Heroic Reformer Theory Fails

September 15, 2010

Yesterday’s defeat of Adrian Fenty in DC and the likely ouster of heroic school reform superintendent, Michelle Rhee, should remind all of us of the very real limits of the heroic reformer theory of school reform.  That theory holds that we just need to place the right people in positions of power in the school system and then support their heroic efforts with supplemental funding and political support.

The main problem with maintaining centralized government control over schooling and just changing who controls that centralized system is that the forces of the status quo have enormous incentives and even stronger ability to recapture control even if they temporarily lose it.

Rhee was probably pushing for the many good reforms, but the more she pushed for them the more incentive the edublob had to win the next election, remove her from office, and undo her efforts.  And eventually they did.

Happily, DC is also decentralizing control over the school system, especially with its large and growing charter sector.  Whoever is in charge of the  DC public school district, that person will be in charge of a shrinking organization.  The right way to reform DC is to make it easy for everyone who wants to leave a failing school to do so.  That can’t be as easily reversed as changing the person who is charge of a centralized system.

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Posted by Jay P. Greene

The Lioness in the Winter?

September 9, 2010

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

I’m seeing increasing eduland chatter that DC Mayor Adrian Fenty is trouble in his reelection bid.  Rick Hess provides an on the scene view of what is at risk:

When it comes to teacher evaluation, the teacher contract, textbook distribution, special education, scheduling, data systems, and much else, Rhee’s team has gotten DCPS to the point where it is functional. It isn’t yet an especially good school system, but it’s no longer broken and it’s positioned to be something much more.

I’m even a bit more bullish than this on DCPS. In our rankings of state NAEP performance for ALEC’s Report Card on American Education, DC came up with the second highest overall gains between 2003 and 2009, behind only Florida. The NAEP gains in the District predate Rhee’s tenure, but accelerated between 2007 and 2009.  If the Fenty/Rhee regime survives, an academic golden age of improvement lies within the grasp of the long-troubled district.

If not, it will likely take longer. The bottom-up pressure on DCPS in the form of a large and growing charter school sector will remain.  I have some hope that the union’s pillow smothering of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program might be reversed after many of their minions are forced out of Congress.

That's my lobbying job! No MINE!!!!!

The path to reform is difficult. There have been and will continue to be bitter losses along the way. For the sake of the 56% of DC 4th graders who still can’t read at a Basic level despite the progress to date, I hope that prematurely losing Rhee will not be one of them.

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Posted by matthewladner