When I moved to D.C., I was surprised at the visceral hatred of Michelle Rhee, the school's chancellor who is expected to announce her resignation today. I heard Rhee speak at an event in New York when she still ran the New Teacher Project, a Teach for America-like program that recruited career-changers to work in urban school districts, and was sold on her expertise and passion. Rhee, of course, is at the forefront of a reform movement that focuses on teacher quality in improving school performance, and her new evaluation system and firing of about 200 teachers is probably why D.C. residents hated her most.
As Dana Goldstein writes today in the Daily Beast, it was Rhee's disdain of collaborating with teachers and getting the community on board with school reforms that helped contribute to her abrasive reputation. But on the merits, Rhee's probably right. There's something odd about the idea that parents who aren't trained in education should have equal input in how their children's schools are run. And that's where the divide between Rhee and everyone else really lies. Rhee viewed her job as a technician would, as a CEO might, someone who is charged with getting results, even if doing so is hard. Others, like Erik Wemple, who wrote about Rhee in TBD today, view teaching as something inherently softer. He highlights, as one of her signature moments, an interview in the Atlantic in which she said to the piece's author that another reporter was stupid. "What a nurturing attitude from the city's top educator -- let's just insult the intelligence of people who aren't around to defend themselves," he wrote.
Except that I'm not sure it was ever Rhee's job to nurture. It was Rhee's job to hire and fire teachers, to ensure the curriculum would teach students, and to revive D.C.'s beleaguered school system. It's hard to tease out how the fact that most of the country's teachers are women, and most of the administrators are men, plays in the reaction against Rhee, but I'd suspect it plays one.
-- Monica Potts
