What is going to happen to reform with Klein, Rhee out?
NEW YORK — The recent resignations of high-profile school chiefs Joel Klein in New York and Michelle Rhee in Washington, D.C., raise questions about the future of education reform at a time when school districts across the U.S. are adopting policies the two icons of change pioneered.
Klein stepped down on Tuesday after eight years at the helm of the nation’s largest school system, while Rhee left Washington last month after District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty lost his re-election bid. Klein and Rhee have championed holding teachers and principals accountable for student performance, weakening union protections and closing down failing schools.
Klein called his overhauls “the most far-reaching” in the country at a conference Wednesday in New York. “If (school change) is not controversial, it’s going to be meaningless.”
Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said that what happens next will depend on replacements for the two leaders and the agenda of the mayors who hire them.
“The departure of two of the most visible break-the-china leaders is important and it raises the question of staying power — whether successors can build on these efforts, or whether they’ll reverse course and opt for something more conventional, is going to be a big story over the next two years,” Hess said.
New York, Washington and Chicago, where CEO Ron Huberman resigned last week, have operated as Petri dishes for national education reforms in the past decade.
Huberman’s predecessor in Chicago, Arne Duncan, is now the U.S. Secretary of Education, and his encouragement of small schools in the country’s third-largest school district led to a new wave of high school reform that Huberman had vowed to continue.
Changes championed by these leaders include incentive pay for teachers based on test scores, greater school choice and new data systems that track the performance of students, teachers and schools. Research on these steps, which have proved unpopular with teachers’ unions, has been mixed.