You have to love the clumsy two-step all our politicians and educators are doing over reports that D.C. students made big academic gains this past year. What’s the line — Success has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan?
Do we credit dearly departed Superintendent Clifford Janey? Before Mayor Adrian Fenty took over the schools last year and gave him the gate, Janey did change some tests and reform some curricula.
Should we bestow credit on the board of education that now advises the state education office? It is irrelevant in this case. Does State Superintendent Deborah Gist get to take a bow? Gist is a star, but her effect is more institutional and long term.
The obvious winner here is School Chancellor Michelle Rhee. Fenty put her in charge of the schools last year, and she has taken a hammer to various parts of the school system. But Rhee gave herself away when she said at Wednesday’s press conference: “I wasn’t expecting to see such gains early on.”
Which begs the question: What is the key to Rhee’s success? Bureaucrats and politicians will come up with many complicated answers. I have a simple one: Fear.
Since the day Michelle Rhee took office, she has struck fear into the hearts and minds of every person in the petrified public school system. From bureaucrats to principals to teachers to contractors, everyone is worried Rhee will show up and fire them. Yesterday.
Rhee’s smile can light up a room. But I have seen her put on her game face and level her stare. You can almost hear the banging of knees of quivering bureaucrats.
Fear is a valuable management tool that has been sorely missing from the D.C. government for decades. The rule was: Screw up and collect another paycheck; with Rhee, it’s perform or get another job.
The fear factor comes from Fenty, of course. No one feared his predecessors, Anthony Williams or Marion Barry. Fenty sets the bar and expects people to jump it. If not, Fenty gets angry, Fenty yells, Fenty fires people.
Want to know why school buildings might get fixed and built properly? Because Fenty hired Allen Lew as boss of the $2 billion modernization program. Lew takes no crap from contractors. Do the job or lose it.
Students and parents are the only ones who don’t fear Rhee and Fenty’s gang.
When Rhee decrees the closing of a valued school or the firing of a beloved teacher, they react. Take the firing of Art Siebens, a veteran biology teacher at Wilson Senior High. Despite decades of success, he got a pink slip. Students set up “Wilson Students Against Restructuring,” in part to save Siebens.
They plan to testify Saturday at D.C. Council Chairman Vince Gray’s youth hearing.
“We respect someone coming in an trying to fix the system,” says Hanna Mahon, a Wilson senior, “but we’re against the way it’s being carried out. We can’t just sit back and watch.”
At least someone’s got the guts to talk back.
Will Rhee listen?
