Michelle Rhee heard the chatter 15 years ago, that as a Korean-American she doesn’t belong teaching in an all-black school. So it will come as little surprise, she acknowledged, if similar criticism is leveled against her as chancellor of the predominately black D.C. Public Schools.

But Rhee, mother of two elementary school-age daughters, said parents everywhere have the same aspirations for their children to receive the best instruction and succeed.