page_title: Michelle Rhee
section_title: Criticism
hierarchical_section_title: Michelle Rhee / Chancellor of D.C. public schools / Criticism
caption_attribution_description: English: Michelle Rhee speaking to a NOAA student award ceremony
context_page_description: Michelle A. Rhee is an American educator and advocate for education reform. She was Chancellor of District of Columbia Public Schools from 2007 to 2010. In late 2010, she founded StudentsFirst, a non-profit organization that works on education reform.
  She began her career by teaching for three years in an inner city school, then founded and ran The New Teacher Project.
context_section_description: Rhee's style of reform created a great deal of controversy. One common criticism disputes her assertion that, while a teacher, she dramatically increased students' average scores from the 13th percentile to the 90th. It was a statement that could not be verified during her confirmation process for D.C. Schools Chancellor.
  Rhee contended that under her chancellorship, student achievement in the D.C. Public Schools greatly improved. Since 2007, secondary schools have improved their standardized test pass rates by 14 percent in reading and 17 percent in math, while elementary school pass rates have improved 6 percent in reading and 15 percent in math. Systemwide high school graduation rates also improved by 3 percent, up to 72 percent in 2009. By 2010, D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System reading pass rates had increased by 14 percentage points, and math pass rates had increased by 17 percentage points. Enrollment decreased by 1 percent, a slower decline than prior years. However, significant achievement gaps remained between students in high-performing and low-performing school districts, and between white and black students. Education historian Diane Ravitch questioned the legitimacy of Rhee's results, alleging that "cheating, teaching to bad tests, institutionalized fraud, dumbing down of tests, and a narrowed curriculum" were the true outcomes of Rhee's tenure in D.C. schools.
  Some D.C. parents and community leaders complained that despite these improvements, the speed with which Rhee enacted her reforms left them without input on the changes. The District Council also criticized Rhee for being unresponsive to council members' requests for information about school operations. From 2008 to 2010, Rhee's approval ratings decreased from 59 percent to 43 percent. In 2010, 28 percent of African Americans supported Rhee, down from 50 percent in 2008. Yet even "as residents grow less supportive of Fenty's designated change agent for the schools," noted the Washington Post, "they still approve of some of the changes. The proportion of parents in the city who see violence or crime as a 'big problem' has declined from 78 to 65 percent.... The quality and availability of books and other instructional materials is viewed as less of a major problem by all parents, dropping from 67 percent to 48 percent." Also, the Post indicated that "Rhee's efforts to raise the quality of teaching through improved training, evaluation, and dismissals might be gaining traction as well."
  Rhee fired several administrators and school principals, including Marta Guzman, the principal of the high-performing Oyster–Adams Bilingual Elementary School, which Rhee's own children attended. Some parents alleged that the firing process was neither transparent nor fair. According to the Washington Post, "the departure has stunned many Oyster–Adams parents who wondered why, in a city filled with underperforming public schools, Rhee would sack a principal who has presided for the past five years over one of its few success stories. The move also heightened ethnic and class tensions within the school's diverse community. Eduardo Barada, co-chairman of the Oyster–Adams Community Council, the school's PTA, said Guzman was toppled by a cadre of dissatisfied and largely affluent Anglo parents with the ear of a woman who was both a fellow parent and the chancellor." Rhee also fired a principal she had hired seven weeks before in Shepherd Elementary, another high-performing school in the upper Northwest neighborhood.
  Rhee was criticized for closing several D.C. schools without holding public hearings, for not reporting complete budget figures at D.C. council hearings, for not involving parents to a sufficient degree, hiring former supporters to conduct an evaluation of her performance, and for spending considerable time before the national media (Time, PBS, lecture circuit) instead of visiting schools. When Rhee outlined a proposed new security plan in a talk at Woodrow Wilson High School, many students protested and proposed an alternative plan, Rhee responded indicating 
caption: Rhee at a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration awards ceremony, June 2008
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D3", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2008:06:12 16:19:44", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image CustomRendered": "Normal", "Image ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "Image WhiteBalance": "Auto", "Image DigitalZoomRatio": "153/100", "Image FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "82", "Image SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "Image GainControl": "None", "Image Contrast": "Normal", "Image Saturation": "Normal", "Image Sharpness": "Normal", "Image SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "Image ExifOffset": "380", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "852", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "966", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5719", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:05:15 09:43:30", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:05:15 09:43:30", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-2/3", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, compulsory flash mode, return light detected", "EXIF FocalLength": "55", "EXIF SubSecTime": "90", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "90", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "90", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "700", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "465", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 1, 2]"}