Former D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee said the state of the U.S. public education system today “sucks.”
Rhee spoke to students March 2 in a panel event sponsored by the Roosevelt Institute at AU, after a screening of the documentary “Waiting for Superman,” a film about the nation’s public schools system.
“We are supposed to be living in the best country in the world,” Rhee said to a packed audience. “The land of opportunity, and whether or not kids get a good education is dependent on luck and the spinning of the wheel.”
The documentary says Rhee simultaneously drew praise and criticism during her tenure as chancellor. During that time she cut over a hundred jobs in the D.C. Central Office and closed 23 schools in D.C.
Her alliance with former D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty made waves during the mayoral election earlier this fall. Rhee resigned after Vincent Gray was elected.
Rhee talked about her stance on teachers’ unions, saying she was surprised that President Barack Obama has advocated for holding accountable and even firing underperforming teachers.
“I don’t think you can overstate the importance that he has had over the debate of teacher quality over the last two years,” Rhee said.
She said while Obama has held teachers more accountable, Republicans primarily criticize the teachers’ unions. A Democrat herself, Rhee said that stance needs to change.
However, she said she has seen Republicans, Democrats and independents alike calling for reform, including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent, and her fiancé, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a Democrat.
“Democrats have been resistant about saying that within the last 10 years and I think that with some of the stuff that’s going on in Wisconsin, it is actually a different dynamic that’s happening there,” she said. “I think that you can hold unions accountable and draw very strong distinctions in what they ought to be doing and fighting for.”
Zachary Kolodin, director of the Future Preparedness Initiative for Roosevelt Institute, also served on the panel and said it is not productive to vilify the unions.
He said that while the recession and deep deficits across the country have hit budgets hard, money should still be directed towards education.
“In Wisconsin, there’s a real demonization of unions and public employees and I think that reflects something real in our economy,” Kolodin said. It’s really not the unions’ fault that America is such a ruthless place for the middle class right now.”
But Rhee said that in New Jersey, thousands of dollars are spent per child with disappointing results.
She said that the root of the problem doesn’t come from poor districts or lazy parents, but the poor performance of teachers and attitude in the central office.
“Once we as a school district do everything that we’re supposed to be doing, then we have the right to go to the parents and the kids and hold them accountable too,” Rhee said.
Rhee has continued her crusade against the unions by establishing her own interest group called StudentsFirst.
Rhee said she believes that the failure of the system now is that there are advocates for adults but none for kids.
“The education landscape over the last few decades has been driven by special interests groups: textbook manufacturers, teachers unions, testing companies, et cetera,” she said. “We don’t have a system that is set up to protect children, we have a system that is set up to protect adults and their jobs.”
lgiangreco@theeagleonline.com
