9486 in the collection
School chancellor pick appears to defy sense
The Washington Post hinted that it was an unusual pick, but here we get more of the lowdown. Michelle A. Rhee's "connections" make for interesting reading.
By Adrienne Washington
I've got to hand it to D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty; he may be wacky or may be a wizard, but he definitely is bullheaded judging by his daredevil personnel picks.
"If the best candidate for the new chancellor is someone who has limited teaching experience and no experience managing a large urban school system, they could have nominated me for the job," said community activist and youth mentor Robert Brannum.
Even I have more classroom teaching experience than chancellor nominee Michelle A. Rhee, founder and executive director of the New Teacher Project.
Oh, by the way, I have never been run out of a classroom by students, whether they are 8-year-olds or 18-year-olds, or needed someone else to team teach with me, as the neophyte schools chief concedes.
Hey, what do you expect? This is the nation's capital, where the standard saying goes that "it's not what you know but who you know."
Mrs. Rhee, contrary to those who think she fell out of the Big Apple sky, is well-connected to the hidden hands that Mr. Fenty parrots -- not only of the likes of New York Chancellor Joe Klein, but James H. Shelton III of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as well, I'm told by sources.
Many of them, like Mrs. Rhee and Mr. Shelton, are or have been board members of the burgeoning network of so-called public-private enterprises (which also include for-profit education firms such as the Edison schools) that have been benefiting from weakened public school systems across the country for years. Check out the connections between Teach for America, New Schools Venture Fund and New Teachers and EdBuild on the Internet yourself.
For example, Mike Casserly, with Great City Schools, who offered reassuring words about Mrs. Rhee after her appointment, is a member of the board of her company, which, like his organization, has contracts with D.C. schools.
"It seems rather incestuous, doesn't it?" said longtime schools activist Iris Toyer, also with the reform project for the Washington Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.
Meanwhile, local folks, including council members who rubber-stamp Mr. Fenty's follies, are left out of the loop.
Mrs. Rhee's appointment was made in the same close-to-the-vest style that Gen. Greenhorn employed when he appointed Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier, among others.
"It's like I'm driving the bus -- get on, and we will go where I want to go," said Mrs. Toyer, who was fielding calls yesterday from parents and others who "just wanted to unload," or "are deeply disillusioned."
One is Cherita Whiting, Ward 4 advisory neighborhood commissioner and parent activist, who wrote on her Internet blog: "Well D.C. is really a new city, first voters are not allowed to vote, then we are 'THROWN' a new person to run 'our' school system."
Further, "Michelle Rhee has never been in charge of any school system anywhere so try her out with our kids? She has only three years teaching experience but will be paid $250k?"
And, it wouldn't be the District of Columbia where all things are still viewed through colored glasses if there weren't more rumblings about the continued lack of diversity in Mr. Fenty's leadership choices. Many wonder aloud if Mrs. Rhee, a Korean American, who conceded her difficulty in dealing with black children when she taught in a poor area of Baltimore, will be able to work with D.C. parents, the majority of whom are black women.
"People are not only asking where are the black people [on Mr. Fenty's team] but where are the educators?" said Mrs. Toyer. "There is something to be said for experience, and experience relevant to the children in the system."
Those who bother to pay attention are not only abuzz about the neophyte mayor's choice of a neophyte chancellor, but also about why Mr. Fenty continues to circumvent legal processes and public input in his approach to governing.
Take heed. This monarchical secrecy, which has been the undoing of other D.C. mayors, is a troubling trend.
For the sake of the District's children, who have been cruelly bandied about by one educational reform system, led by one short-lived superintendent after another, this latest shocking scheme had better be successful. Students and their parents are owed a tremendous debt that Mr. Fenty has pledged to pay.
Like so many others, I have serious doubts about the multilayered school system now in the hands of so many deputies for this and that. A telephone bill might be easier to read than the D.C. schools' new organization chart as it takes shape on the last day of the school year.
Pass or fail; there will be no grades in between. Gen. Greenhorn's latest questionable Cabinet appointment is going to turn out to be the either the most brilliant stroke of genius or the biggest political blunder (bigger than losing the Washington Redskins to Maryland) that this city has ever seen.
What self-serving politician would appoint someone with virtually no experience to head a billion-dollar agency with intractable problems -- and is a political minefield to boot -- on which he has staked his political future? Either a wacky dunce or a wizard?
— Adrienne Washington
Washington Times
2007-06-15
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20070614-103223-7238r
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
[1] 2 3 4 5 6 Next >> Last >>
