with Rhee out, time to move out of DC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gray supporters are the most naive hippy flower child people out there. They are the ones holding the city back. They don't seem to realize that some people can not be helped and as much as you spend, $16k plus to be exact, they will always be the bottom of the barrel.

OP, cut your losses now and move while your child is still young. This city is only worth living in if your child is going to private school. I understand why people now live in the burbs and would rather drive an hr each way than live in this dump.

Oh yes, the "win an argument by insulting people" strategy. Mm-hmmm -- that worked so for the Fenty supporters. You just keep on insulting people's intelligence. You'll go far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Michelle Rhee is no Geoffrey Canada. In order to be a change agent, you must get buy in from people. That's what leadership is. I've never heard Geoffrey Canada be anything but gracious, and yet he is taking over Harlem, one child at a time.

I could not have said it better. This is exactly what I have been saying to folks. Rhee has been effective at cleaning house and (albeit without any sense of "caring") BUT she has not exactly touched education reform ...that takes time and cleaning house is part of getting things ready but (understandably she could not have not implemented reform in 3.5 years) So why folks are feeling like it is doomsday without Rhee is beyond me.

[Anonymous]

Canada (and I'm a big fan of his) vs Rhee is a poor comparison. Canada does not have to deal with teachers' unions, electoral politics, or government budgets. I do think that Rhee could learn from Canada (couldn't we all?), but please do not equate what Canada is doing in Harlem with the position of DCPS school chancellor.

[Anonymous]

To the poster who have observed Fenty lately....I have to agree, he seems so refreshing. Yeah, Gray and Fenty are birds of a feather. But I think Fenty will take a break....and will have Muriel Bowser looking over her shoulder for awhile. There's probably a job in DC for Fenty...maybe something federal...hey Tangherlini might just throw him a bone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Michelle Rhee is no Geoffrey Canada. In order to be a change agent, you must get buy in from people. That's what leadership is. I've never heard Geoffrey Canada be anything but gratious, and yet he is taking over Harlem, one child at a time.

No. Actually if you read "Whatever it Takes" Canada first attempted to work within the NY public schools. That was impossible; the institutional drag was too great, just as is apparently the case with DCPS. So he said to Hell with it, and started his charter school. Of course, the gains only started to come when he instituted his "baby college", where he essentially had to lay down the law to incoming parents: either you raise your babies according to my instructions, or you're out. He also makes it very clear to the parents that "*You* are fucked. You're not going to make it out of poverty. But you may still have a chance at saving your child."

If Canada were a Korean woman, he would've been run out of town on a rail after about 2.5 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Michelle Rhee is no Geoffrey Canada. In order to be a change agent, you must get buy in from people. That's what leadership is. I've never heard Geoffrey Canada be anything but gracious, and yet he is taking over Harlem, one child at a time.

I could not have said it better. This is exactly what I have been saying to folks. Rhee has been effective at cleaning house and (albeit without any sense of "caring") BUT she has not exactly touched education reform ...that takes time and cleaning house is part of getting things ready but (understandably she could not have not implemented reform in 3.5 years) So why folks are feeling like it is doomsday without Rhee is beyond me.

Here is why I feel like it is doomsday without Rhee:

1) She is the first in-charge person to admit publicly what everyone with any education knows about DC schools -- they are crap! While there may be a few good ones in upper NW, by and large the vast majority of DCPS students are getting an appalling bad education with bad teachers in shameful facilities. First you have to admit there is a problem if you want to fix it. I am suspicious of anyone who won't loudly and publicly admit there are serious problems in the vast majority of DCPS schools.

2) She focuses on kids ahead of teachers. Others may think that is bad, that poor teachers should get time to improve, more training, etc. But, having suffered through 2 bad teachers in 4 years at our DCPS, I can see the danger of bad teaching -- entire classes of kids get left behind and turned of to school. If it's possible to improve a teacher's ability with training, then great, but do it out of the classroom. If it's not possible to improve, then fire them quickly. I'm all for assessment of teachers and merit pay, etc. While we can all argue about whether Rhee is doing this in the right way, the fact remains that she is the only DCPS in charge person who has had a serious impact in teaching. Yes, Janney put in standards, but that didn't change teaching in the classroom. Look at schools like Dunbar and Coolidge which have had serious increases in test scores (see recent WaPo article) after radical change in management under Rhee (when Rhee brought in outside help).

[Anonymous]

Best quote evah (re: "teaching to the test):

So, you have a class drawn randomly from the same community and over a period of 4 years 4 out of 5 teachers is able to improve reading scores by 1 grade level. One teacher continually fails to improve performance. I’d think that the threat of termination should be one of the tools a principal has available to him.

Obviously those 4 teachers are teaching to the test. The other teacher is out there doing god’s work of teaching how to think!

[Anonymous]

One last quote:


"Here's what Randi Weingarten (President, AFT) stated as being on the agenda for DCPS moving forward:

"The new school year is now under way, and in Washington, D.C., it will take strong and supportive leadership to accomplish unfinished business--better instructional guidance; collaboration on implementing the contract; work with city agencies and nonprofit groups to provide wraparound services to address students' unmet needs through, for instance, after-school programs; and converting empty school buildings into parent and community service centers."

"You know, all of the big, important stuff that are critical for ensuring student achievement (she says sarcastically). The slow-roll has begun once again. Until the DC constituency stops looking at the DC government in general - and DCPS in particular - as a jobs program for adults rather than as a service provider first and foremost, school reform is going to be plagued by stops and starts."

Hooray! Time to focus exclusively on the 10-year effort that is "Refining the Curriculum"...

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
"Here's what Randi Weingarten (President, AFT) stated as being on the agenda for DCPS moving forward:

"The new school year is now under way, and in Washington, D.C., it will take strong and supportive leadership to accomplish unfinished business--better instructional guidance; collaboration on implementing the contract; work with city agencies and nonprofit groups to provide wraparound services to address students' unmet needs through, for instance, after-school programs; and converting empty school buildings into parent and community service centers."

So, Weingarten wants:

1) strong and supportive leadership
2) better instructional guidance
3) collaboration on implementing the contract
4) wraparound services
5) after-school programs
6) parent and community service centers

The only thing I'd question is the need for the last one. Something tell me that your list would look more like this:

1) Fire more teachers

I think I prefer Weingarten's list.

[Anonymous]

To this day, no one can tell me what Michelle Rhee has really done. She didn't even fire that many teachers. It ended up being a little over 100. You think all of the teachers in MoCo and Arlington are great? My kids have had bad teachers in the best schools. Now my kids are in a charter. I love their teachers. They don't want to go to DCPS because of Michelle Rhee. That's ok, I'll take my great teacher. You cannot win the war shooting your own troops. Good teachers will not go where they don't think they will be appreciated no matter how much more they will be paid.

How come no one ever talks about how close Jerry Weist is to the teachers union in MoCo? It works there.

[Anonymous]

Actually, and I mean this in all seriousness, I think the best thing we could do is nationally implement a Scandinavian style social safety-net that provides items 4-6 in addition to universal cradle-to-grave free education going through post-grad, generous unemployment benefits, etc...

Barring that, I think cobbling together a poor facscimile of such a system *specific* to the District is a recipe for total collapse and continued dysfunction. We'll go back to crumbling facilities and wasting the first months of the school year with no textbooks. We'll go back to the previous strategy of turning the District into a single de facto ghetto for the poorest of the poor regional residents, while middle class blacks and whites move to the suburbs, and the poor who finally somehow "make it" also move to the suburbs. Folks who fall out of the middle class in the suburbs will move back into the District, and we'll start all over again.

Since the fundamental mechanism used in this country to protect suburban entitlements is to partition the cities from the suburbs, and poorer suburban areas from richer suburban areas, this will give us the same results we saw in the latter half of the last century, as the fortunes of the poor are decoupled from those of the wealthy.

In other words, the Courtland Milloy's of the city will run for the exits, and send their best wishes over the wall as they take their taxpayer dollars to MD and VA, all the while tut-tutting at "The Man" who won't fix the problems they've had such a hand in creating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You cannot win the war shooting your own troops.

I agree. The other day, my mechanic told me he needed to replace the spark plugs in my car. I told him, "You cannot fix a car by dismantling it!" These technocrats are sooo short sighted.

[Anonymous]

12:53 here:

And no, I don't think "Fire the teachers" is in any way a major component to the needed reforms. But there's no way in Hell that the occasional termination should be taken off the table. Rhee fired something like the absolute bottom 5% of the teacher workforce. This is after years of no firings whatsoever. So while we're caricaturing one another's position, it's pretty clear that in your opinion there's absolutely nothing that a DCPS employee could do to warrant being let go.

You guys are the ones obsessing over the paltry number of teachers who were fired. This whole idea that those who disagree with you are obsessed over firing is pure projection.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Actually, and I mean this in all seriousness, I think the best thing we could do is nationally implement a Scandinavian style social safety-net that provides items 4-6 in addition to universal cradle-to-grave free education going through post-grad, generous unemployment benefits, etc...

Barring that, I think cobbling together a poor facscimile of such a system *specific* to the District is a recipe for total collapse and continued dysfunction. We'll go back to crumbling facilities and wasting the first months of the school year with no textbooks. We'll go back to the previous strategy of turning the District into a single de facto ghetto for the poorest of the poor regional residents, while middle class blacks and whites move to the suburbs, and the poor who finally somehow "make it" also move to the suburbs. Folks who fall out of the middle class in the suburbs will move back into the District, and we'll start all over again.

Since the fundamental mechanism used in this country to protect suburban entitlements is to partition the cities from the suburbs, and poorer suburban areas from richer suburban areas, this will give us the same results we saw in the latter half of the last century, as the fortunes of the poor are decoupled from those of the wealthy.

In other words, the Courtland Milloy's of the city will run for the exits, and send their best wishes over the wall as they take their taxpayer dollars to MD and VA, all the while tut-tutting at "The Man" who won't fix the problems they've had such a hand in creating.

Scandis have the highest rate of suicide in the world, and the tone your message is pretty depressing. Merely an observation. But seriously, you've making some extraordinary leaps of faith (or lack thereof, as it were) on what will happen next. This dismal moping is starting to look so drama-queen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Actually, and I mean this in all seriousness, I think the best thing we could do is nationally implement a Scandinavian style social safety-net that provides items 4-6 in addition to universal cradle-to-grave free education going through post-grad, generous unemployment benefits, etc...

Barring that, I think cobbling together a poor facscimile of such a system *specific* to the District is a recipe for total collapse and continued dysfunction. We'll go back to crumbling facilities and wasting the first months of the school year with no textbooks. We'll go back to the previous strategy of turning the District into a single de facto ghetto for the poorest of the poor regional residents, while middle class blacks and whites move to the suburbs, and the poor who finally somehow "make it" also move to the suburbs. Folks who fall out of the middle class in the suburbs will move back into the District, and we'll start all over again.

Since the fundamental mechanism used in this country to protect suburban entitlements is to partition the cities from the suburbs, and poorer suburban areas from richer suburban areas, this will give us the same results we saw in the latter half of the last century, as the fortunes of the poor are decoupled from those of the wealthy.

In other words, the Courtland Milloy's of the city will run for the exits, and send their best wishes over the wall as they take their taxpayer dollars to MD and VA, all the while tut-tutting at "The Man" who won't fix the problems they've had such a hand in creating.

Scandis have the highest rate of suicide in the world, and the tone your message is pretty depressing. Merely an observation. But seriously, you've making some extraordinary leaps of faith (or lack thereof, as it were) on what will happen next. This dismal moping is starting to look so drama-queen.

I agree it's depressing; but pointing out that "doing the same thing that's been tried in the past will get you the same results" ain't exactly drama-queen territory. Cassandra, maybe.