Showtime, D.C.!

As it is with every August in the greater Washington, D.C. area, the forecast is a consistent high-80s/low-90s with humidity and a chance of some sort of thunderstorm just about every day, Congress has skipped town for the better part of a month, and anyone still in the city is staring a hole through the tiny little "September" portion of the August page of his calendar.  There are things to do, but there's nobody around to help get them done.  It's, quite frankly, a hint at what hell might be like on certain days (except Hell doesn't have a Starbucks or a Cosi on every other corner).

In fact, the only people doing much of anything at this point in time are educators.  And in the District of Columbia's school system, the prep for the upcoming school year seems to have higher stakes than usual.  Chancellor Michelle Rhee has received an enormous amount of attention since arriving a couple of years ago, and her third year might be a "do or die" year in terms of her public image and future success:  it's what most teachers consider their "tenure year"; there's a Democrat in the White House with a new Secretary of Education who supposedly has it in him to get things done instead of drafting NCLB II: The NCLBening; and as the Washington Post reported on Sunday, she's hired some contractors to "fix" some of the District's high schools ("A D.C. Schools Awakening," by Bill Turque, 8/2/09).

Those brought in to fix Coolidge, Dunbar, and Anacostia High Schools, referred to as "takeover agents" in the article's subhead, have met with success before in cities such as New York and Los Angeles, taking over schools marred by failing scores under NCLB and turning them around, and the task ahead of them is substantial.:

This summer, Friends of Bedford, which operates a Brooklyn public high school that has become New York City's most successful, has taken control of Coolidge and Dunbar senior high schools. Friendship Public Charter Schools, which serves about 4,000 students on six D.C. campuses, is running Anacostia Senior High School.

Rhee has also started discussions with Steve Barr, founder of Green Dot Schools, which operates Locke Senior High School in Los Angeles, one of the city's largest and most troubled schools, about working in the District. Barr recently toured Eastern High School on Capitol Hill, although District officials said discussions are in an extremely preliminary stage.

Anacostia, Coolidge and Dunbar are all stark examples of the challenge [Arne] Duncan describes, places where scholarship and discipline flicker weakly at best. Fewer than a third of students read and write proficiently, according to citywide tests. A 2008 review of Dunbar by District officials said, "Evidence of effective teaching and learning was limited to a few individual teachers." On a single day in November, 19 girls were arrested for fighting.

The piece then  goes on to describe how those put in charge of these high schools might be setting themselves up for failure, in that the schools are more or less keeping the same staffs that were in place before they were taken over, and that taking over an existing school is a lot harder than starting one from scratch, especially if you want autonomy over curriculum, administrata, and anything else that helps said school run effectively.

Well, duh.

Sorry, that was immature.  But seriously -- I didn't need the Washington Post to tell me that.  But it's not like completely stripping those high schools in Washington and putting in fresh administrators and teachers will work, either.  It's the same community, same students, same city government.  At best, you raise test scores; at worst, it fails completely and you start over again; most likely, it becomes the same bloated bureaucratic mess that existed before and I can start archiving articles if I ever teach Animal Farm and need a real-world example.  And on some level, Dunbar PTSA president Leon Braddell is right when he says: "There will be some resistance. But you can't look at the test scores and say that the status quo is okay."

I'll side-step the test scores rhetoric because after all, at the present time, they are the bottom line for the powers that be, and reiterate my point from an earlier post that Washington, D.C. is one of the most important districts in the nation and Rhee one of the most important people to watch.  Because the press is watching Rhee and the more attention she gets, the more Duncan and President Obama may be watching her.  And you know the GOP will therefore be watching.  In fact, if this op-ed in the Post on Sunday is any indication, they are, and they kind of like what they see:

It is no accident the GOP has consistently supported these ideas -- they embody some of the party's core beliefs: Good performance should be rewarded, failure should have consequences and individuals should have freedom of choice. These reforms only make sense. Why would we not want to choose the most suitable school for a child, reward a teacher for producing outstanding results or fire a teacher who is bad at his or her job?

Unlike congressional Democrats, who answer to teachers unions, Obama and the GOP have the same laser focus: These are our children we're talking about, our future, the country's future.

I mean, it's typical conservative rhetoric--unions bad, Pelosi bad, irony of ineffective politicians calling out ineffective teachers good--but it should raise a few eyebrows.  Because what could possibly happen by June 2010, after the administration has moved on from healthcare and has started to actually push some sort of education reform through Congress?  Well, let's see ...

This succeeds wildly and Duncan puts Rhee on a pedestal. Moreover, he convinces Obama to convince Congress to give the green light to companies that are waiting in the wings to take over school districts deemed "failing" by NCLB, effectively "privatizing" education (and maybe creating a "medicare/medicaid" type of system for schools that are failing but cannot afford such measures ... basically doing the exact opposite of what's been thought of for health care).  The unions are weakened to the point where they're ineffective and even schools and unions in the strongest union states (NY, PA, etc.) start to feel an enormous amount of pressure.

This fails miserably, Duncan and co. distance themselves from Rhee. Rhee gets maybe one or two more years, leaves D.C. and a new Chancellor comes in to clean up her mess.  Nothing changes as far as unions are concerned, and I find a way to work in a Marion Barry joke.

This succeeds, but not in the way that those who really support it hope or expect. In other words, the vilified teacher's union takes a long, hard look at the situation and sees some advantages.  They streamline, focusing on the "meat" of the issues, and since the changes that are taking place take a long time to actually happen (at least as far as measurable, visible results to the press and the general public are concerned), the teachers themselves, who were there before the "saviors" came and will be there after they leave, become the heroes.  Other districts take a look at the situation and start to look at how they can do it in-house and cheaper, saving the money spent on a takeover.

Of course, nothing could happen and we could be right back at this point next August.  But anyone who wants a hint at what might be coming from the Obama administration and what may or may not work to reform public schools needs to watch this closely and objectively.  Set aside love or hate for Michelle Rhee and her solutions and really analyze what's being done.  It is the hardest thing to do for so many with a passion for education but hey, nobody said this was going to be easy.

Tom Panarese is an English teacher and yearbook adviser in Virginia. Prior to a career in education, Tom worked in marketing as a proposal writer for a a variety of companies in technology, telecommunications, and law. Tom's essays have been published in print and on Education Week. He blogs as "The Uninspired Teacher" at Stop Trying to Inspire Me.

Photo by ne*