Above is a cover story from TIME Magazine, in which they profile DC Schools chief Michelle Rhee (click here for the whole story).
Interesting reading.
Rhee finds herself suddenly taking on the unions in her desire to keep and strengthen good teachers, and oust the "bad" ones.
TIME:
Rhee has promised to make Washington the highest-performing urban school district in the nation, a prospect that, if realized, could transform the way schools across the country are run. She is attempting to do this through a relentless focus on finding--and rewarding--strong teachers, purging incompetent ones and weakening the tenure system that keeps bad teachers in the classroom.
She's tough.
More:
When she calls her staff, she does not say hello; she just starts talking. She answered 95,000 e-mails last year, according to her office.
She frequently sounds exasperated. "People come to me all the time and say, 'Why did you fire this person?'" she says. The whiny voice is back. "'She's a good person. She's a nice person.' I'm like, 'O.K., go tell her to work at the post office.' Just because you're a nice person and you mean well does not mean you have a right to a job in this district."
Take a read, and discuss your thoughts.
More coverage:
* The DC Education Blog has some thoughts.
* Greensboro's Joel Gillespie waxes poetic on the subject.
E.C. :)
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1 comment:
More power to this woman and Joel Gillespie! I am the child of a principal and a former NC Teacher of the Year, and although I would have liked following in my parents' footsteps I did not go into education mainly because I saw how hard my parents worked and struggled financially. After 5 years of college my starting salary was almost double what my mother made as an experienced classroom teacher. When are we going to value education and teachers enough to pay them what they're really worth? If we want good teachers we need good salaries to attract the brightest and best college students to major in education.
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