DC School Chancellor Michelle Rhee: What is Right vs. What is Politic

I’ve lived in the DC suburbs for 20 years. The leaking, crumbling school buildings, textbooks that don’t arrive on time, students who start the school year without qualified teachers make headlines every fall without fail. The system seems unfixable—so hopelessly mired in bureaucracy and complacency that no one with a choice would send a child to the vast majority of District schools.

Now comes Michelle Rhee, who is just 37 and has never before run a school system. Who is Korean-American in a majority African American city. Who in the face of protests and boycotts is quoted in the Post calling “dumb” the idea that closing a school in the white part of the city would help make the whole plan more palatable to the African American community—an action that most DC politicians would have done reflexively.

And that is what gives me hope that she can do the impossible. Rhee is not a politician weighing the views of voters. Rather, she is a social entrepreneur who sets goals, looks at data, and does what it takes to do the right thing for kids, even if the grownups don’t like it. That’s just what the District needs—as do all communities, for that matter.

This disconnect, between what is right and what is politic, is exactly why America Forward is needed. As a social entrepreneur heading The New Teacher Project, Michelle Rhee helped to place more than 23,000 teachers in 200 school districts. She also published a controversial but groundbreaking report that exposed provisions in teacher contracts that made hiring and keeping good teachers hard for struggling schools. She is so knowledgeable about her work that the press has made note of the fact that she answers their questions without the help of aides and powerpoints. She brings a results-orientation to her new job. Where her predecessors made excuses, she sets goals.

For the most part, DC is rooting for Rhee. She enjoys a 59 percent approval rating, despite the protests that her school closure plan has drawn. But the kind of change the District needs won’t be solved that easily, and it remains to be seen whether the political leader who hired her will have the nerve to ride the ups and downs. Rhee does not expect to see any positive changes until next year, and says that it could take eight years until the system is in good shape. Unlike politicians, social entrepreneurs understand the need for patience in the face of such challenges—as Rhee has noted, “I have spent my entire career in situations where people [told me], ‘It’s not going to be possible.’ I know what needs to be done here—it’s not going to be easy. Those are two different things.”

That is a lesson that everyone in the political world—and those who vote for them—should learn.

Shirley Sagawa is a partner at sagawa/jospin and is assisting the America Forward coalition with policy development.