Does Rhee deserve credit

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:for the scores increases in her first year? She has referred to this a few times in some recent interviews. Since this is only her second school year, wouldn't the score increases be due to what was in place before she took charge? If not, what do you think she did her first year that led to this increase?

Given the number of her media appearances, interviews, out-of-town engagements, etc., how would Rhee even have time to do anything related to test scores?

I thought that it was interesting that when the Obamas visited Captial City Public Charter School, neither Rhee nor Fenty joined them. Obama stated that Cap. City was the "an example of how all our schools should be". The Rhee/Fenty response was to submit a budget proposal that cut the capital budget of schools like Capital City. That, along with Rhee's hints of being a McCain supporter, are examples of how in touch she is with the school system she leads.

My memory is that she didn't suggest she was a McCain supporter -- she simply said she was concerned about Obama's lukewarm support for continuing NCLB, in which she's a big believer. I believe she also said that McCain's positions didn't match with hers, either. My sense was that, on the issue of education, neither one of them lit her fire.

I don't necessarily agree with her and was/am a rabid Obama supporter, but I found her position consistent and principled. She has always been vocal about thinking the standards put in place by NCLB are necessary to ensure that low-achieving schools in urban districts improve, so it should be no surprise that she would be concerned about the potential lapse of that legislation.

I also think it's a little strange to judge how "in touch" the chancellor is with the schools she serves based on her political beliefs (which she actually went to lengths not to reveal).

I think there are plenty of things to criticize Rhee on -- her tone-deaf, hammering approach being one of them -- and I'm certainly not ready to give her credit for improvement in scores. But I think the idea that she wasn't sufficiently pro-Obama to be specious and irrelevant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This would be much more meaningful if "autonomy" were defined. Given that she & the Mayor would like to reign in charter school autonomy (and charters are outperforming DCPS) I don't think I'd put a lot of weight on her vague promises of "autonomy" unless and until there's something more concrete - IN WRITING.

Yes, I worked at a school where the saving grace would have been semi-independent autonomy. Did not materialize -- now going fast down the drain. I think public schools should push for this. It is a place where eventually, charters and publics might meet and perhaps morph into something new and good.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
I don't necessarily agree with her and was/am a rabid Obama supporter, but I found her position consistent and principled. She has always been vocal about thinking the standards put in place by NCLB are necessary to ensure that low-achieving schools in urban districts improve, so it should be no surprise that she would be concerned about the potential lapse of that legislation.

Far from being consistent and principled, Rhee's endorsement of McCain's education plan over Obama's was nonsensical, especially where NCLB is concerned. First of all, Obama's position was (and I imagine still is) in favor of strengthening NCLB. After all, one of his most important supporters was Ted Kennedy who was the primary Democratic sponsor of NCLB. Moreover, Obama had a history of prior involvement in urban education reform. Remember the entire William Ayers/Chicago Annenberg Challenge controversy?

Rhee's preference for McCain was actually related to the candidates' positions regarding unions. Rhee preferred the anti-union candidate.

But, where this is a sign of Rhee's being out of touch with the school system is in her not recognizing the intangible benefits that would result from the election of America's first black president. Not only is Obama an incredible source of inspiration for a great number of the District's students, both he and Michelle (Obama) have been personally active in several of the District's schools. Someone more in touch with the schools would have realized that this type of support is far more important from a president than a mutual interest in union busting.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I don't necessarily agree with her and was/am a rabid Obama supporter, but I found her position consistent and principled. She has always been vocal about thinking the standards put in place by NCLB are necessary to ensure that low-achieving schools in urban districts improve, so it should be no surprise that she would be concerned about the potential lapse of that legislation.

Far from being consistent and principled, Rhee's endorsement of McCain's education plan over Obama's was nonsensical, especially where NCLB is concerned. First of all, Obama's position was (and I imagine still is) in favor of strengthening NCLB. After all, one of his most important supporters was Ted Kennedy who was the primary Democratic sponsor of NCLB. Moreover, Obama had a history of prior involvement in urban education reform. Remember the entire William Ayers/Chicago Annenberg Challenge controversy?

Rhee's preference for McCain was actually related to the candidates' positions regarding unions. Rhee preferred the anti-union candidate.

But, where this is a sign of Rhee's being out of touch with the school system is in her not recognizing the intangible benefits that would result from the election of America's first black president. Not only is Obama an incredible source of inspiration for a great number of the District's students, both he and Michelle (Obama) have been personally active in several of the District's schools. Someone more in touch with the schools would have realized that this type of support is far more important from a president than a mutual interest in union busting.

Sorry, but I've got to agree with the PP above. I find the "intangible benefits" accruing to the candidate's race to be if not irrelevant, then at least subjective and immaterial with respect to concrete, measurable, objective education reform. If union-busting is what it takes then I'm in favor of union-busting. If charter schools are what it takes then I'm in favor of charters.

I initially loved Rhee, particularly for her willingness to make some of the right enemies, however the feeling is no longer there. Regardless, I am not interested in her politics - only results.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:for the scores increases in her first year? She has referred to this a few times in some recent interviews. Since this is only her second school year, wouldn't the score increases be due to what was in place before she took charge? If not, what do you think she did her first year that led to this increase?

The new tests were introduced the year before Rhee. Statistically, in the second year of testing, and 'teaching to' that test (whatever that means) there is a 'bump' as children become more familiar with the new test. The real test of Rhee will be not high scores, but sustained progress across the board for all students across subsequent years (her promised endgame to all her "reforms"). I.e. Does Billy move from a below basic to a basic in one year, and a basic to proficient the next?

I wonder if that will happen; a lot of Rhee's splashy, sexy moves that have made front page press have had all sorts of undermining, unintended consequences that have not even made the back pages. Additionally, there is a sort of mediocritizing force behind her reforms that as an educator I find disquieting. Case in point, there are a few absolutely flourishing public schools in DC from long before Rhee. Does she give them semi-independent status? Does she encourage their innovation and excellence by using them as models? No--she subjects them to the uniform, rigid mandates from downtown-often at crosspurposes to the winning programs they have set up. One size fits all does not work. Mission driven schools that actually have some built in flexibility in their programs to better serve the actual children who walk in the their doors do.

--teacher

I really think this comment is unfair. At our "great" NW public school, the "mandates" that came down were to teach the curriculum. The whole process of choosing higher standards and instituting a new higher standard test is useless if the teachers aren't teaching the curriculum in class. In our school teachers taught what they wanted to and left out what they didn't like which meant that kids missed out on a lot of basics and at times entire subjects (like social studies and science). I saw many kids floundering at our school and many others entirely bored and unchallenged, with the teacher just floating along and doing as she pleased and not paying attention to any assessment results to tailor instruction to kids needs. Rhee has asked teachers to focus on student assessment and write individual IEP-like plans for each child's educational needs -- which is great, if she can get those (obstructionist) teachers to actually carry it out. Rhee has encouraged schools that work to continue what they're doing or try to replicate it elsewhere -- for example, the excellent principal at Janney was encouraged to move to another lower performing in NE. Frankly, the outrageous problem is that there are only a handful of schools in the entire city that have the kind of performance one would want to replicate! They were doing fine under the ancien regime and there's no indication they're not flourishing under the Rhee regime.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This would be much more meaningful if "autonomy" were defined. Given that she & the Mayor would like to reign in charter school autonomy (and charters are outperforming DCPS) I don't think I'd put a lot of weight on her vague promises of "autonomy" unless and until there's something more concrete - IN WRITING.

Can you provide some data on charter school outperforming DCPS? When I considered charter schools for my kids, I remember checking test scores and being surprised at how abysmal they were, far lower than our DCPS home school. Overall, even if true, I'd say that something more than zero can still be pretty crappy.

[Anonymous]

I can't imagine Rhee mandating teachers to teach the curriculm when DCPS doesn't have one - we have standards and teachers are free to do what they want as long as those standards are met. I think the PP was talking about ridiculous mandates that come from downtown that don't make any sense, like:
You must state the standard verbatim. (Okay kids, today we are going to learn standard K.LT - U.1 Make predictions about characters and setting).
You must post the standard verbatim.
You must unwrap the standard.
And in my "great" DCPS, the most ridiculous was the "Countdown to the DCCAS" where we were expected to do test prep for 4 hours a day! (And we were called out on it when they found us not following their schedule).
Oh, I hope this autonomy thing pans out.......

[Anonymous]

12:43 I thought there was a mix of required texts and selective texts as far as a curriculum goes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This would be much more meaningful if "autonomy" were defined. Given that she & the Mayor would like to reign in charter school autonomy (and charters are outperforming DCPS) I don't think I'd put a lot of weight on her vague promises of "autonomy" unless and until there's something more concrete - IN WRITING.

Can you provide some data on charter school outperforming DCPS? When I considered charter schools for my kids, I remember checking test scores and being surprised at how abysmal they were, far lower than our DCPS home school. Overall, even if true, I'd say that something more than zero can still be pretty crappy.

Yes, the Washington Post did an investigative report on this in the fall. Bear in mind that most charter schools educate children that come from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, so the Post writers tried to filter out privileged students that inflate the schools like Lafayette and Janney and Murch and make a true "apples to apples" comparison. Once you break down the demographics, they found that the charter schools were doing a significantly better job at educating these disadvantaged students than traditional DCPS schools are.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2008/12/15/GR2008121500614.html?sid=ST2008121302293&s_pos=list

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/12/13/ST2008121302293.html?sid=ST2008121302293

Now, charter schools have historically served lower-income students and populations that traditional school systems tended to overlook as "uneducatable" (in the sense that their home lives were so chaotic and education values so poor that it wasn't the teacher's or school's fault that the child wasn't learning). Because of their success with these challenging students, a second crop of charter schools has started to appear and these schools are targeting the middle and upper-middle class families with tempting offerings that traditional schools don't provide (year round school, classical curriculum, French, Spanish, and even Chinese immersion). Some people would say that it is this next round of charters that really scares Rhee. Schools like E.L. Haynes, Washington Latin, and Washington Yu Ying are offering choices which don't even really compete against DCPS, but rather against Montgomery County. Many of those students would go private or move to Maryland.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I initially loved Rhee, particularly for her willingness to make some of the right enemies, however the feeling is no longer there. Regardless, I am not interested in her politics - only results.

Glad to hear this. My take is that much of her original popularity was attributable to the fact that she was willing to make enemies. But that seems to be all she's done (aside from a lot of PR). I'm amazed at how unselfcritical the Fenty administration is. So many of them treat widespread criticism of their policies as a kind of badge of honor (I must be doing something right if I piss so many people off) when, in fact, they're usually folks who are long on ideology and short on experience and not paying much attention to what works in practice.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I don't necessarily agree with her and was/am a rabid Obama supporter, but I found her position consistent and principled. She has always been vocal about thinking the standards put in place by NCLB are necessary to ensure that low-achieving schools in urban districts improve, so it should be no surprise that she would be concerned about the potential lapse of that legislation.

Far from being consistent and principled, Rhee's endorsement of McCain's education plan over Obama's was nonsensical, especially where NCLB is concerned. First of all, Obama's position was (and I imagine still is) in favor of strengthening NCLB. After all, one of his most important supporters was Ted Kennedy who was the primary Democratic sponsor of NCLB. Moreover, Obama had a history of prior involvement in urban education reform. Remember the entire William Ayers/Chicago Annenberg Challenge controversy?

Rhee's preference for McCain was actually related to the candidates' positions regarding unions. Rhee preferred the anti-union candidate.

But, where this is a sign of Rhee's being out of touch with the school system is in her not recognizing the intangible benefits that would result from the election of America's first black president. Not only is Obama an incredible source of inspiration for a great number of the District's students, both he and Michelle (Obama) have been personally active in several of the District's schools. Someone more in touch with the schools would have realized that this type of support is far more important from a president than a mutual interest in union busting.

Again, I never heard her endorse McCain. If you can find a link that shows her doing so, even obliquely, that would be helpful. My memory of her responses to questions about the presidential election were that she went out of her way not to endorse or express a preference, but that she did call out aspects of each candidate's educational platform for critique.

In general, I think she was smart not to endorse. And I simply could not disagree more that she should have endorsed based on race. It's also worth noting that at the time she would have endorsed, neither Obama nor his wife were personally active in DC schools. That has happened since he took office, and I'm thrilled to see it. But it could not have been a basis for her decision to endorse before the election. And, finally, I think you're viewing Obama through a pretty rosy lens when it comes to unions -- again, I'm a big Obama supporter (and a believer in teacher's unions, as the daughter and daughter-in-law of public school teachers), but he has been notoriously inconsistent in his support for the unions.

[Anonymous]

http://dcist.com/2008/11/michelle_rhee_makes_time.php

She was highly critical of Obama's education plan.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
Again, I never heard her endorse McCain. If you can find a link that shows her doing so, even obliquely, that would be helpful. My memory of her responses to questions about the presidential election were that she went out of her way not to endorse or express a preference, but that she did call out aspects of each candidate's educational platform for critique.

I didn't say she endorsed McCain, I said she endorsed his plan. Here is one example of her doing so:

"Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, in comments on Thursday night at a gathering of the Korean-American Coalition’s D.C. chapter, endorsed the education plan of Arizona Republican John McCain 'far and away' over those of either Obama or Hillary Clinton."

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2008/05/02/rhee-mccain-has-best-education-plan/

Anonymous wrote:In general, I think she was smart not to endorse. And I simply could not disagree more that she should have endorsed based on race. It's also worth noting that at the time she would have endorsed, neither Obama nor his wife were personally active in DC schools. That has happened since he took office, and I'm thrilled to see it. But it could not have been a basis for her decision to endorse before the election. And, finally, I think you're viewing Obama through a pretty rosy lens when it comes to unions -- again, I'm a big Obama supporter (and a believer in teacher's unions, as the daughter and daughter-in-law of public school teachers), but he has been notoriously inconsistent in his support for the unions.

I'm not sure what basis you have to make any evaluation of how I view Obama's position regarding unions. It's not my opinion that matters, but Rhee's. She was pretty clear about that. From the same article to which I linked above:

"I think they’re pandering, quite frankly, to the teachers’ unions and other folks". (Referring to Obama and Clinton). Rhee has complained repeatedly about Democratic ties to unions. Given her strong interest in getting rid of the Washington Teachers Union, it's not surprising that she would feel more comfortable with McCain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I initially loved Rhee, particularly for her willingness to make some of the right enemies, however the feeling is no longer there. Regardless, I am not interested in her politics - only results.

Glad to hear this. My take is that much of her original popularity was attributable to the fact that she was willing to make enemies. But that seems to be all she's done (aside from a lot of PR). I'm amazed at how unselfcritical the Fenty administration is. So many of them treat widespread criticism of their policies as a kind of badge of honor (I must be doing something right if I piss so many people off) when, in fact, they're usually folks who are long on ideology and short on experience and not paying much attention to what works in practice.

PP, you nailed it. And to take it a step further, I do think the Council is wise to this. Initially they were letting Fenty ride on his popularity but Vincent Gray is clearly taking his checks & balances role very seriously. I think the council is starting to push back and will continue to do so.

[Anonymous]

Let's remember that Fenty did not announce he was in favor of taking over the schools under the day after the Democratic primary, which made him the presumptive Mayor. That felt like a fraud on voters (at least to this voter) since it was a reversal of his earlier position. And let's not forget that when he hired Rhee, he was by law supposed to consult with the Council about his prospective choice ahead of the hire, but he did not, he sprang it on them as a fait accompli. Fenty's been a huge disappointment.