(From Education News Colorado, April 17, 2009)
By NANCY MITCHELL
Scores of media reports about Michelle Rhee since she took over the Washington, D.C., school district less than two years ago have focused on some startling statistics. Since June 2007, she had done the following:
- Closed 23 schools and restructured 26 more
- Fired 131 central-office employees
- Dismissed 270 teachers and 500 teachers’ aides
- Replaced 61 principals and assistant principals
But in speeches in Denver and Arvada on Thursday, Rhee focused on a different set of numbers, perhaps as shocking, to explain why a 37-year-old Teach for America alum with no experience running a school district believed it necessary to move so fast.
“I want to start by giving you some data to really show you how severe the crisis is within our public schools,” Rhee told an audience of career and technical educators at noon, ticking down a list:
- The achievement gap between white and black high school students in the D.C. public schools is 70 percentage points in some subjects.
- Only 9 percent of D.C. ninth-graders are likely to go on to college and graduate within five years.
- Of D.C.’s current eighth-graders, only 8 percent are on grade level in math and 12 percent in reading.
“Potentially the most disheartening data I’ve recently heard is about our little ones,” she said.
Children entering kindergarten in D.C. tend to be on par with other kindergarteners in urban areas such as L.A., Philadelphia and Atlanta. But, Rhee said, “the longer they stay in our district, the worse off they are.”
“By the time they’re in the fourth grade, the poor black fourth-graders in New York City are two grade levels ahead of the poor black fourth-graders in Washington, D.C.,” she said.
“The last time I checked, the poverty in Harlem did not look all that different from the poverty in Anacostia,” a downtrodden neighborhood southeast of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
“That gives you a sense of just how incredibly dire the situation is,” she said at her evening talk to an audience that included Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien, Senate President Peter Groff, House Speaker Terrance Carroll and, from the other side of the political aisle, Sen. Nancy Nancy Spence, R-Centennial.
Rhee’s dramatic actions have landed her on the cover of Time magazine and won her some powerful critics, including Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers.
This week, Rhee and Weingarten announced the dean of the Howard Law School has agreed to mediate talks between the district and the union over what may be Rhee’s most controversial proposal – hiking teacher salaries for those willing to give up tenure.
The system is two-tiered – teachers choosing the “green” tier could earn up to $131,000 a year as long as they’re willing to give up tenure for a year. Those choosing the “red” tier would keep their tenure and would still get raises, 28 percent over five years, but not as high as green teachers.
In Denver on Thursday, Rhee wryly joked she thought the proposal would make her “the hero” of D.C. teachers. Instead, it went over like a lead balloon.
“Why? Because what we said was, in order to go on green, you had to give up your tenure. And that’s where everything just sort of hit the fan,” she said. “For going on 17 months now, we have been trying to negotiate this contract … What it boils down to is the fact that what is stopping our teachers from being the most highly compensated urban educators in this country is tenure – something that has absolutely no educational value for children,” she added, sparking applause.
Rhee was the latest in a series of speakers sponsored by Democrats for Education Reform of Colorado. The group tends to favor non-traditional educators and Democrats willing to part ways – at least some ways – with their traditional allies, the teachers’ unions.
While Rhee’s union comments played to the audience and she frequently drew laughter, she also was serious. She recalled getting school reform advice from billionaire Warren Buffett.
He told her, “All you need to do is make private schools illegal and assign every child to a public school by random lottery,” she said.
Imagine if that happened, Rhee said, if the children of every CEO, ambassador, congressman and the president had to enroll by lottery in D.C. schools. Imagine the resources that would follow those children to the schools in, say, Anacostia, if they had to attend them.
Yes, the system would improve, she said. But whether or not it’s possible to improve the education of D.C.’s children is not really the question.
“The question in my mind is not, is it possible to ensure that every child gets an excellent education? That’s a moot point, right? It is possible,” Rhee said. “The more relevant question is, do we as the adults in the community and in this country have the fortitude it would take to make the incredibly difficult decisions that are necessary to make that a reality for every single child growing up in the nation’s capitol?
“And the answer to that question, quite frankly, to date has been no.”