"Ask an impertinent question, and you're on your way to a pertinent answer." —Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man
As of October 2015, my goal for this blog is to ask 101 impertinent questions.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Michelle Rhee: Education Reformer or Corporate Steamroller?


Michelle Rhee has been showing up on talk shows in her new capacity as founder of studentsfirst.org. Ms. Rhee was the chancellor of Washington D.C. schools who left the nation's capital when her champion, Mayor Adrian Fenty, was voted out of office. Many felt that his failure to get re-elected was due in part to his support of Ms. Rhee's slash-and-burn drive to rid the district of ineffective teachers. And she was indeed as fierce and unyielding as her picture on the cover of Time. Ms. Rhee said later that she wished they'd shown her in a picture with kids. Is Michelle Rhee a champion of children or the ruthless reformer on the cover of Time?

I believe Ms. Rhee is sincere in her efforts to give all children the education they need and deserve. I also believe her efforts will go the way of every other major education reform effort going back to the fifties. Why?

If you go to her website, you will notice a crisp, beautifully designed presentation of mission statements and stategies. Her mission, however, is a statement of the obvious: children need good teachers, teacher need better training, parents need to get involved, politicians and school officials need to adopt more effective policies.

The site's policy agenda talks about how to "drive change" and the need for "promoting governance structures that prioritize accountability and put students' interests first." Ms. Rhee would also "elevate the teaching profession" by implementing strategies for "evaluating principals on their ability to drive student outcomes, and to attract, retain, manage, and develop excellent teachers." Despite the name of Ms. Rhee's organization, there's very little mention of students in this site that reads more like a corporate manifesto or the mission of some politically motivated think tank.

Throughout the site, there are videos and testimonials galore, along with boxes inviting you to get involved, sign a pledge, or show your support. And what is it that you're being asked to get behind?

The site sparkles with glittering generalities such as the need to promote "great schools" and "great teachers." What I see on this website is the very thing I saw throughout my career as a teacher. The bureaucracy is not the problem; it's a symptom of the problem. The problem is that education has gone corporate. It's all about image, product, and outcomes a.k.a. the appearance of success, graduation rates, and test scores. None of these things addresses issues such as improving the quality of education or preparing our children to become creative problem-solving citizens.

All Ms. Rhee's talk of empowerment is hollow if we lack the historical perspective and creativity to understand what is happening. It does not appear to me that Ms. Rhee understands much about the history of education reform because in so many ways she is repeating it. To understand what I mean, please visit The Gulliver Initiative.

Ms. Rhee wants to empower people and make sure they get paid what they deserve, which I think from her website means that they recreate themselves in her image...although what she wants to see happen in classrooms is not clear because of the general nature of her strategies and her emphasis on political change rather than changes in curriculum and discipline policies. Ironically, her plan lacks the specifics of lesson plans that make for good classroom teaching and successful classroom management.

There is also nothing in Ms. Rhee's vision that encourages the development of creativity and character. In fact, despite the name of her organization, there is more talk of politics, money, and empowerment than changes that would enhance the education and welfare of children.

Ms. Rhee taught for several years with the Teach for America program. She's talked about how successful she was but that when the kids went to other teachers, all they'd learned was lost. I have often wondered why she hasn't patented her miracle methods for all to use. I also wonder if she's ever thought that her feeling might be shared by every teacher who is struggling alone in a system where the lack of creativity, compassion, and character in leadership have led to fragmented curriculum and lack of discipline that demoralizes teachers and burns them out to a crisp.

I would say to Ms. Rhee that we don't need to be empowered. We have the power. The problem is that we've been taught in school to sit down, keep quiet, and do whatever we're told to do, no matter how irrelevant or absurd the assignment is. If you look at Ms. Rhee's website, you will see the perfect example of how a bright and caring woman has been trained to speak and act in the corporate way by an education system gone corporate. It's tragic, really, that a person of her talent and energy can't see that driving people to be effective will never be as effective as inspiring them to be the best they can be. Yes, there are ineffective teachers who should not be in the classroom. But few people go into teaching with the hope that they'll fail. Teachers, like students, want to succeed. Good teachers know how to tap into the best in their students. Good leaders should try first to inspire teachers to work together to find solutions instead of just firing the people they decide are losers.

I believe that with more inspired leadership, principals and teachers can find the courage and incentive to create solutions to the problems in their schools and overcome the inhumanity and stagnation imposed on them by a system gone corporate.

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