Michigan born educator shakes up failing DC schools

Should school districts pay students for good grades and attendance? What about instituting merit-based pay for teachers?

 Michelle Rhee, the controversial Chancellor of the Washington D.C. Public Schools, thinks that these and other bold ideas will turn around failing schools.

 Districts such as Pontiac and Detroit may want to take such advice from Rhee, who was born in Ann Arbor and raised in Toledo. In her first year as Chancellor, she has closed 23 schools and fired 36 principals. The Washington D.C. district that she leads numbers 50,000 students and 144 schools.

According to Rhee’s website, she began as a “Teacher-for America” in 1992 in Baltimore.  TFA is a national teacher corps of recent college graduates who commit two years to teach and to effect change in under-resourced urban and rural public school districts.

Rhee's belief is that “with the right teacher, students in urban classrooms can meet teachers’ high expectations for achievement, and the driving force behind that achievement is the quality of the Educator who works inside it."

Her ideas are bold and fascinating. Below is a recent interview she had with Parade Magazine about her philosophy. Many may not agree with her, but no one can argue with her record of success and dedication.

 Saving Our Schools

 by Lyric Wallwork Winik of  Parade Magazine

In her first year as schools chancellor in Washington, D.C., Michelle Rhee closed 23 schools and fired 36 principals. Now in her second year, Rhee, 38, spoke with PARADE about how to help failing schools—and students—succeed.

What can the new President and Congress do to help education?
The federal government needs to be bold and aggressive about reform and take on entrenched interests, including the teachers’ unions. The government likes to cut deals, but cutting deals does not do the right thing for kids

What’s your opinion of No Child Left Behind and its effect on U.S. schools?
I’m a huge proponent. The most important thing is that it has set up an accountability system for students, and it emphasizes teacher quality. It could use a shift in mind-set away from focusing on what credentials teachers have to how effective they are. The degrees teachers have are much less important than the gains they make in achievement inside the classroom.

Is that why you support merit-based pay for teachers?
There are teachers working their butts off, and then there are teachers who are absent 80 out of 180 days, and they all get the same salary. We need to value employees who get the biggest results.

You’ve introduced a controversial program that pays students for good grades and attendance. Why?
When critics say that it’s sad to pay students, I say it’s sad that only 8% of D.C. eighth-graders are proficient in math. People in the suburbs use incentives for their kids all the time, like giving them $10 for an “A.”  Kids in our program can save money for college or get a bank account. 

So is more money what’s needed to fix education?
Spending alone doesn’t produce results—it has to go to the right places. We closed 23 schools because some of them were operating half-full. We were spending on lights, heat, and air-conditioning, and that money was not being felt by the kids in the classroom. After closing the schools, we could pay to put a librarian and an art, music, and PE teacher in every school for the first time. 

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