School reform is not only alive and well in the nation’s capital, it is on track to create a system that can educate all children, rather than consign too many to a life of illiteracy and poverty, as it has for the last five decades.
Why such optimism? Two reasons: Kaya Henderson, the new queen; and Allen Lew, the current king.
Our Michelle Rhee moment seems to be over. As schools chancellor for the last three years, Rhee took a sledgehammer to the public schools. Forget the broom she grasped on the cover of Time; Rhee wielded a much more blunt instrument. She needed it to close 23 underused schools, to fire teachers who refused to teach, to force the teachers union to accept merit pay and loss of tenure.
Rhee’s execution was less than deft, her timing was sometimes off, and she blurted out too many inflammatory lines to the media, especially the national press that adored her brand of brash reform. They cast her as “Mama Griz,” protecting her students and swatting down those evil unions.
Did she leave too quickly? I would have preferred she stay through the fall term or the entire school year. But the chances of her working under a Vince Gray regime were nil, in part because they didn’t get along, in part because Adrian Fenty ruined Rhee’s chances of working under any other politician. Fenty gave her complete and total discretion, damn the political consequences. He never balked or questioned her moves or motives.
The result of giving Rhee total power is one reason he lost his re-election. Do you think another politician will give Rhee that much leeway, which she has now come to expect? She’s effectively spoiled. And now gone.
But Vincent Gray was wise enough to keep Rhee’s top assistant, Kaya Henderson, and the rest of her team of reformers. Henderson has a chance to do a better job in winning over the hearts and minds of African-Americans, from kids to teachers to parents. She’s young, but she has enough experience and great instincts to succeed.
Her smile can light up a room; her wrath can make union bosses tremble. But everyone comes away loving Kaya, even when they get the back of her hand.
If Henderson stays for the next four years, reform can flourish.
But Gray has to keep Allen Lew, too. If Lew stays as head of school facilities modernization office, we can expect buildings will be safe and comfortable places for kids to learn. Lew and his team have made sure toilets work, roofs don’t leak, furnaces heat. They have built new schools and refurbished old ones, from Sousa Middle School in Northeast to Wilson High in Northwest, which is being rebuilt right now.
Lew has good relations with the city council, and he has started spending the $2.3 billion in reconstruction funds well.
Michelle Rhee started a radical reform; Kaya Henderson and Allen Lew can now finish it — if Vince Gray has the patience and will.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
