Michelle Rhee Wants to Spend $1 Billion Fixing Education
BY: JEFF CHU
AFTER THE FALL: Rhee is going national with her new lobbying group, Students First. | Photograph by Michael Kelley
Day One: Rhee spent Students First's launch day in Sacramento. Clockwise from top left, she visited her fiance, Mayor Kevin Johnson, at city hall and taped a segment for NBC Nihgtly News. Johnson gathered about 100 friends, family, staff, and supporters for an Oprah viewing party at Sacramento's old city hall. Rhee in the makeup chair before a TV appearance. | Photographs by Michael Kelley
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The day after Washington, D.C., Mayor Adrian Fenty lost his reelection bid last September, Michelle Rhee, the city's schools chancellor and No. 1 lightning rod, had an OMG moment. For three years, Fenty had constantly spent political capital defending Rhee as she fired hundreds of teachers and principals, closed schools, and earned both education reformers' adoration and teachers' unions' wrath. He eventually paid with his job -- and she knew she'd soon pay with hers. What am I going to do? she