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Among my son's favorite books are the ones in Richard Scarry's Busytown series. In What Do People Do All Day? , Able Baker Charlie puts too much yeast in the dough, resulting in a gigantic, explosive loaf of bread that the bakers (and Lowly Worm) need to eat their way out of. The opposite problem -- a lack of yeast -- is present in Michelle Rhee's recent op-ed in Education Week . In it, she limits her call to "rethink" teaching policy to "how we assign , retain , evaluate , and pay educators" and to " teacher-layoff and teacher-tenure policies." (And she casts the issue of retention purely as one about so-called "last-in, first-out" employment policies rather than about school leadership, collaboration or working conditions.) The utter absence of any focus or mention of teacher development either in this op-ed or in her organization's ( StudentsFirst ) expansive policy agenda leaves me wondering if Rhee believes that teachers...

A USA Today investigation calls into question "dramatic" improvements in student test scores in select District of Columbia schools due to an "abnormal pattern" of erasures. This occurred during Michelle Rhee's tenure as DC schools chancellor. Among the 96 DC schools that were flagged for wrong-to-right erasures by the city's testing contractor in 2008 "were eight of the 10 campuses where Rhee handed out so-called TEAM awards 'to recognize, reward and retain high-performing educators and support staff'.... Rhee bestowed more than $1.5 million in bonuses on principals, teachers and support staff on the basis of big jumps in 2007 and 2008 test scores. In 2008, to her credit, then-DC state superintendent (now Rhode Island education commissioner) Deborah Gist recommended that large test score gains in certain schools be investigated, but as USA Today reported, "top D.C. public school officials balked and the recommendation was dro...

Proposed education reforms that do not imagine that current and beginning teachers can become more effective while on the job should be considered null and void. This postulation, if accepted, would direct Michelle Rhee's new StudentsFirst agenda to the nearest paper shredder. To be blunt, it is just plain naive and short-sighted to think that we can maximize teacher effectiveness purely by firing more teachers and marginally changing the cadre of incoming teacher candidates. Is supporting and strengthening the teaching practice of our veteran educators not worthy of our focus and investment? StudentsFirst's "Elevate Teaching" policy objectives are limited to evaluating teachers and principals, reforming teacher certification laws, reforming teacher compensation, "exiting" teachers, and eliminating teacher tenure. Specifically, the objectives are: State law must require evaluation that is based substantially on student achievement. Evaluation tools sho...

On Friday, I wrote a blog item ( 'Misleading Manifesto' ) chiding a group of urban superintendents for misstating educational research in a 'manifesto' published in Sunday's Washington Post . Teacher quality *is* important -- but it does not matter MORE THAN family income and concentrated poverty. I am convinced that too many educational reformers are happy to 'spin' the truth for rhetorical purposes. I think this is exactly what we saw in this manifesto. While this may help to simplify messaging, target solutions at a more narrowly construed problem, and focus in on what education leaders have direct control over, it carries an inherent policy danger along with it. That danger is two-fold: (1) teacher policy reforms may be set up for failure by overstating their potential impact; and (2) more comprehensive strategies desperately needed to combat rising income inequality and growing poverty in our nation may be discounted and ignored. For me, this isn't...

By now you've undoubtedly heard that Michelle Rhee will announce her resignation tomorrow, ending her three-year run as District of Columbia Schools Chancellor. I thought I would share some of my past blog posts on Rhee, including " Live By The Sword, Die By The Sword? ," " A Generational Divide Over Teacher Pay ," and " Towards More Equitable Teacher Distribution ." Perhaps the best post mortem was offered last week - " (D)issing (C)ollaboration ."

I'm sorry, but the "manifesto" published in today's Washington Post really pisses me off because it is built upon a false premise. It is authored by a number of urban school superintendents, including Chicago's Ron Huberman, New York City's Joel Klein, Washington DC's Michelle Rhee, and New Orleans' Paul Vallas. And it -- intentionally? -- misstates educational research. "[T]he single most important factor determining whether students succeed in school is not the color of their skin or their ZIP code or even their parents' income -- it is the quality of their teacher." No. That is patently false. Now, listen here. I work for a teacher-focused, non-profit organization, the New Teacher Center (NTC). Wouldn't it be powerful to go out and say that teachers matter more than ANYTHING else? But they don't. In terms of school-based variables, they do. But in terms of all variables that impact students, they simply do not. No researc...

Something's rotten in the District of Columbia. That appears to be the assessment made by the city's voters in last month's Democratic primary in which they ousted one-term Mayor Adrian Fenty in favor of City Council President Vincent Gray. This effectively makes Gray the next mayor in a city where Republicans are inconsequential in its political system. Mayor Fenty, of course, hired Michelle Rhee to serve as Schools Chancellor in June 2007. Both have governed in a non-collaborative, take-no-prisoners style and numerous election post mortems have identified that style of leadership -- both his and hers -- as a primary reason for Fenty's defeat. Here are the three best analyses I've read about how Mayor Adrian Fenty (and, by association, Chancellor Michelle Rhee) lost DC: (1) Sam Chaltain, 9/15/2010: "Why Adrian Fenty Lost the City -- and How Vincent Gray Can Win It Back" (2) Judith Warner, New York Times , 10/1/2010: "Is Michelle Rhee's Revolut...

The problem with Jay Mathews' defense ( "Measuring Progress At Shaw With More Than Numbers" ) of a Washington, DC school principal who did not demonstrate student learning gains at his school after one year is that the principal operates within an accountability system that demands such a result. In this case, both Mathews -- and DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, as described in Mathews' WP column -- are right not to have lowered the boom on Brian Betts, principal of the DC's Shaw Middle School at Garnet-Patterson, based on a single year's worth of test scores. The state superintendent of education's Web site says Shaw dropped from 38.6 to 30.5 in the percentage of students scoring at least proficient in reading, and from 32.7 to 29.2 in math. But those were not the numbers Rhee read to Betts over the phone. Only 17 percent of Shaw's 2009 students had attended the school in 2008, distorting the official test score comparisons. Rhee instead recit...