(From The Denver Post, April 17, 2009)
By JEREMY P. MEYER
Michelle Rhee, a national firebrand for education reform, urged Colorado educators and lawmakers Thursday night to continue their efforts to change the state of education.
Rhee — chancellor of Washington, D.C., schools who closed 23 schools in her first year, fired 36 principals and proposed paying more money to good teachers and firing the bad ones — spoke at a meeting of the Democrats for Education Reform in the auditorium of the Denver Newspaper Agency building.
The standing-room-only crowd included Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien, state Senate President Peter Groff and U.S. Rep. Jared Polis.
“We have public schools so that every kid can have an equal shot in life,” Rhee said. “That is not the reality for children in Washington, D.C., today or many children in urban cities today. That is the biggest social injustice imaginable.”
Rhee said radical changes are necessary. “Unless we do something massive about this right now, unless we are willing to turn the system on its head . . . then all of the ideals of this country are actually hollow,” she said.
Public schools in the nation’s capital have some of the worst learning rates in the country — 12 percent of eighth-graders read at grade level and 8 percent are proficient at math. The gap between white and black students in test scores is 70 percentage points, she noted.
To get better teachers into the classroom, Rhee proposed a radical compensation plan that pays teachers as much as $135,000 a year, but they would have to give up their seniority and tenure rights.
The proposal to fire underperforming teachers and pay more to high-performing teachers vaulted Rhee into the national spotlight, landing her on the cover of Time magazine. She has been adored by reformers but vilified by many teacher union members.
“What is stopping our teachers from being the most fabulously compensated in the country is tenure — something that has no educational value for children,” Rhee said Thursday night to applause.
Kim Ursetta, president of the Denver Classroom Teacher’s Association, attended and said she liked Rhee’s call for more teacher training but not her pay plan.
“You need to work with the teachers union in order for it to be effective,” Ursetta said.
Groff, who was recently appointed to a position in the U.S. Department of Education, said he has appreciated Rhee’s reform efforts.
“It’s good to see someone doing what we are talking about in the legislature,” he said. “She is doing the heavy lifting. And it’s always good to hear someone come and say, ‘You guys are on the right track.’ ”
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com