Posted on 12/06/2010 2:29:45 PM PST by Qbert
After my boss, Washington, D.C., mayor Adrian Fenty, lost his primary in September, I was stunned. I had never imagined he wouldn’t win the contest, given the progress that was visible throughout the city—the new recreation centers, the turnaround of once struggling neighborhoods, and, yes, the improvements in the schools. Three and a half years ago, when I first met with Fenty about becoming chancellor of the D.C. public-school system, I had warned him that he wouldn’t want to hire me. If we did the job right for the city’s children, I told him, it would upset the status quo—I was sure I would be a political problem. But Fenty was adamant...
[Snip]
The timing couldn’t have been more ironic. The new movie Waiting for Superman—which aimed to generate public passion for school reform the way An Inconvenient Truth had for climate change—premiered in Washington the night after the election. The film championed the progress Fenty and I had been making in the District, and lamented the roadblocks we’d faced from the teachers’ union...
[Snip]
I quickly announced a plan to close almost two dozen schools, which provoked community outrage. We cut the central office administration in half. And I also proposed a new contract for teachers that would increase their salaries dramatically if they abandoned the tenure system and agreed to be paid based on their effectiveness.
Though all of these actions caused turmoil in the district, they were long overdue and reaped benefits quickly. In my first two years in office, the D.C. schools went from being the worst performing on the National Assessment of Educational Progress examination, the national test, to leading the nation in gains at both the fourth and eighth grade in reading as well as math...
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
This woman did a terrific job in Washington and then got tossed out on her ear for not being black. I think she will make a great Sec of Ed (before we shut down the Dept of Ed) during the Palin Administration.
Agree.
Good Luck, Michelle.......this is going NOWHERE UNTIL PARENTS MARCH ON THE SCHOOLS WITH PITCHFORKS!! And the Parents are TOO STUPID to do this.
She's not a Republican. She's a pretty traditional progressive who thinks public schools need reformed, and that teacher's unions are the biggest obstacle for that reform. For those ideas, she should be applauded, but on every other issue, she's as liberal as they come.
If there were more Democrats like her, our country would be a much better place.
I’m really glad Rick Scott’s working with her in Florida now.
“If there were more Democrats like her, our country would be a much better place.”
If there were more Republicans like her...
It is embarrassing that blue state Massachusetts has the best academic scores in the country.
Word, here in Fla, is that Scott will name Michelle Rhee to head the education dept for the state. Teachers unions already screaming bloody murder (ahead of any announcement). Scott was lambasted during the campaign - in many cases by “establishment” Republicans. With a veto-proof majority in the state legislature, Scott has the opportunity to push forward Christie-like reforms in a huge, politically vital state. And, if she is indeed tapped to head Florida’s Ed Dept, Rhee would have a very big stage for a future national educational reform position.
Word, here in Fla, is that Scott will name Michelle Rhee to head the education dept for the state. Teachers unions already screaming bloody murder (ahead of any announcement). Scott was lambasted during the campaign - in many cases by “establishment” Republicans. With a veto-proof majority in the state legislature, Scott has the opportunity to push forward Christie-like reforms in a huge, politically vital state. And, if she is indeed tapped to head Florida’s Ed Dept, Rhee would have a very big stage for a future national educational reform position.
“It is embarrassing that blue state Massachusetts has the best academic scores in the country.”
But a big part of this is the overwhelming number of top prep schools in the state (Andover, Groton, Deerfield, etc.). Students are admitted from all over the country based in part upon impressive standardized tests scores. When you have that many top schools in one state, with that many top scoring students attending, it’s bound to skew the standardized test score averages.
I don't have statistics, but I have a theory. Teachers and policies don't have a huge impact on test performance for a state. The big impact is the percentage of parents that care versus the percentage of parents who don't.
Mass for all of its leftism, has a large percentage of parents that value education. Alabama (my state) has a lower percentage of them.
I would put a school in Alabama with a given demographic up against a school in Mass with the same demographic and expect similar results.
The big impact is the percentage of parents that care versus the percentage of parents who don’t.
&&
Bingo!
No wonder this woman had problems. She tried to fire the bureaucratic layabouts that form the core of support for the DC democratic political machine. Whad did she think was going to happen? /s/
The truth is that despite a handful of successful reforms, the state of American education is pitiful, and getting worse. Spending on schools has more than doubled in the last three decades, but the increased resources haven’t produced better results. The U.S. is currently 21st, 23rd, and 25th among 30 developed nations in science, reading, and math, respectively. The children in our schools today will be the first generation of Americans who will be less educated than the previous generation.I disagree with the bolded sentence. Bearing in mind I'm an old guy (graduated HS in 1962) and that this is MHO, I think the schools started an exponential downhill slide in the late 70s/early 80s. People I've dealt with that graduated after that time frame just don't seem as sharp as those that graduated before.
Agreed. She is, however a doer - someone who sees what needs to be done and does it, regardless of politics. We need people like this in charge of stuff (suitably managed and led by a good conservative leader of course) (also applies to Gov. Christie).
Public schools did. Private schools I believe actually have improved over the same period of time (generally speaking).
I went to Catholic schools my entire life and I'm confident that I received a very fundamentally sound education. When I entered college, I was more than prepared, academically. As solid as my education was, I didn't have many of the bells and whistles my kids enjoyed 25-years later. My two youngest went to grade schools and high schools that offered diverse arts programs, physical education classes (like ballet for the girls), advanced mandatory language courses in Greek and Latin and very difficult AP math & science classes.
I think for the people who can afford to send their kids to the better private schools, education has never been better. But, if you're a parent with children stuck in most public schools, you've got problems.
I've heard Rhee make this very point, and I agree with it entirely - in 1960 the smartest women in the country were teachers, primarily because they didn't have many other opportunities. So, the public education system benefited. Today, our teachers enter college with some of the lowest score on the two standardized college entrance exams - horribly abysmal and embarrassingly low. I'm not exactly sure how you fix that.
My wife is a professor of English at a Tier I university. She says that within the first week of class, she can reliably predict which of her students went to public schools, and which went to private schools. And, she says it has been getting worse with each passing year.
Yes, I don't disagree with that at all.
Rick Scott is bringing her down to Florida. That is a great move!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.