collaborative or that her education reforms will be any less ineffective in transforming DC's public schools.


Rhee is the national face of the new education reformers; evaluation of her leadership is important not just for DC but for the democratic institution of American public education. With their unchecked power and vast amounts of money, the corporate patrons of the new education reformers won't stop at our cities. They are headed to our suburbs, towns, and rural areas. Just recently, Secretary of Education, Race to the Top architect, and general for the new education reform movement Arne Duncan, who is a "big fan" of Rhee's and who does not restrain himself from meddling in the education affairs of local governments, spoke in my state at the uber-conservative Virginia Governor McDonnell's Summit on Education. McDonnell has said that he and Duncan speak often about their shared vision of education. In the District of Columbia and in all fifty states, parents, educators, students, and local leaders must firmly say no to this uninformed, top-down, autocratic, ineffective, and anti-intellectual version of education reform that seeks to undermine and privatize one of our most cherished democratic institutions.




UPDATE: An edited-for-The-Washington-Post-website version of this post appeared in The Answer Sheet on November 2, 2010. Read it here.

I agree with Diane Ravitch!

Wait a minute, did I just say I agreed with Diane Ravitch? When I was in Ed school ten plus years ago, I seem to recall associating her with Reagan education policy initiatives which I associate with eliminating the Department of Education which I associate with a slew of illogical conservative ideas. But maybe this is all getting mixed up together in a ed school associated readings-writings-research blur. The important thing is that I agree with so much of what Diane Ravitch is saying NOW about the current state of public education policy, particularly in this interview with John Merrow.

Obama's education policy ideas continue to disappoint me.

Dan Willingham on You Tube

One of the elements of Obama's education policy that I took issue with in my most recent blog post was tying teacher pay to student performance on standardized tests. I still think this is a bad idea! In that post, I cited University of Virginia cognitive psychologist Dan Willingham's video about the teaching of reading skills at the expense of content area-studies. Well, just recently Dan released a video about the unfairness of tying teacher pay to student test scores. It's worth a look: it's only three minutes and is much more concise than the arguments people like me go on and on making.


Enjoy!