It’s hard to know what image the title of June Kronholz’s piece on Michelle Rhee is meant to conjure up: a hopelessly romantic quest, a quixotic uprising against corrupt power, Rhee’s eventually being drawn and quartered. Or is it confrontation for confrontation’s sake?

None of the images it brings to mind are encouraging. Having just completed a study (Leading for Equity, Harvard Education Press, 2009) of the public schools in neighboring Montgomery County, Maryland (MCPS), which is encouraging, there is much to be said about Superintendent Jerry Weast’s nonconfrontational style. But MCPS and D.C. share only a common boundary. In no other respect are they comparable, and it is as hard to imagine Jerry’s approach working in D.C. as it is Rhee’s in MCPS. (For what it’s worth, Paul Vance was superintendent of both districts and left an indifferent legacy.) The underlying question, of course, is will Rhee’s in-your-face style work in D.C.?

To Rhee’s credit, she has gotten everyone’s attention. And she has effectively raised the issue of accountability. (Years ago, one of her predecessors, Vince Reed, told me he thought the whole system was hopeless.) I’m an MCPS alumnus and my sister is a D.C. alumna and we wish these very different districts well. I for one am skeptical about Rhee’s unvarnished approach: too much stick, too little carrot. But the jury is still out, and she still has time to build bridges to teachers. Without their support, all is lost; with their support, there is a fighting chance.

At minimum—in the one-size-fits-all No Child Left Behind era—her tenure reminds us of the real genius of the federal system, the opportunity to try many different approaches to a shared objective: increased academic achievement for all students.

Denis Doyle
Schoolnet

Which job is that?
Not reporting allegations of sexual abuse of students by school staff?

It is interesting how history can be rewritten to fit with the agenda of June Kronholz. Groups of parents, community members and teachers have been organizing and protests for years to make changes in DCPS. The article makes it sound as if the whole city just sat passively and waited for our savior Rhee.

Rhee’s lead by fear management style which is causing many principals to make very poor decisions and staff morale to plummet. Teaching high poverty students with lots of problems is already stressful and difficult enough.

Cracking the whip while putting teachers in classrooms without the proper resources and supplies while blaming teachers for poor student performances is just not right. And that is exactly what Rhee is doing no matter how she tries to cover up the facts.

Six weeks into this school year Rhee fired over three hundred employees and just last week a brand new elementary school principal quit. Rhee is creating chaos and instability which she thinks means positive change.

Just go to the Washington Post and read the articles about her in the last three weeks. Her management errors are shocking and would never be allowed in a business environment.

Bad analogy here.