Money Talks But Will DC Students Walk -- Or Read?
By: Harry Jaffe
Examiner Columnist
August 27, 2008
WASHINGTON — First, a rant about people with no stake in D.C. schools braying about Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s radical crusade for change.
Monday morning my wife goes to the dentist in Bethesda, and while she’s unable to talk back because of metal devices in her mouth, the hygienist says Rhee “must be fired” because she’s proposed paying middle school students to toe the line.
Hygienist lives in Maryland, has no kids in school.
As Lewis Black might yell: “Shaddapp!”
Professional complainers like Gary Imhoff at DC Wire serve up predictably sour reviews of every move Rhee makes. Not one word about pleased parents and happy students in spiffed up schools, because Imhoff -- like many habitual whiners -- probably has never set foot inside a school building.
Having gotten that off my chest, I can weigh in with my critique of the monetary culture Rhee has injected into the school system. Make no mistake, in Rhee’s new world of public education, money is the mother’s milk of success, as she defines it.
Case in point was last Friday’s gathering of the system’s 5,000 teachers at the D.C. Convention Center. Starting at 9 a.m., when Mayor Adrian Fenty welcomed the teachers (and did not get booed), the session was part game show, part religious tent revival, part motivational seminar.
The sleepy teachers were asked to close their eyes and conjure up and chant the name of last year’s special student.
The huge hall turned into a game show when Rhee announced schools that had won bonuses for raising reading and math scores at least 20 percentage points. Rhee bestowed huge cardboard checks to the six winning schools: Alton, Raymond and Thomas Elementary; Mammie D. Lee School; Sharpe Health; and Winston Education Center. Real checks went to principals ($10,000), teachers ($8,000) and support staff.
Keys to a new Hyundai went to Larry Trower, a teacher at Taft Special Education Center, which almost won the big money. Council Chair Vince Gray fished Trower’s name out of a box. Whoopppeee!
Then Rhee, preaching from the podium and three huge video screens, said: “We can prove it doesn’t matter what the color of your skin is or what your home life is -- every single child can achieve.” No boos for the woman who had closed 23 schools, fired staff and is proposing a contract that threatens seniority -- and promises huge raises.
“You have to trust me,” she said. “I know that trust doesn’t come overnight. I have to earn that trust.”
But should students earn dough just to learn? A few days later Rhee rolled out her partnership with Harvard University to pay students in 14 middle schools as much as $200 a month to show up, behave and work hard. For this she has been roundly spanked in the press -- and in dentists’ offices.
Bad idea, to folks like me who think public school is a privilege. But with a tweak, it could be a winner. Simply deposit the dough in a college fund, and the whiners might eat their words.
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