Michelle Rhee, chancellor of Washington, D.C., schools,
recently fired 241 teachers just prior to the beginning of the school year.
According to her office, 165 teachers were fired for poor performance, and the
other 76 were removed because they lacked the proper teaching credentials.
 Michelle Rhee makes cover of Time. |
D.C. is among the 19 finalists competing for a share of
the $3.4 billion “Race to the Top” funds distributed by the Department of
Education. This program rewards school systems for mass firings aimed at
“improved performance” and heavily incentive-based teacher contracts that tie
teacher pay to student performance. Many consider the D.C. school system to be
a model for “Race to the Top” and Chancellor Rhee an educational “pioneer.”
The Mathematica Policy
Research firm has analyzed Chancellor Rhee’s new IMPACT evaluation method and
found that if three years of this data are used, there is a 25 percent chance
that a teacher would be misidentified as a ‘worse than average performer.’ The
error rate is 35 percent if only one year of data has been collected. According
to the Washington Post, not all fired teachers
even received the full evaluation.
Rhee’s efforts at
reforming schools have so far been mixed. In both reading and math, less than
half of elementary students pass the D.C. CAS standardized tests. While from
2007-2009 there was growth, scores in both areas dipped between 4 and 5 percent
on the 2010 tests. These results do not necessarily prove or disprove anything
factually, but given that Rhee’s proposals have only been partially
implemented, it is hard to determine how much her methods have correlated
negatively or positively with student performance, despite being widely hailed.
In another mass firing
in 2009, Rhee tried to explain her reasoning and methods behind the firings by
claiming that a number of teachers involved had been child abusers, a claim
true for only a single-digit number of over 200 teachers fired.
Given the ambiguity
around her policy initiatives, it seems appropriate to question Rhee’s
hard-line tactics that many claim are necessary. While her methods have been
praised by many, Rhee has so far only delivered unclear test results and mass
firings based on questionable evaluation methods. Support for Rhee rests on a
belief that introducing capitalist business management techniques into
education will improve schools, rather than actual data or results.
In one small example of
the uneven data on performance pay, during the 2005-2006 school year, Texas
introduced a merit-based plan for teachers. It offered $100 million dollars in
bonuses at over 1,000 schools if teachers raised their test scores. However, the
program was discontinued after it was discovered that it didn’t have any effect
on the teachers’ overall job performance.
Chancellor Rhee and her
supporters clothe their actions in rhetoric aimed at stressing their desire
that all students receive the best possible education. Her policy response,
however, focuses solely on demonizing teachers and establishing unproven
schemes based on capitalist market logic. Rather than scapegoating and business
school-designed gimmicks, our schools need comprehensive efforts involving
students, parents and teachers to address the range of education and social
problems affecting the quality of education.
