Few people inside Hardy Middle School on Friday evening believed D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s assertion she was removing award-winning principal Patrick Pope so he could create a citywide performing arts middle school. Crazy mad, folks kept checking each other’s foreheads to see if “stupid” was written there.
Rhee’s spin was illogical. It also prevented a candid discussion about the complexities of education reform.
Hardy is the only middle school in Ward 2’s Georgetown. For years, DCPS’ lousy reputation prompted many people from the neighborhood to send their children to private institutions. But Hardy’s record was good enough for African-American parents from other parts of the city, who raced to get in. The school eventually became predominantly black, with an integrated arts curriculum.
The recession, a new building and an education reform movement have merged to renew interest in Hardy among white residents. That’s a good thing. Problem is, they favor a traditional academic program and a principal who advocates that model. Hardy and Pope don’t fit that bill.
Black Hardy parents argued that moving Pope was unnecessary. They said he could replicate the school in his sleep. After all, he designed Hardy’s curriculum, hired its faculty and personally recruited many of its students.
Rhee knows that. She also knows that by replacing him with Dana L. Nerenberg, principal of Hyde-Addison Elementary, who lacks Pope’s experience and expertise means — to use Rhee’s term — Hardy will “turn,” weakening its arts focus and shifting to a more traditional academic curriculum.
But the chancellor’s prepared to destroy the one for the many: “Tremendous strides have been made here at Hardy,” Rhee said Friday. “But it’s important to see the system as a whole.”
Years ago, city planners, hoping to revive the District and its economy, pushed to bring back more upper-income and middle-class suburban families. In parts of the city, their vehicle was mixed-income housing; in others, they inspired gentrification.
DCPS needs a demographic adjustment. It needs more whites. Rhee has denied race or class factored into her thinking. That denial is hard to swallow, since most of Hardy’s critics are white and from upscale Palisades.
She has promised not to change course. I know why: Test scores and money hang in the balance. Tons of studies have shown white students perform higher on standardized tests than their black or Hispanic counterparts. Bringing in more whites could mean a significant uptick in scores. Federal dollars often are predicated on demonstrated annual progress. Additionally, better-credentialed professionals want to be attached to high-achieving systems. These combined elements could halt the current exodus to charter and private schools, which means even more money for DCPS.
But as Rhee delicately shifts demographics, she can’t alienate parents like civil rights lawyer Keenan Keller and others. They are the kind of people she needs. They are educated and savvy — and many have the resources to leave a system they believe unfriendly to their children.
If she doesn’t revise the Hardy plan, Rhee could find herself winning the battle but losing the war. That would be sad.
Jonetta Rose Barras, hosts of WPFW’s “D.C. Politics with Jonetta,” can be reached at [email protected].
