Michelle Rhee's new education advocacy group, Students First, just released its policy agenda and is garnering the former chancellor of DC Public Schools (and Ohio native!) more star power (if that's even possible for someone whose ideas are going mainstream via the Oprah show).
The policy agenda is pretty solid. The document, ?A Challenge to States and Districts: Policies that Put Students First,? outlines three policy priorities that will put students first:
Elevate the teaching profession by valuing teachers' impact on students
Empower parents with real choices and real information
Spend taxpayers' money wisely to get better results for students
In response to Rhee's policy platform, Mike was quoted yesterday saying ?I would leave the grass-roots organizing to someone else, someone who might have more credibility in the community? and noting that while her strength has been in making a strong case to ?elites? she wasn't quite so convincing in the heart of DC's low-income community.
I don't disagree entirely, but what I think is so powerful about the agenda is that it recognizes the appropriate levers for real change ? changes to state-level policy. State policymakers and legislators are part of the elite, and I suspect many of them might be receptive to the Student First platform and help roll it out in their respective states.
While Rhee's previous efforts (as chancellor, founder of The New Teacher Project, Teach For America alum, etc.) were laudable, she butted up against serious obstacles codified in state law and local collective bargaining agreements. These are the same impediments facing Ohio schools and districts; even those pursuing meaningful change ? like Cincinnati or Cleveland ? are limited by state requirements, red tape, and policies cemented into state law such as the asinine requirement to fire younger/newer teachers first, regardless of effectiveness.
These are the policy artifacts that Rhee will stand up to as head of Students First.
Many of these policies goals are worth pursuing immediately (and in Ohio, Fordham has been pushing similar reforms; see our Education Policy Imperatives brief to Governor Kasich and lawmakers), namely:
Evaluate teachers and principals based on evidence of student results, and uncouple development of teacher evaluation systems from the collective bargaining process
Support the expansion of effective teacher prep programs
Align staffing decisions (transfers, hires, layoffs) as well as teacher pay according to impact on student achievement
Eliminate tenure
Create more high-quality choice options (including charters, district-run magnets, and virtual schools); lift caps; equalize funding for choice schools; track student outcomes even in private schools
Empower parents to trigger a school turnaround, like what's happening in California
Close low-performing schools, even district schools
Adopt governance structures that are best for students (for example, mayoral control or a New Orleans-type ?recovery? district that is portfolio-based)
There are a few policy recommendations that aren't as convincing, or at least need fleshed out further:
Policy Priority 2 focuses a lot on empowering parents with ?real information?; however, even when equipped with achievement data and lots of choices, parents often keep their students in bad schools or even move to worse schools. We've seen this happen firsthand in Ohio.
While Policy Priority 3's focus on efficiency, smart spending, etc. is rhetorically, right, Rhee over-estimates the amount of money states could find in stamping out ?inefficiencies in the [central office] bureaucracy? or ?eliminating redundancies.? Thankfully, many other areas of the policy platform (such as transforming teacher salary schedules) could lead to more sustained savings. And she's right to point out areas of waste, such as bonuses for advanced degrees or spending to keep class sizes low.
Overall, much of Rhee's policy platform won't surprise you. The most exciting part of it ? to us here in Ohio working on the ground, at least? is that it appropriately identifies the need to change policy at the state level for meaningful and last reform.
Jamie Davies O'Leary
