Rather than face off with a new mayor who likely won’t support her ideas about education reform, Chancellor of D.C. Public Schools has chosen to resign. According to the Boston Globe, Rhee’s resignation had been a “mutual” decision made by herself and newly elected Mayor Vincent Gray. Rhee’s term will be served until at least the end of the current school year by Deputy Chancellor Henderson, indicates the Washington Post.
Teachers’ union challenged by Rhee
Test scores within the public schools of the District of Columbia tend to be fairly low. Rhee arrived and changed all that. Teachers that weren’t doing their jobs were either kicked out or had to improve which is how Rhee made educational facilities better. The teacher firings in Washington D.C. begun to go up fairly high. This made Rhee an enemy to most teachers’ unions and those who got fired. Based on Innovative Education Management, the system had enabled teachers who had been at a school for 3 years or more to become a fixture at that school. It took a lot of proof for under-performing teachers to really get fired. Tenured teachers were more vulnerable to lack of motivation, as job security had been assured so long as they put forth enough effort to skate by.
The expressing is that ‘Unions can smell blood’
Kaya Henderson could be in charge of the educational facilities now that Rhee has resigned. She is going to have for making sure and keep up the tough act. “The unions can smell blood,” though. It’s this that the Globe explains. Henderson is expected to be “gone by Christmas.” Also, tenure will continue and all the teaching talent in the D.C. public schools will probably go elsewhere within the near future. Many of the D.C. schools started to get donations from foundations because of Michelle Rhee’s passion there. This will probably all change pretty soon. Is it possible that D.C. schools will not stop recovering from the terrible scores known to them since Michelle Rhee was likely the only person who could do this. If she isn’t there, then will anything change? We might not see an education reform for some time still. This is as the D.C. teachers union is supported by Mayor Gray. Business will get done in the D.C. schools. That’s all that is being called for at present. The American public schools lost someone else who could have helped. She had been a good reformer.
Articles cited
Boston Glove
boston.com/community/blogs/rock_the_schoolhouse/2010/10/_she_will_be_replaced.html
Innovative Education Management, Inc
ieminc.org/
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