How Politically Astute is Michelle Rhee?
Ben Smith and Byron Tau have written the definitive piece on this new phase of Michelle Rhee's career. She is attempting to build a national advocacy organization to directly confront the teachers' unions, and--though she continues to identify as a Democrat--she is now working most closely with GOP governors whose foremost priority is to drastically roll back public spending.
Smith and Tau very fairly present the evidence of Rhee's history of political tone-deafness and, to be frank, I don't think she has become all that much more sophisticated over the last three months sinceAdrian Fenty's defeat. There's only so much common ground a Democratic education reformer can find with politicians who resent the very existence of a social safety net. This hard reality calls into