Let us now praise undiplomatic women.
Two cases in point: Michele Rhee, Washington, D.C.’s blunt public schools Chancellor and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Yesterday, Rhee told a gathering of CEOs that the District suffers from a “complete and utter lack of accountability in this system.” That’s likely to intensify the flak she’s already taking from the teachers’ union, which is apoplectic about her decision to lay off 250 subpar teachers, and from the City Council, which sees her as insufficiently deferential on matters of school reform.
But Rhee was unapologetic. “Collaboration and consensus-building are quite frankly overrated in my mind,” she told the executives. “None of you CEOs run your companies by committee, so why should we run a school district by committee?”
It’s a good question, though such characteristic bluntness probably won’t lengthen her tenure as chancellor. Rhee is adamant about putting the needs of Washington’s public school children, who are overwhelmingly poor and minority, above the interests of adults in the District’s political-educational complex who resist fundamental changes in a system that’s manifestly failing.
On measures of student performance, the District ranks 51st among the states and near the bottom of nation’s biggest metropolitan regions. In weeding out teachers on the basis of job performance rather than seniority, Rhee has hit a very sensitive nerve. She’s saying, in effect, that public education in the District isn’t a jobs program for city residents. Let’s hope she goes on making waves.
Here’s Rhee at yesterday’s event:
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton created a flap in Pakistan recently when she had the temerity to note that Osama bin Laden and his top al Qaeda henchmen have been living in that country since 2002.
The Pakistani press, ever alert for signs of U.S. encroachment on that nation’s sovereignty, went ballistic. Foreign policy mandarins sagely opined that the U.S. secretary of state had committed a clear breach of diplomatic protocol by embarrassing her hosts.
Well, they should be embarrassed. The presence of America’s terrorist enemies in Pakistan should be a besetting sore point in U.S.-Pakistani relations. It signifies either governmental incompetence or, worse, collusion. And with the Pakistani Army now clearing Taliban havens in South Waziristan, which it formerly regarded as no-go territory, the question of why the nation’s intelligence and security forces can’t locate our enemies only grows more insistent.
Pakistani officials reportedly are pushing back hard on U.S. suggestions that they go into North Waziristan next. It’s the home base for the notoriously thuggish Haqqani network, which is responsible for a wave of kidnapping and terrorist attacks in neighboring Afghanistan.
All this suggests that Pakistan, set to receive about $7 billion in U.S. aid, remains a strangely reluctant partner in the struggle against extremists who threaten Pakistan, Afghanistan and the U.S.
The White House reportedly is upset with Clinton for her occasional outbursts of candor. Let’s hope they don’t fit the muzzle too tightly.
Tags: Al Qaeda, Education, Pakistan, State Department
It’s frustrating to me that so many people think the answer to poorly performing students is throwing more money at them, or even making the teachers responsible. I’m all for expecting teachers to teach, believe me, and I’m frustrated by what I regard as many teachers’ demands to be treated as professionals, but paid like union workers, for every single darn thing they do. All that aside — maybe it’s the education itself that is at least partially at fault? Maybe our curriculum stinks. Maybe if we engage students, instead of boring them to death, they’d learn more. “Lives of Passion, School of Hope,” which is about a progressive PUBLIC school in Colorado, refutes the idea of teaching to the test. It looks at the adults who graduated from the school, and what they have to say about how the school prepared them for life. Kids deserve more from their schools — they need the guidance and nurturing of a personalized curriculum. This book shows that schools CAN help build character, and pay attention to their students. Oh — and they can turn out successful adults, too.
to lay off 250 subpar teachers,
According to Mrs. Rhee, that’s not true:
“”I hope to be clear to any who are making assumptions about teachers who lost their jobs, that this approach does not mean that all DCPS former staff were poor educators. ”
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dc/2009/10/rhee_not_all_laid_off_teachers.html
There was a National Board Certified certified teacher, just honoured last Feb with Mrs. Rhee at her side, who was let go.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dc/2009/10/honored_in_february_sacked_in.html
Will, this statement made a DCPS principal about Mrs. Rhee seems to fit you:
“As they see it, Rhee is all show, has already made all the decisions, and sharing feedback with her is pretty pointless,” the principal said. “My teachers basically said it was too little too late. They don’t ever see her regaining their trust.”
The school leader said her instructors, “especially the experienced ones, see this new regime as a type of cult of the true believers. Don’t question what they do since they have all the answers.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/27/AR2009102702108_2.html
http://educationnext.org/files/ednext_20101_28_openimage.gif
Mr. Will – please make a correction in your article about the quality of the teachers RIF’d be Michelle Rhee based on the referenced quote PhilipMarlowe provided. It’s important for writers to be accurate and not pass on false information. With the internet, it’s very easy to check the facts, and if writers don’t do it, commenters like PhilipMarlowe will be right behind you with links to the accurate information.
Recently three journalists made corrections about incorrect data on DC Public schools that they published: Specifically, they are John Merrow of PBS http://learningmatters.tv/blog/on-the-newshour/michelle-rhee-in-dc-episode-10-testing-michelle-rhee/2476/comment-page-1/#comment-322 , Jay Mathews of the Washington Post http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2009/10/one_of_the_struggles_most.html and Michael Petrilli of Education Next and the Fordham Foundation http://educationnext.org/the-one-winner-in-todays-naep-release-michelle-rhee/.
Merrow and Mathews published inaccurate data on Shaw Middle school, saying their scores had stayed the same, when official, publicly available data states that Shaw’s scores had decreased. Petrilli initially gave Rhee credit for the rising math scores on the NAEP “Nation’s Report Card,” but then acknowledged that a comment of mine made “a fair point about the achievement increases preceding Michelle Rhee’s time in DC. He also amended his article to include a link to the NAEP site.
Also, please check out thatsrightnate blog and read his recent four part series satirizing Rhee. It is filled with facts and good commentary. http://thatsrightnate.com/2009/10/21/michelle-rhee-and-the-washington-education-miracle-part-i/#comment-6239 In part IV he drops the satire, because, as he says, “some things are quite difficult to joke about–the future of our children is one of them.”
Mr. Marshall, please reconsider your determination that Michelle Rhee is an example of “candor we can believe in” after reviewing these conflicting statements she’s made on various issues. I understand that you may not have been aware of these contradictions, made in her own words, because most of the media is so enraptured with Ms. Rhee that reporters don’t cross-check and instead repeat each others’ praise for her. However, I hope that now that you’re presented with referenced evidence, you will change your position.
ON TENURE
11/13/08, “If we can put veteran teachers who have tenure in a position where they don’t have it, that would help us to radically increase our teacher quality. And maybe other districts would try it, too.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/education/13tenure.html?em
5/7/09: “I don’t have any interest in making people give up their tenure….”
http://www.politicsdaily.com/search/?q=rhee
ON THE QUALITY OF DC EDUCATION
3/13/09, In her Letter to DC Teachers: “You are the agents of social justice in our nation’s capital. You’re far more powerful than the Senators and Congressmen who work just blocks away from our schools. By pushing forward in the face of daunting challenges, you are providing the one thing that will give our children the opportunities they all deserve: an excellent education.” http://www.k12.dc.us/chancellor/documents/Letter-from-Chancellor-Rhee-March-13-2009.pdf
Four months earlier, 12/8/08: “We’re in Washington, D.C., in the nation’s capital, and yet the children of this city receive an education that every single citizen in this country should be embarrassed by.” http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1862444,00.html
RHEE VS OBAMA – APPROACH TO ED REFORM
- Rhee, 3/22/09: “If we come to an impasse, we’re going to move forward with our reforms anyway,” Ms. Rhee said. “Then it potentially gets uglier.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/opinion/22kristof.html?_r=1
- Obama, 3/26/09: “…if we don’t have teacher buy-in, if they’re not enthusiastic about the reforms that we’re initiating, then, ultimately, they’re not going to work. So we’ve got to have teacher participation in developing these approaches.” http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Open-for-Questions-Town-Hall/
- Rhee, 5/7/09: “And he [the President] actually doesn’t say anything different from what I say, which is support people, reward people who are doing a great job, and if you’re not and we can’t get you there, then you have to go.” http://www.politicsdaily.com/search/?q=rhee
ON TEACHER RESPONSIBILITY
- 2/9/09: “I do not blame teachers for the low achievement levels.” WaPo Op-ed
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/08/AR2009020801711.html
- 10/29/08 Five Year Plan: “too many of our teachers are not up to the demanding job of educating our youth effectively. We therefore plan to identify and transition out a significant share of the teaching corps in the next two years.” DCPS_Five-Year-Plan_Draft_Oct_29_2008.pdf page 26
- 2/9/09: “Those who categorically blame teachers for the failures of our system are simply wrong.” (WaPo Op-ed) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/08/AR2009020801711.html
- 11/08: “As a teacher in this system, you have to be willing to take personal responsibility for ensuring your children are successful despite obstacles…You can’t say, ‘My students didn’t get any breakfast today,’ or ‘No one put them to bed last night,’ or ‘Their electricity got cut off in the house, so they couldn’t do their homework.” (The Atlantic) http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/michelle-rhee
RHEE ON HONESTY
5/5/09, “I am very frank, very blunt. It’s important to be honest with people about the situation we’re in.” (Politics Daily)
9/22/09 “I’m not somebody who’s about spin, right? I’m a very blunt person, very frank, very tell-it-like-it-is.” [Interview with steve Perlstein, WaPo, in conjunction with the Marc Fisher feature] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2009/09/22/VI2009092202238.html?hpid=topnews
Thanks all for your comments. Rhee has said that the decision to lay off teachers was based in part on “quality” rather than seniority. Mayor Fenty also has said performance was a factor in determining who was laid off. So I’m not inclined to change my characterization, since the folks who did the firing say performance was taken into account. The burden of my short post was not to assess Rhee’s consistency, but to say that we need to be candid about the problems in D.C.’s traditional public schools. There’s just too much at stake — the educational prospects of 45,000 D.C. school kids — to paper over harsh realities.
Really, “performance was taken into account” is quite different from the claim of “250 subpar teachers” which Rhee herself said was not the case. Granted, that was after she implied broadly (without saying it) that she was ridding the system of bad teachers. Creating this kind of confusion and misunderstanding is her greatest skill – and I wouldn’t call it candor.
But I guess you have a point about consistency and candor not being the same thing. Really, candor and honesty are also not always the same thing. So maybe your subtext was that bluntness is good, even if the content isn’t honest? You did say, “Let’s hope she goes on making waves” so I’m assuming you are in favor of her continuing her current style, despite the many examples I gave of her inconsistencies. Please let me know if I have that wrong, because I don’t want to mischaracterize your opinion of her when I quote you in other blogs. I figure I don’t have Michelle Rhee’s flair, so the only way to fight her and her supporters is with facts.
We definitely agree on one thing: “There’s just too much at stake…to paper over harsh realities.” That’s why I’m doing everything I can to present the harsh realities of Michelle Rhee disastrous reign over DCPS so that people without sound knowledge will think twice before they praise her. Thus her demise will come faster and the rebuilding can start.
Will,
Before you defend Rhee anymore I think you ought to check out this:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-americorps20-2009nov20,0,41659,print.story
I believe it was a member of the Nixon administration who uttered the statement: Watch what we do, not what we say.
And when one does that with Mrs. Rhee, she does not look good.
She started her career on a myth, while at Harlem PArk ES, a privately run public school in Baltimore City, that during her 2nd and 3rd years of teaching, she took the same group of students from the 13th percentile in gr.2 to 90% of them scoring at the 90th percentile at the end of 3rd grade.
A miracle, no doubt.
But not one that is retold to the Teachers For America trainees. No, if Michelle could do it, so can you.
On the same resume, Mrs., Rhee claimed that she was written up in the Hartford Courant, the Wall Street Journal and featured on the Home Show.
No one has found these treasured clippings.
http://www.dcpswatch.com/mayor/070312b.htm
As the principal said:
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh121908.shtml
Yesterday, Rhee told a gathering of CEOs that the District suffers from a “complete and utter lack of accountability in this system.”
You should read the Washington Post’s stories about her since early September. It’s Rhee who is not being held accountable.
Michelle Rhee, DCPS, and Mayor Fenty are found by the courts to be correct and the WTU (Teachers’ Union) “failed to provide any evidence” to support their allegations of illegal firings that were in fact do to the Council’s cut to the DCPS budget. And, I quote Judge Bartnoff’s opinon: “At most, the plaintiff showed that a large number of teachers were hired in the spring and summer of 2009, which DCPS does not dispute. But the plaintiff presented no evidence to refute the evidence presented by DCPS that its budget included those new teachers at the time they were hired, as well as the returning teachers, that DCPS was planning for the new school year based on the budget that was passed in early June and its budget agreement with the Council Chairman, and that the RIF was instituted in response to the $21 million budget reduction enacted by the City Council on July 31.”
[...] Rhee is adamant about putting the needs of Washington’s public school children, who are overwhelmingly poor and minority, above the interests of adults in the District’s political-educational complex who resist fundamental changes in a system that’s manifestly failing. Read more… [...]
If Rhee were so candid, you would think she’d mention the low grades her schools system got from the Center for American Progress.
http://images2.americanprogress.org/CAP/2009/11/leaders_laggards/state_report_cards/district-of-columbia-report-card.pdf
School Management D
Finance C
Staffing: Hiring & Evaluation B
Staffing: Removing Ineffective Teachers F
Data F
Pipeline to Postsecondary No grade
Technology D
State Reform Environment ?
Read it – she’s especially bad in providing data – without which, it’s hard to be candid.
Rhee is NOT candid about data.
In all Michelle Rhee’s crowing about DC’s improved NAEP math scores, she left out the fact that if you don’t count 4th grade white kids (who have the highest scores in the nation) then the gains are only 3 points instead of 8 points. She didn’t mention that 8th scores are flat (not enough white kids in the system in 8th grade to count) She also left out that the achievement gap has widened on her watch.
This information is available to anyone who reads the official report. It’s also laid out in a recent Washington Post article http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/12/AR2009121201276.html and additional details are available on this blog, written by a retired DCPS math teacher http://gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com/
Now I don’t blame Rhee for these disappointing scores, but I do definitely blame her for actively misleading the public about her success. And I blame journalists for telegraphing the story because they’ve simply decided, without ever personally checking the data, that Rhee is data-driven and candid.
Please don’t ever do it again – there’s too much at stake.
Slander We Can Believe In?
Rhee is now saying DC teachers RIFd in October hit and had sex with children. She said this in an interview with Jeff Chu of Fast Company magazine, who originally wrote very favorably about Rhee in a July’08 profile in the same magazine. http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/128/the-iron-chancellor.html
Her latest justification for the RIF is in the Feb 1 2010 print edition and is online now:
“I got rid of teachers who had hit children, who had had sex with children, who had missed 78 days of school, Rhee says.”Why wouldn’t we take those things into consideration?”
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/142/update-dc-report-card.html
There’s also a Washington Post article about it that came out Friday. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/22/AR2010012204543.html
Please check out some of the nearly 300 readers’ comments to get a feel for local opinions about Rhee and to get access to referenced, factual information.
So far, Rhee isn’t talking. Nor is the police department as they look for reports on child abuse and molestation that school officials are required by law to submit. The US attorney’s office is involved.
Please stay tuned and if the facts that come out affect your stated opinion about Rhee, please report that here. The stakes are too high not to get this right.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcschools/2010/01/sex_with_students.html#comments