The first Asian American to head the Washington, D.C., public school system, Michelle Rhee is up against critics who say her youth and inexperience may outmatch her mission: to make our nation’s capital known one day for housing the highest-performing urban schools in the country.
In less than one month, the hallways of Washington, D.C.’s public schools will be filled with reenergized students fresh off summer break.
Like every school year, there will be new students, nervous teachers and redecorated bulletin boards. But one change in particular will have people talking: 37-year-old Michelle Rhee. Confirmed as chief of DC Public Schools in July, she is the first Asian American ever — and the first non-African American in 40 years — to head D.C.’s schools.
Rhee, most recently a resident of Denver, Colo., assumes control of a 55,000-student urban school district that is among the lowest-performing school districts in the country. Only 7 percent of eighth-graders scored at a level of proficiency or above in math, while just 11 percent of fourth-graders scored at a level of proficiency or above in reading and language arts, according to the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Skeptics wonder whether someone of Rhee’s age and experience can turn around D.C.’s beleaguered school system, which has seen six superintendents in just a decade, most of whom were veteran administrators.
But for Rhee, who has spent 15 years in urban education, change is visible on the horizon. “I think it’s going to be hard, it’s going to be a difficult challenge but I don’t think it’s daunting,” she said, during an interview in her corner office at DCPS headquarters. “It’s very doable.”
It is Rhee’s fearless attitude that has helped her win over critics who have pointed out her relative lack of experience. She has never headed a school system, and her teaching experience is limited to three years in a Baltimore inner-city elementary school while involved with Teach for America, a national corps of recent college graduates placed in struggling schools.
Labeled everything from an “unorthodox” choice by a Washington Post editorial to “an unknown” by one leader of a D.C. parents’ advocacy group, Rhee has much to prove. But by many accounts, Rhee — who is slim, with straight, black hair, and who appears to be in her mid-20s, not her mid-30’s — dazzled the D.C. City Council during her 12-hour confirmation hearing last month, with one observer even calling her performance “masterful.”
At her hearing, more than two dozen witnesses came to testify on her behalf, including former NBA star Kevin Johnson, who flew in from California to talk about how Rhee helped boost college-acceptance rates at Sacramento High School, which his nonprofit works closely with.
“It’s evident she’s passionate and sincere about wanting to improve District of Columbia schools. I was quite impressed by her answers, by her posture,” said D.C. Councilmember Yvette Alexander.
