Tag Archives: No Child Left Behind

Michelle Rhee, DC Schools Chancellor

Right now, few people are as polarizing in education as Michelle Rhee, schools chancellor for DC’s public school system.

Education reformers, parents, even teachers gasp in her authoritarian aura, amazed at the “reforms” she had to ram into existence to “turn around” a failing school system. Teachers, unions, and many progressives see Rhee as nothing but a martinet, a smug soulless dictator who mouths the same tired taglines of the NCLB establishment in implementing her ruthless schemes.

So she’s Robin Hood to some, Kim Jong-Il to others. Yet the more I see and hear her, the more conflicted I become.

I’ll be honest—I’m not a fan. Every time I read Rhee’s remarks, watch her on television, or even see her conceited, smiling face on the Internet, it burns me with anger. At times, I even want to take all those smiles and educational buzzwords and cram them down her throat.

Yet in that anger I see a semblance of sympathy.

 Rhee, like myself, is a child of immigrants. Even more importantly, our immigrant backgrounds, especially the values of our parents’ respective home countries (Italy and Ecuador for me, Korea for Rhee) define how we approach education—and how we approach leadership in education.

 At the onset, Rhee’s upbringing was not that much different from my own or my little sister. We both came from immigrant households that valued hard work and education. Low grades were not an option in Mr. D (the Elder)’s house, nor was dropping out: we were expected to get graduate degrees and attend the best colleges possible. As children, we were expected to follow rules, be respectful to adults, and conduct ourselves in a manner that did not shame our respective households.

Both Rhee and I ended up at high-level universities, as did my sister. She went to Cornell and then the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. I ended up at Georgetown (in Rhee’s future bailiwick) and my sister wound up at Brown (to my parents’ chagrin, but that’s another story). In fact, our entry into education was somewhat similar as well. Like Rhee, I too entered teaching through an alternative program, the New York City Teaching Fellows (a program co-created with the New Teacher Project, founded by Rhee). Unlike Teach for America, NYCTF was designed to lure professionals from other fields into teaching. I was already working in political journalism when I answered the call.

Yet here, the stories diverge. How did two people from seemingly similar backgrounds and education wind up on such opposite poles of the education universe? Many people will not like my hypothesis. Michelle Rhee’s leadership style and methods—for many, the crux of her controversy—form a direct line back to the values of her Korean forbearers. It could very well be that the “Asian” values that carried her through life do not mesh as well with an educational landscape like in the United States.

So is Michelle Rhee’s leadership style too “Asian” for US education?

Before the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, many scholars, economists and pundits were gaga over what were perceived as “Asian values”: a basket of ethical morays deemed particular to Asian nations. These “values” came from many sources, primarily from the writings of Confucius. Although their authenticity is disputed, these values could be summarized thus:

1. Loyalty and respect for all forms of authority.
2. Harmony and consensus over all matters.
3. Foregoing personal freedom for the needs and welfare of the community as a whole.
4. Focused, authoritarian leadership.

The bursting of the Asian financial bubble in 1997 caused a re-assessment of these “values.” Yet they still hold cache among education reformers that view the East as a model for educational excellence.

Rhee’s praises in the press bear this out. Article after article cite her willingness to “make tough choices”, “get tough with teachers”, “being brash and combative”, and be “data-driven, results-oriented.” A recent editorial in The New Republic stated that:

“In an exhilarating flurry, she has imposed competence on Washington’s shambolic schools—creating new mechanisms for measuring teacher performance, rationalizing the ordering of textbooks, taking care of special-needs students long left dangling on wait-lists. Above all, she negotiated a collective-bargaining agreement that weakened the jobs-for-life protection provided by tenure.”

Look at the language here, especially the term “imposed competence”—from The New Republic, no less, not exactly a tool of the establishment. The editors at TNR see the focused authoritarian nature of Rhee’s regime as the reform so desperately needed in DC’s public schools.

Yet this very same style that captivated reformers has alienated and enraged many others in the DC community. She’s accused of being authoritarian, not consulting with teachers, principals or parents on decisions. She’s insensitive. She’s distant and smug. Her rhetoric makes her seem like she’s a white knight, all others be damned.

This style works in a lot of places—in a boardroom, in a law office, in government palaces in Seoul, Singapore, or Jakarta. Yet an American education system is tricky, especially urban settings like New York, Los Angeles or Washington, DC.

If DC mayor Adrian Fenty goes down in this upcoming election, Rhee will as well—and part of the blame may lie in a style tied to values she grew up with.

It is a value system that had to adapt to American reality. In Rhee’s case, it didn’t.

Rhee demanded complete control and complete respect. She’s noticeably irritated at confrontation and discord. She brokers no argument on her policies or methods. In her mind, since she is chancellor, everyone in the system is expected to follow her dictates, by design. Furthermore, administrators and staff must buy into Rhee’s program—simply due to her leadership position.

Even the way she describes her approach: “100 miles an hour, the children can’t wait”, carries an “Asian” air to it. It speaks to the need to sacrifice individual needs for a collective good.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with these values. Nor does this mean that Asian-Americans cannot hold positions of leadership in American education. However, if the so-called “Asian values” are not accommodated with prevailing needs and aspirations of the community it represents, then it is simply another form of dictatorship. In a democracy, style matters just as much as substance.

In this country, there is dissent. There is discord. There is disagreement. It may not be of the loud, obnoxious, anarchic brand that Noam Chomsky likes, but it’s there. Americans are not people who like to be told what to do.

This discord creates another concept that many pundits, including Fareed Zakaria, see as fundamentally American: Entrepreneurship. The need to innovate, the need for new ideas stems from rattling the status quo. It runs counter the “Asian” drive for consensus and harmony: after all, many changes in our life tend to be uncomfortable. Many critics of Asian education cite that new ideas and new technologies still stem from Western countries—mostly because the Asian model demands perfection of the status quo and does not nurture argument or dissent.

Furthermore, people like to be part of the process—or at least feel like they’re in on the action. Even if the decision boils down to one person, the people that elected your boss would like some say in the matter.

Which returns us to Michelle Rhee. If she leaves her DC post, either by choice or by force, she has many options. She can go to Sacramento, where her new husband is the mayor. Or she can succeed Arne Duncan as the new Secretary of Education.

Either way, it would be wise of her to reflect on her own leadership style—a style founded in Asia, yet transplanted poorly to America.

Rhee may have the best of intentions, but she has to learn the fundamental American value of how to get things done—play nice with others.

She probably went to the wrong Ivy for that.