D.C. School Reform: The Backlash

Marc Fisher at The Washington Post writes:

But there’s been a change in the atmosphere, as teachers, school activists and some D.C. Council members and parents are grumbling more and more loudly about Rhee’s bull-in-a-china-shop manner and her continued badmouthing of the schools under her charge.

The District’s schools, Rhee says, are doing “an abysmal job,” and any fair look at students’ test scores renders that a simple statement of fact. But new questions are being asked about whether Rhee’s reforms–closing underpopulated schools, fixing up decrepit buildings, sweeping out underperforming principals, and hiring legions of energetic, if inexperienced young teachers–are really making a difference in the classroom.

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FOXES IN THE CHICKEN COOP: MICHELLE RHEE

UnderNews writes:

One of the worst ideas floating around Washington is to give some high federal position to Michelle Rhee, DC school chancellor. Rhee, who has accomplished little of substance, is the media protected product of an area business community that would like to undermine public education as much as possible. Hence DC has an exceptional number of effectively unmonitored charter schools and Rhee is going after teacher tenure – not to mention teachers themselves – like a Blackwater mercenary dealing with Iraqis.

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