There’s good news and bad news for those concerned with education in this country.
The good news is that Washington DC Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee resigned. This demagogue, who has become a poster child for so-called education reform, will no longer be able to inflict further grief on the teachers, students, and the citizens of the DC school district.
The bad news is that CBS and the rest of the media have adopted the message that
- Rhee was extremely effective
- The unions forced Rhee out.
Both are lies.
Update: Here is the CBS hatchet job on unions. Obviously objectivity is not a priority at CBS.
Michelle Rhee was a divisive force who was an ineffective administrator. The use of threats and fear seldom work as useful means of motivation. Going to war with one’s employees is not good leadership. If indeed there was antipathy toward Rhee on the part of DC’s teaching staff, then perhaps she should have examined her intentionally adversarial style.
The critics will answer that her "reforms" raised test scores and improved student performance. Again that is very questionable. Last year the test scores in both reading and math actually went down. Link Moreover the gap between African-American students and Asian and white students increased last year. Link We know that statistics can be twisted to suit anyone’s agenda, but that fact is there is no overwhelming evidence that Rhee’s tenure resulted in some type of educational renaissance in DC public schools.
As for the second charge, it wasn’t the union but the voters of Washington DC who voted out Adrian Fenty, Rhee’s patron. Rhee then resigned. It is true that the mayoral election was seen by many as a referendum on Rhee. She campaigned in the predominantly white areas of DC. But the election turned on the black vote and there Fenty lost. From the Washington Post:
Black turnout went up. In Ward 8, with the highest proportion of African Americans, the number of ballots cast rose 27 percent, and 82 percent of them were for Gray. In Precinct 107, in Ward 7's Greenway neighborhood, 148 more voters showed up this year than in 2006 - a 46 percent jump. In the wards Fenty won (1, 2, 3 and 6), there were about 9,400 more votes than in 2006. But in the wards Gray won (4, 5, 7 and 8), turnout rose by more than 6,800. Fenty-friendly areas might be growing fast but not nearly fast enough to help him: There were 7,800 more votes in Gray's wards than in Fenty's. The city might be changing, but one still cannot win by the white vote alone.
Where Fenty lost. The story of this election can be found in the city's largest precinct: Precinct 66, voting at Bertie Backus Middle School in Ward 5, next to the Fort Totten Metro station. It's in the heart of middle-class black Washington; according to 2000 Census figures, the precinct is 96 percent black and the homeownership rate is 75 percent, well above the city average. It's also the only precinct in the city that saw more than 2,000 votes, and 79 percent of them went to Gray. Gray emerged from 66 with a 1,287 vote lead - more than one-tenth of his total victory margin. Backus, incidentally, was among the 23 public schools Fenty closed in 2008.
A Washington Post analysis of Tuesday's primary shows the extent of that disaffection. Fenty won 53 of the city's majority-white census tracts but only 10 of those that are predominantly black. Gray, in contrast, captured 108 majority-black census tracts and just five that are majority-white. Link
CBS and others who wish to blame unions for Rhee’s downfall would have us believe that the voters of DC, specifically the African-American voters, were blindly led by the teacher union. In other words these voters just were not smart enough to think for themselves.
Then there was the accusation that it was union money that made the difference. In fact Fenty outspent his opponent, Vincent Gray by more than a three to one margin. Link.
The voters of Washington DC rejected Adrian Fenty despite his 4.6 million dollar spending spree. They rejected him and his confrontational school chancellor who intentionally employed an adversarial approach, who dismissed community buy-in, and who in the end alienated not only the teachers of DC but the community as well.
Don’t feel too badly for Ms. Rhee. Having resigned as chancellor, she shall make millions of dollars promoting her version of school reform. In fact she and Joel Klien, another so-called reformer whose results do not match the rhetoric, have just issued a manifesto that, of course, blames teacher unions for any and all problems in our nation’s schools.
But for one night I will celebrate the resignation of Michelle Rhee. Now if we can only convince Arne Duncan to do likewise.