Looking beyond the Big Broom

In many ways DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee has become the iconic leader of the current school reform movement. Who can forget the December 2008 Time Magazine cover depicting Rhee brandishing a broom and a stare — ready to sweep out the incompetent teachers in the beleaguered district and replace them with bright young talent who would raise student achievement test scores in a hurry.

There’s no doubt that a take-charge approach is needed in the DC Public Schools, where a focus on effective teaching and accountability were sorely lacking before Ms. Rhee’s tenure began in 2007.
 
But a bit more than two years into Rhee’s chancellorship, another side of the D.C. reform initiative is beginning to surface, suggesting that the current school reform team may not be enacting the changes that students most need and deserve.

The inexperienced and inexpensive itinerant teachers favored by Ms. Rhee’s human capital approach to school system management are not always the answer.  In fact, by drawing on the voices of several students, today’s Washington Post suggests that many of these recent hires may be doing more harm than good.

Dayna Downs, a middle school student, told this story: "We had a great science teacher who knew how to handle our class and make learning fun. Now he's been replaced with a less-experienced teacher, and the class is acting a lot differently. Some students don't listen anymore." Downs told city officials at a hearing Saturday that "We have a science test coming up, and I'm worried about failing because our new teacher doesn't know where we are in our work."

Ikechukwu Umez-Eronini, a high school senior, complained of the “complete lack of transparency about what’s going on in the school system.” Umez-Eronini, a leader in student protests over teacher firings, continued: "You can't get a straight answer about anything -- not about the firings, the school budget or the test scores.”

This Post article (by metro columnist Courtland Milloy) suggests that the Big Broom is simply too crude an instrument to improve schools in the long run and protect children’s interests in the here and now.

Radical change is required — but solutions need to match the problems. I believe a new narrative is beginning to emerge around how we can more accurately identify effective teachers and teaching practices, and how we can craft nuanced reform policies that don’t reduce the complex issues in our public schools to a single cause.

In the meantime we all need to listen more carefully to thoughtful students like Dayna and Ikechukwu, for whom misguided policy is no abstraction.

Comments

[Claus]

Interesting that the post should run that piece on the same day that they run Richard Whitmire's piece on Rhee and the DC schools--He councils her to move fast, stay aggressive and not be "nice" like Arne Duncan. Like many others, he seems to think that reform comes in one flavor....

[Barnett Berry]

it is interesting. But I suspect one can move fast and stay aggressive while still retaining and rewarding the effective teachers students deserve and laud.