Michelle Rhee, chancellor of the District of Columbia’s public schools, is expected to announce Wednesday that she is stepping down after a tension-filled, three-year tenure during which she gained a national reputation as a reformer who also fired hundre
WASHINGTON (AP) — Michelle Rhee, chancellor of the District of Columbia’s public schools, is expected to announce Wednesday that she is stepping down after a tension-filled, three-year tenure during which she gained a national reputation as a reformer who also fired hundreds of teachers. Rhee, a former teacher, took over one of the worst urban school systems in the country in 2007 with a mandate from then-Mayor Adrian Fenty to improve them. Since then, she has improved some test scores but also angered many with teacher layoffs, firings and a brusque style. Her moves drew national attention. She was interviewed in "Waiting for ‘Superman,’" a documentary film on the wretched state of America’s public schools, that was released last month. Rhee has also been hailed by Oprah Winfrey as a "warrior woman" for her work and appeared on the cover of Time magazine. Rhee will be replaced on an interim basis by Deputy Chancellor Kaya Henderson, a person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity since the announcement was not yet official. The recent mayoral primary race between Fenty and his opponent, D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray, was seen in part as a referendum on Rhee’s work. While Fenty staunchly backed Rhee’s reforms, Gray refused to say whether he would keep her. When Gray won, the two had a meeting, but Gray said he would make no decisions on personnel until after the November election, which he is expected to win. Prior to coming to Washington, Rhee had been the founder of the New Teacher Project, a nonprofit that trains teachers to work in urban schools. Her tenure in Washington was marked by controversy from the beginning. In December 2008, she posed for the cover of Time magazine wearing a black suit and holding a broom, suggesting she would clean up the school system. But that image didn’t sit well with longtime teachers and the union. In her first year on the job, she closed approximately two dozen schools and fired three dozen principals. Particularly acrimonious was her firing last October of some 400 school employees, about half of them teachers. Rhee cited a budget crunch, but the teacher’s union charged she had manufactured the crisis in order to be able to fire longtime teachers. In July she fired more than 200 staff members rated "ineffective" under a new evaluation system. Rhee also had her supporters. In September, before the mayoral primary, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said that D.C.’s school system had made "tremendous progress" under Rhee — one of the reasons the system won $75 million in federal Race to the Top education funding. Earlier this month, the school system announced that it had a 1 percent gain in students, the first enrollment gain in nearly four decades. Test scores, meanwhile, improved, but progress in closing an achievement gap between black and white students has slowed. Officials also recently learned that the percentage of elementary school students passing the city’s math and reading exams in 2010 had dropped after two years of gains. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
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