School reformer urges California to change teacher tenure rules
LA Times, February 16, 2012
Former District of Columbia schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee urged a Los Angeles audience of educators and parents to pressure state leaders to change teacher tenure and seniority rules.
Featured in the movie about the state of education, Waiting for Superman |
Her appearance Wednesday night before an enthusiastic crowd of about 600
marked the third of four appearances statewide for Rhee, who is attempting to
build a base of influence in California.
Rhee’s 1-year-old organization, StudentsFirst, has worked in other states
with governors and powerful legislators but not in California, even though her
organization is based in Sacramento.
In her remarks and a question-and-answer session, Rhee took on “last in,
first out” rules that govern teacher layoffs. She characterized this approach as
“incredibly detrimental to students and schools,” because gifted,
less-experienced teachers are put out of work while less effective teachers with
more seniority get to keep their jobs.
“California is one of the few states left that mandates in state law that
layoffs happen this way,” Rhee said. “What we’re going to have to do is get
politically active.”
She added a glancing reference to Gov. Jerry Brown and
state Democratic leaders: “It’s clear we’re not going to get invited in,” she
said. “Are you guys ready for this?”
Brown has expressed skepticism about some of the more recent directions in
education reform.
Rhee’s staff billed the L.A. event as part of a “listening tour,” but for the
most part a largely appreciative audience at the Robert F. Kennedy Schools’
auditorium was content to listen to Rhee, and also to her husband, Mayor Kevin
Johnson of Sacramento.
“We don’t use data effectively to say who the best teachers are,” Johnson
noted at one point.
In a Wednesday interview, Rhee explained some views that are unorthodox for a
Democrat, such as supporting government-funded vouchers for students from
low-income families to attend private schools.
“If you run a school system and your job is to preserve and defend the
system, you should be anti-voucher,” she said. “But I could not find it in
myself to look a mother in the eye and say, 'I’m going to force you to keep your
kid in a failing school' " that might take five years to fix.
Rhee was criticized recently for avoiding questions about alleged cheating on
test scores in the District of Columbia, the school system she used to run. On
Wednesday, however, she said she fully supported an investigation that is now
underway.
The Teacher's Association has taken over as the new Costa Nostra. They will not let her get away with this blasphemy so she will be either dead or disgraced very soon.
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