Nothing would thrill education reformers more than if Barack Obama appointed someone like D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee to lead the Department of Education, but the hopeful are reluctant to believe it could actually happen.
Rhee, who has received national media attention for her willingness to plow past the Washington Teachers Union, represents the revolutionary side of a long-forming rift between Democratic educators. Her supporters tends to favor initiatives like merit pay, charter schools, and expedient methods for firing teachers who don’t perform.
The old guard consists of teachers-union faithful and those insistent upon traditional paths to the classroom, like an undergraduate degree in education. They champion better professional development and more secure working conditions.
On the campaign trail, Obama was able to satisfy both sides when needed. But while little mention has been made of his choice for secretary, the woman chosen to lead Obama’s education transition team is an oldguard warhorse.
Stanford University’s Linda Darling-Hammond is “not a fan of real reform,” said Michael Petrilli, vice president of the D.C.-based Thomas B. Fordham Institute, devoted to increasing accountability and choice in America’s schools. “She is the darling of the teachers unions.”
In recent years, Professor Darling-Hammond has published scathing studies of Teach for America, the reformer breeding-ground that has offered people like Michelle Rhee a path to teaching in underprivileged classrooms.
The choice of Darling-Hammond was “a very bad sign,” said Terry Moe, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. “If some member of the old guard is chosen, it’s over as far as education reform,”
Politically, however, union pull remains strong.
“The new reformers may have the moral authority,” Petrilli said, “but they don’t have the masses of ground troops and the money.” He added that teachers union members made up about 10 percent of delegates at the Democratic National Convention.
Teachers unions “have been for decades one of the key power centers of the Democratic party,” Moe said. “So for Obama to go against them would be a bold and risky move.”
Even so, Moe remains hopeful, citing Obama’s reputation as an independent thinker, and unions “on the defensive like they never have been.”
Petrilli believes reformers will have a voice in the administration, but Obama will ultimately choose a union-safe bet for the education chief post.
“It’ll likely be reformers and establishment folks battling it out for the next four years, and that probably won’t lead to good policymaking,” Petrilli said.
As for Rhee, the most important quality for the secretary’s position should be “fortitude and willingness to go up against the entrenched interests,” she said.
But if that person possibly could be her, she’s keeping quiet.
“I’m very happy in my job for as long as the mayor will have me,” Rhee said.
