Rhee? A poll of your opinion

[Anonymous]

8:49 Absolutely.

[Anonymous]

757 here- I agree and I apologize for that. Janey was so much better than anyone who came before him and I have been told that the standards that he put in place are excellent and made a huge difference. Before him though, "years of inertia".

[Anonymous]

East of the park DCPS parent here.

I thought she said all the right things her first year and I supported her. After two years though, she has only made things worse at our school.

I agree with the poster who mentioned the Time magazine article. It was truly the height of unprofessional behavior and it does show her true colors.

She has a plan to blow up the system, but there is nothing to replace what's left. She is convinced that anyone over 40 has nothing to offer. Based on our experience, there are some excellent veteran teachers in DCPS. I would also agree that there are awful ones too, but Rhee can't seem to differentiate.

It is true that she responds rapidly to parent email. The issues I raised with her were passed off to her staff, who did nothing. So in that regard, 825 is the same as it always was.

I find this to be a fascinating poll. I can't help but notice that some of Rhee's biggest cheerleaders don't have children in the system. I would love to see the results of the study DCPS distributed last year, asking about parental satisfaction.

The fact that they've sat on the results make me wonder if the overall consensus wasn't favorable to Ms. Rhee?

Regardless, I'm very satisfied with my east of the park elementary school. The problems and frustrations we face come from 825 and Rhee's management has made things much harder for us. We'll be doing charters for middle school.

[Anonymous]

given what we know about how media works, i wonder if we should be taking the time profile at face value? i'm sure the reporter was aiming for a good story....

[Anonymous]

We are east of the park. We were in DCPS until this year, now PCS.

Initially I liked that Rhee responded to emails, repairs to buildings made, etc. Cosmetic stuff really.

Test scores are up, but I think at too great a cost for those kids who would have done well on the test anyways. At my kids' school too much time was spent prepping for the test.

[Anonymous]

I'm a former journalist. She behaved unprofessionally in front of a reporter from a national magaze. She set multiple bad examples for children with her behavior. A school system that demands RESPECT from its students needs a leader who shows respect to teachers and parents. I wonder what kind of character she has. I don't know but what's been displayed, what's come from her, is not reassuring. There were examples of disrespectful behavior, including mocking parents who disagree with her in a whiney voice, in this article. I absolutely take the article at face value. It confirmed to me that behind all those rapid email responses and crisp public speeches is a woman who does not come off as terribly nice or terribly gracious. And I maintain that an effective leader can be both.

[Anonymous]

P.S. In my 20 years of reporting, I never had a profile subject act the way Rhee did with the TIME reporter. Rhee should have known better. Media savvy is part of the job. And student read magazine like TIME! I have no idea what she was thinking.

[Anonymous]

Well the last two posts certainly go against the claim that Rhee's only specialty is PR/self marketing. If what the reporters say is true than it would seem the opposite is true. Which is it? Is she only good at PR or is she terrible at it cause it shows her "true" personality?

[Anonymous]

I like Rhee
I am a DC charter school parent
I won't even consider go back into the DCPS system though until she gets a new union contract through

[Anonymous]

Independent parent living east of park but kids west. going dcps next year because of what parents at our school are doing. confident that long term will depend on them more than rhee.

She seems immature but determined. wish there was more pr focus on school leaders, family and kids so people could see what's really happening day to day. she keeps saying it's about the kids and not her. Seems like a pretty easy PR fix.

Love the Mcnamara Rumsfeld debate. So DC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Independent parent living east of park but kids west. going dcps next year because of what parents at our school are doing. confident that long term will depend on them more than rhee.

She seems immature but determined. wish there was more pr focus on school leaders, family and kids so people could see what's really happening day to day. she keeps saying it's about the kids and not her. Seems like a pretty easy PR fix.

Love the Mcnamara Rumsfeld debate. So DC

Correction, meant GOOD THINGS parents at our local school are doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well the last two posts certainly go against the claim that Rhee's only specialty is PR/self marketing. If what the reporters say is true than it would seem the opposite is true. Which is it? Is she only good at PR or is she terrible at it cause it shows her "true" personality?

Not really. Her audience isn't DCPS students and parents. It's a national audience and that Time cover only increased her profile and prestige. And it has people arguing over demeanor and personality rather than looking at things like the fact that in a number of cases, when she closed failing schools she sent the kids in them to schools that were doing even worse. Even at home, for people who don't have kids in the system, the you-gotta-be-a-bitch and I'm-sweeping-up/out-the-mess imagery works. They don't believe DCPS is reparable, so go ahead, blow it up.

But, wait, there are kids in those buildings...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I find this to be a fascinating poll. I can't help but notice that some of Rhee's biggest cheerleaders don't have children in the system. I would love to see the results of the study DCPS distributed last year, asking about parental satisfaction.

New poster here and one whose older child will start in a west-of-the-park DCPS next year. I wouldn't call myself a cheerleader, but I am with one of the above posters who said that she can't understand why there's such a gleeful desire to see Rhee fail. I want desperately for her to succeed, even when I find myself shaking my head at her tactics, and I can't see how anyone who has watched superintendent after superintendent pass through DCPS can think that throwing her over after two years makes any kind of sense. I felt the same way when Fenty replaced Janey, but now that we have Rhee, I want to see consistency and results. And we can't get that with more turnover at the top.

And I'd say that the opinions of those of us whose children aren't in the system yet are pretty important -- our perceptions of Rhee's impact on the system will play a big role in determining the system's success in the coming years. If we feel good about what we're hearing, we are more likely to send our kids to DCPS and more likely to talk about it enthusiastically with neighbors, etc. Yes, this gets to the PR issue discussed above, but perception does matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:7:54 here. I really think "years of inertia" is inaccurate, 7:57. Janey adopted the Massachusetts standards very quickly, we felt the different in the classroom the following year. Rhee has, to her credit, not abandoned them.

I respect different opinions but I hope we can aim to be factual in explicating them.

As a classroom teacher I use these standards daily in lesson planning and they are profoundly flawed. Don't take my word for it, wade through a couple of these documents, and tell me that they pass the laugh test. They're better than what we had before (i.e. "read 24 books") , but only marginally.

[Anonymous]

17:09 As a parent of kids in DCPS I am curious, how are they flawed? I find it disturbing that a teacher, whose opinion really counts in this discussion, finds that these standards don't pass a laugh test. Do you know of standards used in other places that would be examples of usable and effective standards?