Submitted by Sarah Cooke on Sun, Jan 11, 2009 - 02:06 pm
Children are our future, but we are failing miserably to prepare them. US 15-year-olds ranked well below the global average score on latest math and science literacy tests. Dozens of countries that we don’t normally think of as education powerhouse, such as Macao, Iceland, Slovenia, and Liechtenstein, scored well above average. If you’ve been following education trends in the US, this should not be a surprise.
A new, more radical experiment is happening in Washington DC. Chancellor, Michelle Rhee, is taking a drastically different approach to public education in this district with traditionally dismal statistics:
· In 2007, the district was ranked last among 11 urban school systems in math and second-to-last in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
· 43% of students entering 9th grade in DC public school district graduate within 5 years
· Current size of the student body is less than half what it was in 1960; a majority of losses due to the introduction of Charter Schools in the late 1990’s. Remaining students are 80% black and overwhelmingly poor.
Having embarked on a task that is both political and educational, Rhee is unequivocal about her opinions and makes no excuses. Here is a summary of some of these controversial issues:
Primacy of teachers: Rhee dismisses the impact that poverty, hunger, and violence outside of school may have on academic performance and insists that teachers must take full responsibility for their students’ academic success. The opponent’s view of this position is that Rhee is negating the value of community in children’s education – an extremely popular focus in education reform.
Instead of more parental and community involvement, Rhee calls for better teachers and wants to work through Teach for America and other alternative programs to find them. This bypasses the traditional political structure of learning institutions that educate, certify, and manage the careers of teachers (universities, state boards, and unions).
Merit Pay: Voraciously opposed by teachers unions, merit pay scales a teacher’s salary based on student achievement. For those that perform, this means salaries of over $100k, in comparison with the national average of $47k. Opponents argue that merit pay will bring disrupt faculty solidarity and does not account for non-quantifiable aspects of learning.
Rhee has proposed an optional enrollment for DC teachers with a planned phase out of tenure-based salary. This is an ongoing negotiation.
Measuring Performance: The underlying question is what makes a good teacher? For Rhee and her followers, the answer is data. Lots of data. Her stance on this issue is highly influenced by her time with Teach for America, which has focused on quantifying teachers’ effectiveness against in-house and state achievement levels.
Leadership: Rhee resisted taking this job for some time due to her self-view as a change-agent and DC a graveyard for careers like hers. To maintain momentum, Rhee operates as a decider, not a negotiator or a politician. In a world where parents are also voters, this causes plenty of heartburn for her boss, an elected official.
During her first year, Rhee asserted her role as decision-maker by dismissing 24 principals, 22 assistant principals, 250 teachers, and 500 teaching aides. She also announced plans to close 23 under-used schools and restructure 26 other schools (together 1/3 of the entire DC school system).
She defends her actions as being what's best for the students in contrast to past management that took too much account for the feelings and wants of adults.
We will have to wait to see whether Rhee can deliver results in this troubled district and whether it will become a model for other US cities. Her results will also inform us on whether politics and education are challenges that can be tackled separately or are too tightly interwoven, as well as whether an outsider, inexperienced with the daily challenges of urban city life, can carry out reforms in such a community. With all this in the riding in the balance, you can bet I'll be staying tuned....
ABOUT RHEE
Michelle Rhee is connected and on-message 24-7. At just 38, she has become one of the most controversial figures in American public education. She embraces non-traditional reforms and eschews the traditional education controls such as unions, PTAs, and institutions that provide teaching certification.
· Mother of two and excellent at relating to children of all ages. A bit challenged in finding the same connection with adults, as evident in her controversial handling of decisions resulting in outcries of racism, classism – all avoidable with greater communication.
· Former elementary school teacher with a master’s from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
· Launched the Teacher Project for Teach for America that contracts with school districts to find and train career professionals for transition into education roles. This program now contributes up to 30% of all new teachers hired annually in the 25 US districts where it operates.
DISTRICT HISTORY
It is theorized that there are several large social contributors to the change in quality of education in Washington DC, which once a center for black intellectual and cultural life when laws and residential segregation limited options for middle-class black families.
· In the 1950’s and 1960’s, as a result of the civil-rights movement, barriers eroded and black intellectuals began to seek better opportunities in professions outside of education.
· 1968 Fair Housing Act enabled movement away from the urban core and into suburbs for middle-class and wealthy black families.
‘White Flight’ out of urban core to the suburbs, which had largely run its course by the 1960’s, combined with ‘Black Flight’ in late 1960s to early 1970s left behind socially isolated and desperately poor families. In late 1970s, civil-rights leader cum Mayor Marion Barry sought to establish the school as a place where urban blacks could find better jobs with higher salaries. The lack of focus on students was an additional detriment to the system over the following decades.
Sources:
The Atlantic, “The Lightening Rod” by Clay Risen, November 2008
National Center for Educational Statistics, "Highlights from PISA 2006: Performance of U.S. 15-Year-Old Students in Science and Mathematics Literacy in an International Context", December 2007
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Regional Education Networking Event (carpool!)
If you are involved in or passionate about education, please consider joining Net Impact, The Broad Residency, Education Pioneers, Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), and Project GRAD in Houston for a networking event on Jan 22nd. This is one event of several being held in cities across the nation to connect business professionals with education organizations.
You can find more information about the event posted on the Events page of this website.
I plan on driving to Houston to attend. Please contact me if you would like to carpool (please note: I am likely to travel earlier so that I can cover several meetings during this trip but you could go to a museum or otherwise enjoy Houston during the downtime.)