I saw a video on Anderson Cooper on Michelle Rhee and an article praising the consensus that Kaya Henderson has managed to organize around her candidacy to move from Acting Chancellor to permanent Chancellor. I recently had the opportunity to ask a question of the Acting Chancellor at the Ward 6 State of the Schools Meeting. Essentially, my question was "How would she navigate the politics that killed her predecessor?" My sense of her answer and some thoughts on these two articles after the jump:
The Acting Chancellor basically responded that she is a more patient person and more skilled at building consensus. From what I saw, I would agree with that. She answered challenging questions in a calm voice and seemed to be well-prepared to receive likely objections. Also, she has had to deal with the DC government, not the most ethical bunch of politicians in the world. Personally, I was prepared to aggressively challenge her in a public setting. She seems rather skilled at defusing such challenges with honeyed words and an appeal to her status as a black woman seeking to be Chancellor who is a Ward 5 resident and a parent. I live in Ward 5, and I respect DCPS staff who choose Ward 5, which doesn't have as many educational options, in part due to Michelle Rhee's school closing.
So how does this Rhee disciple succeed when Rhee ultimately failed and alienated the Black community so much that she ultimately contributed to Mayor Fenty's defeat in the 2010 election? A simple quote from the Anderson 360 interview linked to above provides some insight: "We wanted to put a system in place where the most outstanding teachers would be paid double what they were in the old system, and, on the other side, if you were an ineffective teacher or principal, you were immediately terminated. I had the full backing of my boss, The Mayor, Adrian Fenty, who said I'm going to put my entire political career on the line." "What happened?" "He lost the election".
I respect Michelle Rhee. I subscribe to her twitter feed, and I follow Students First on Facebook. Much of the information on the site is relevant, and I support her challenges to "Last In, First Out" that allow nontenured effective teachers to be fired ahead of tenured teachers. I feel that unless the union offers some concessions on this issue, it risks being portrayed as against effective teaching. When it comes to Rhee's narrative that disagreement with her policies killed Fenty, I will resist those statements aggressively.
What killed Rhee was a deaf ear to local politics. Perhaps it was deliberate. She appears to have a shrewd ear for national politics. Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey seems to be making a lot of hay in the GOP by being aggressively anti-union. Michelle Rhee's public profile has certainly gone up. In DC, we were concerned with the grandstanding: the national magazine cover with the broom, the conspicuous firing of DC personnel in Waiting for Superman, the "Bee Eater" reputation and the militancy with which she chose to attack the union during the contract negotiations. She demanded perfection of others or they were fired. But we learned that her resume was not completely accurate, and it was unclear what personal consequences that she sustained. For many in DC, it seemed that she wanted to subvert democratic mechanisms and necessary checks to her personal power, and she chose to escalate issues when democracy obstructed her flexibility and personal power.
With her new visibile profile, she's allowed to utilize mass media to construct the narrative in a way that serves her needs. Admitting political naivete is not going to help her raise money for StudentsFirst with foundations, parents, and stakeholders. Portraying DCPS and DC politics as an evil bad guy certainly does. But it wasn't DC politics that undid her. It was the tone deafness of her mayor. When she took on the black middle class by trying to get pay for grades programs at Hardy Middle School and successfully removing the principal, she antagonized a powerful lobbying group. When she closed schools without the community's firm understanding (policy that I approve of in part), she hurt the black community's respect for her. In Ward 5, we see major renovations happening in Ward 8 and in Ward 6 well before schools like Coolidge, Cardozo, and Roosevelt (which is now shared with a charter school) that we send our children to get upgrades. The political coalition between an offended black lower class and a neglected black middle class combined with Mayor Fenty's inability to inform her of how to negotiate class struggles hurt her.
Some are convinced that the tone deafness of Rhee and Fenty was due to their personal desires for power. Rhee gains funders and national political visibility. Fenty gains tight relationships with the business community that likely lead to a desirable parachute from the mayoralty and negative Washington Post coverage of his adversaries. Not me. I know it's easy for Rhee to sell herself as a victimized reformer. But if she would admit to her political mistakes she would be prophetic, more likable in DC, and a far more genuine agent of lasting change. I hope that she will elevate the civil discourse in her future mass media appearance and give DC credit for having the savvy to choose the kinder, gentler political style of her successor in favor of Rhee's abrasive style. How much does Rhee praise her protege in these national appearances?
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