Here's who Fenty picked. Her name is Michelle Rhee. Former head of the New Teacher Project. She'll be the first non-African-American superintendent, or, umm, Chancellor, of DCPS (Ms. Rhee is Asian). Please click through the links above for her bio and info on her former organization.
5 comments:
This is a really interesting choice. She is recommended by Mayor Bloomberg, but lets face it there are some issues that she will have to work through.
-I am not against a young person taking this on, but 37 and managing $3.1 billion with a school system in shambles?
-Will the DC bureaucracy and city council give her the support she needs to make a difference?
-Will her race be a factor? The fact that race is brought up is a sad state of affairs, but lets be honest, its a factor.
-One pro however, is that none of the other school board czars have been able to do any better, so maybe Fenty is being sage, and picking someone out of a different mold.
Either way, i just hope that she or anyone can fix this crumbling, wasteland of public schools in this city for the sake of the children and the economic health of our fair city.
Well on the plus side being only 37 and not from dc should hopefully limit her propensity for corruption and laziness like some of our past school board presidents. Second who gives a shit if she's not Af-Am. The school system is in crisis. People in this town crack me up? They whine about racial mistreatment then are the first ones to show their prejudices against others. Im sure half the black residents in this city will give her the cold shoulder because she's asian. So much for MLK's dream about content of character blah, blah blah. i guess for some people that's only a one-way street.
--shelley
Pretty much, shelley. People may complain all they want about not having a say in picking the new chancellor, but it's not like their top-notch picking skills have led to quality leaders in the past.
And yes, of course, people claim racism only when it's against them. It's absurd.
Was it necessary to mention her race in your post? Of all the things to say about her, I hope race is not a qualification (or disqualification).
I mention that she is Asian because I suspect that it may be an issue for some people even if they don't explicitly say so and it might come through in the things they say about her, but unless you know that she is Asian you might not pick up on that. So I'm hoping that this piece of information might lead to a more nuanced undestanding of some comments that are made (or articles written) about her. You will notice that the Post does not say she is Asian, but does mention that she is not African-American.
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