DC Digs Fenty/Rhee Reforms

Blogs, Letters & Testimonials

July 21, 2008

Education Reform Now has a new poll out that finds voters in the District of Columbia are thrilled that somebody is finally doing something about the shame of the nation, otherwise known as DCPS. (Disclosure: I am the executive director of ERN.)

Seems Obama is onto something with the whole change/Yes We Can thing.

A lot of action along the Potomac, where some union leaders now are protesting plans to allow Chancellor Michelle Rhee to speak and answer questions about a proposed new teacher contract at rank-and-file discussion sessions. (The accusation is that Rhee and union president George Parker are trying to bypass the union’s elected leadership and appeal more directly to actual teachers.)

The ERN poll shows that a convincing two-thirds of district residents indicated they approved of Mayor Fenty’s work to improve public education since officially taking responsibility for the district’s 65,000-student public school system in June 2007.