Mayor Adrian Fenty’s pick to run the D.C. Public Schools will be grilled today on whether she is up to the task of revamping one of the nation’s poorest-performing systems despite little classroom or large-scale management experience.
The D.C. Council is scheduled to hear testimony on Michelle Rhee’s qualifications to manage the day-to-day operations of a failing municipal school system. Several Council members have openly questioned whether Rhee, 37, has the background to oversee as chancellor such a massive operation, given that she taught in the classroom for only three years and led a nonprofit with fewer than 150 employees.
“The big question on everybody’s mind is, ‘Is there the experience and ability to manage a system with over 11,000 employees and a $1 billion budget?’ ” Council Member Phil Mendelson asked. “I hope the hearing will provide answers and reassurance.”
Rhee remains something of an enigma to the D.C. crowd. She’s still perceived as an unconventional pick who, while earning a reputation as bright and capable, lacks crucial seasoning. A round of one-on-one meetings with council members did little to allay fears.
“From what I’ve heard from my constituents, I’m going to ask her some really tough questions,” Ward 7 Council Member Yvette Alexander said Friday on WAMU.
Beside the rave endorsement of New York Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, Rhee’s nomination would seem to hang on two key resume bullets. First, she spent the last decade recruiting and training 23,000 teachers to work in under-performing urban schools systems, including D.C., as founder and chief executive of The New Teacher Project. And second, she turned around the test scores of her students at Baltimore’s Harlem Park Elementary School in the early 1990s, helping some youngsters soar from the 13th to the 90th percentile.
Her critics have seized on that last claim.
“No one’s been able to prove it,” said Mark Borbely, of Fix Our Schools.
Rhee said Friday she is prepared to verify the achievement leap.
