Kaya Henderson is tired of breaking china.
The interim D.C. schools chancellor remembers a class she took in college: Cycles of Revolution, something like that. It explained that when something is broken, people reach a boiling point. There’s a bloody battle in the streets. And then people look up: They realize their people have died, or their country is ravaged.
“People keep asking me how I’m different from Michelle Rhee. I’m different than her because she’s a petite Asian woman and I’m a large black girl,” Henderson told The Washington Examiner.
But the style of leadership that was necessary in June 2007 is different than what people crave now, Henderson says. “Rhee had to come in and break some china,” she says. “We’re tired of breaking china.” Rhee’s job was to create a revolution of reform; Henderson’s job is to smooth things out.
So she smiles more than Rhee, and she meets with skeptical education boards in the various wards, broaching topics like “healing” and “acknowledging missteps.”
But as Rhee’s deputy chancellor, Henderson was silently pulling the strings of the most high-profile, and most controversial, reforms that Rhee — and Mayor Adrian Fenty — took the public hit for.
Henderson was D.C. Public Schools’ chief negotiator of the union contract, which allowed Rhee to fire 165 teachers rated ineffective during classroom observations. Henderson led the team that developed Impact, the teacher evaluation tool that determined those firings.
“The reason I have never wanted to be a number one is because I’ve been able to just do the work and keep my head down,” she says. “I haven’t had to deal with the politics in the same way.”
But George Parker did. Then president of the teachers union, Parker applauded Henderson’s interim appointment, calling her more “humanistic” than Rhee.
On Dec. 1, the union ousted Parker in favor of Nathan Saunders, who charged that Parker did not bare his teeth enough at the bargaining table.
Saunders says the contract undermines job security and that Impact’s 50 percent emphasis on student performance is too much. “What she did with George Parker is totally different than what she’s going to be able to do with Nathan Saunders,” the latter warns.
Henderson does come across as more “humanistic” than Rhee, to more than just Parker. Cherita Whiting, chairwoman of the Ward 4 Education Council who worked with Henderson on the panel through 2008, was initially skeptical of Henderson’s appointment. But one month later, they met.
“If I had 10 walls up at first, maybe I don’t have all 10 up now,” she said. “I’m no dummy and I’m no pushover, but she did gain my support in trying to make things work, and mend the fences.”
Henderson is no pushover either. She punctuates her strongest statements by saying, “Period. The end.” She does not like hearing her contract or evaluation tool challenged. And the union giving up too much?
“Show me the law that says a bargain is supposed to be equal,” Henderson said. “That’s why it’s called bargaining, right? I think you look for the best situation that both parties can live with.”
And Henderson has even been tested against Rhee’s own reforms. Last week, she removed Friends of Bedford, the New York company that Rhee brought in to Dunbar High School after Henderson observed lax security.
Henderson also will decide if she can work with Gray, who criticized Rhee’s leadership style and whose campaign received much union money.
Gray has told Henderson he’s interested in keeping her on. In the coming months, they’ll see how their styles mesh over conflicts. As Henderson notes, “You’re not a family until you have a fight.”
