Since D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee hit the cover of TIME Magazine last week, our “Michelle Rhee” Google alert has been blowing up — there is something about Rhee that gets people’s attention and elicits a response. Take this quote from the TIME story:"The thing that kills me about education is that it's so touchy-feely," she tells me one afternoon in her office…"People say, 'Well, you know, test scores don't take into account creativity and......

The big news last week was Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s presentation to the D.C. Council of her five-year action plan for DCPS, which included ideas like a parents’ academy designed to get parents to be involved in their kids’ education, and the creation of “theme” high schools for technology, foreign language, or gifted students. The Post has more, or you can download the entire plan here. Rhee also spoke about new discipline policies to address......

Cue the “Hurricane Rhee” jokes. Here’s the latest being floated by Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee: ask the federal government to declare the D.C. public schools in a “state of emergency.” If approved, the step would give Fenty and Rhee unprecedented authority to rebuild the school system, which is the lowest-performing the nation, similar to what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the system there. This restructuring would likely......

DC Teacher Chic, one of the city’s most prolific teacher-bloggers, has thrown in the towel, posting to her blog on Friday, “I am no longer an employee of DC Public Schools, and for the first time in weeks, I feel like I can take a deep breath.” The news of her departure spread quickly around other teacher blogs, and sparked some strong reactions, ranging from the intensely supportive to near-abusive. DC Teacher Chic had been......

Sixty-one DCPS schools are serving as polling places in the District today, in addition to following a normal academic schedule. (The Washington Teachers’ Union had asked schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee to close the schools for election day, but their request was denied.) According to a spokesperson for the District, additional security has been put in place to ensure the safety of students, and “guarantees” have been made for light and heat (although one would hope......

While other school districts like Fairfax County and states like Massachusetts are in the midst of slashing schools budgets and cutting funding for education initiatives, D.C. seems to have found ways to avoid such measures, at least for a while. As we mentioned in the Morning Roundup, yesterday Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee asked the Council to approve a relocation of $100 million from the approximately $750 million schools budget. According......

Last Friday was payday for the 3,293 students at 15 D.C. middle schools who are enrolled in the District’s Capital Gains program. The pilot program, co-funded by the District and Harvard University, allows students to earn up to $100 every two weeks for meeting conditions based on good academics, attendance, and behavior. The average amount earned by students in the first pay period was $43, though district officials say they expect payouts to increase as......

Some notable finger pointing over the past week: a list showing 90 unfilled teacher vacancies surfaced, prompting complaints of a teacher shortage caused by Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s firing 270 teachers this summer; the long-awaited schools modernization plan was criticized by the D.C. council as incomplete and lacking community input; and a Washington Teachers Union information session about the quagmired teachers’ contract negotiations descended into name-calling and shouting matches. Perhaps Post columnist Jay Mathews had the......

To absolutely no one’s surprise, DCPS enrollment hasdropped 8.7 percent, according to a preliminary count by an independent auditor. While late registration will likely raise the final tally slightly, DCPS spokesperson Dena Iverson said that as of last week, 45,135 students were enrolled in the District's 120 schools, down from last year’s 49,422, continuing a trend in declining enrollment that has persisted since the 1960s. So where did the kids go? Experts say that the......

Earlier this month, we described a new report from a federal court monitor that placed heavy blame on the District for its inability to provide special education services for its nearly 11,000 special needs students. As Post columnist Colbert King put it somewhat dramatically at the time, “the courtroom drama I witnessed this week underscored a sad reality: The one true safeguard between the city's most vulnerable residents and acts of governmental injustice is the......

In Denver a couple of weeks ago, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee provoked speculation with her comment that she had a “Plan B” ready on deck should the controversial teachers’ contract fail to pass. On Friday, Rhee revealed that Plan B. Basically, Rhee will use powers already under her authority to revise the teacher evaluation process, changes she can make without seeking union or council approval. More significantly, new rules taking effect this week will......

One of the largest financial sinkholes for the D.C. government is that the city pays for approximately one quarter of its 9,400 special education (SPED) students to attend private school, to the tune of more than $200 million. Why the expense? Because the city’s public and public charter schools have thus far proved incapable of addressing those students’ learning needs. It’s a situation that doesn’t seemed to have improved over the past two years, according......

Speaking at an A-list (among education reformers at least) event in Denver on Sunday, Mayor Adrian Fenty let loose some choice words for the teachers’ unions that have been balking at D.C. public schools chancellor Michelle Rhee’s proposed contract, which centers on merit-based, rather than seniority-based, pay for teachers. When asked by News Hour reporter John Merrow about the union’s opposition, Fenty responded, “The American Federation of Teachers, which I don't think does anything for......

WTU President George Parker speaks to the press after a small protest by teachers last week. Photo by Meaghan Gay for DCist. School starts on Monday, and even though Washington Teachers Union president George Parker recently told a group of protesting teachers that a tentative agreement could be expected within a week, it doesn’t look like we’re any closer to a contract vote for the District’s teachers. The negotiations hinge on D.C. Schools Chancellor......

Volunteer Opportunities: With school starting in two weeks, we figure it’s a good time to highlight some of the ways to get involved and support local students. Most volunteer programs are actively recruiting for the fall, and there’s really something for everyone, from mentoring to coaching to sharing your inner-geek as an after-school technology teacher. A few opportunities are featured below, and feel free to make additional suggestions in the comments. >> Not unlike last......

August is a mixed blessing – summer school is over and the afternoons are long, but teachers and students alike are aware that the first day of school is only a few weeks away. August should be a time for relaxation and preparation, but tempers have been running high for such a normally lazy month. The Washington Teachers’ Union and D.C. public schools are still locked in a stalemate over contract negotiations, the Mayor’s office......

This week marks the beginning of a series of meetings between teachers and officials from The Washington Teachers’ Union meant to clarify the much-discussed performance pay plan at the center of the ongoing teachers’ contract negotiations. D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has said that initial coverage of the proposal included some incorrect details, and promised to speak with union members during a Q&A at each meeting, telling the Post she plans to offer, "some solace......

Last week, we told you about D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s controversial new merit pay plan for teachers, as well as the impressive jump in DCPS test scores, both of which continued to provoke opinion throughout the weekend. Rhee’s compensation plan, under which teachers could choose to waive seniority and tenure in order to earn significantly higher pay tied to their performance, attracted the attention of both The Economist, which liked the idea, and The......

If you’re not already familiar with the way teachers in D.C. get paid, it basically works like this – the longer you teach, the more you make. DCPS teachers are compensated on a seniority-based scale (pdf), something that was designed to encourage retention, but unfortunately also means that teachers are paid for their loyalty, not their performance. D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has often said that she wants the District to have “the most highly......

The kid who fell asleep and was left alone for hours on a bus operated by D.C. Public Schools may have stolen the show in school bus coverage last week, but the real story is a bizarre new proposal from the Federal Transit Authority that would prevent the District from using Metrobus to get kids to school, a long-standing practice that transports about 20,000 kids a day during the school year. The Examiner reports that......

As a former high school teacher, I sometimes hear that past students have joined the military. There’s a decent sized JROTC presence in the D.C. public schools, and it wasn’t unheard of to see a military recruiter around the campus. Students in the JROTC talked up its scholarship opportunities, and several students, usually male, but not always, argued in classroom debates that the military was a good option for kids who couldn’t afford or didn’t......

It’s been a bizarre week in D.C. education, as ostriches rallied on 14th St. and seemingly everyone from Katie Couric to Al Sharpton had their eye on the District’s schools. Thursday was the last day of classes for DCPS students, and while Mayor Adrian Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee commemorated the one year anniversary of the schools takeover at a press conference at Langdon Elementary, a smaller gathering at the corner of 14th and......

To the discomfort of many a graduate, this week’s heat wave happens to coincide with the last week of classes for D.C. public schools, and students around the city are proudly perspiring beneath their polyester gowns as local schools hold their graduation ceremonies. In less hot graduation news, Education Week’s annual “Diplomas Count” report has released a dismal assessment of the District’s ability to graduate its students – only 57.6 percent of District 9th graders......

Critics and watchdogs, in the best cases, help keep leaders honest and organizations accountable. The D.C. government has a number of them, particularly when it comes to the public schools. But sometimes rhetoric can overshadow reason, even if there is a legitimate point to be made, as was the case last week in a letter from the usual suspects to Council Chair Vincent Gray opposing nominations for researchers to conduct an independent evaluation of the......

A Post editorial today notes that the most effective action Mayor Adrian Fenty has taken since assuming control of the D.C. public schools a little less than a year ago was to bring schools chancellor Michelle Rhee on board, remarking, “Michelle A. Rhee has done more in months to reshape the system than her predecessors did in years.” However, the editorial also cautions that it will be some time before any true achievement growth takes......

UPDATE 12:42 p.m.: The Council has voted unanimously to reject the Mayor's proposal, maintaining the existing requirements concerning the release of DCPS budget information and hearings. Today, the D.C. Council is scheduled to cast its first votes on Mayor Fenty's proposed fiscal 2009 budget, including $773 million for the District’s schools. However, one proposal in particular by Mayor Fenty has been garnering the attention of parent and community groups around D.C. – the motion to......

With a little over a month remaining in the school year, things aren’t slowing down for Michelle Rhee. Never mind that the D.C. Schools Chancellor is being named in what looks to be a time-consuming vanity lawsuit by Washington Teachers’ Union vice-president Nathan Saunders, or that City Council Chair Vincent Gray is messing with her budget. The woman has work to do. As we mentioned this morning, Rhee has begun the process of notifying many......