Fenty's Methods on Education

Even though DC school officials stood behind Mayor Adrian Fenty and new DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, privately they are up in arms about Fenty's secrecy over his selection of Rhee. Many members of the DC City Council didn't learn about Rhee until a few minutes before the press conference and some expressed some soft bigotry about Rhee:

Council member Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5) said some of his constituents are concerned with Rhee's ethnic background. As a Korean American, Rhee will be the first non-black chief in four decades in the predominantly African American school district.

"Those are the first obvious things people are going to ask. Can you deal with the African American children in our system?" Thomas said.

But he said his answer, for now, is that she appears to care about all children. "We all want the same basic things for our children," Thomas added. "She's a mother. That's a good thing. She said she is going to put her children in our schools. That's a better thing. She's putting her own sweat equity in this."

Rhee's teaching background was in Baltimore, which like DC schools, is largely African American.

But Thomas's real beef is that he was not consulted on the choice. Which leads us to the real problem in DC schools. Although the bureacracy is a shambles, the phsycial plant a disaster, the test scores and academic achievement in the toilet, the real problem with DC schools has been leadership. The vast turnover in superintendant, Rhee is the seventh in 10 years, is the petty politics of DC, a place where there are only a few elected positions and no opportunity to move up, becomes entrenched over time. One example is Marion Berry, who has been a figure in DC politics for nearly 4 decades, and few of them effective years. People tend to get elected and remain in place for so long that they ideas become entrenched, their constituency and supporters expect to be consulted and get offended when not consulted.

Fenty, himself in his mid-30's, is not beholden to that "old school" and so he makes new school style decisions. Rhee was selected in secret in order to avoid the compromises that would endanger his ability to turn the DC schools around. Fenty has staked his reputation and his mayoralty on this one issue. If he had to vet his choice through the old network of pols, he would have had to cave on things like age, experience and outlook. His choice for chancellor, upon which so much rides, would not have been his choice.

In many respects, you would think that the school board and the city council would embrace Rhee and give her as much rope as possible to hang herself and Fenty on this matter. But with that mindset comes risk, risk that Fenty might succeed despite their opposition and they won't be able to take credit.

Rhee may not have experience in a large bureaucracy, but she knows how to get things done adn knows how to sell ideas and that, in the end, will be her job.