Students, Michelle Rhee's Really Not That Into You
By Ann KaneFour years ago, social entrepreneur Michelle Rhee started a media blitz to showcase her national education movement when she became head of DC schools under then-Mayor Adrian Fenty. To make a place for her, the mayor dissolved the school board and appointed Rhee chancellor with full unfettered power. You might think liberals, Democrats, and social justice types would be happy to have one of their own making a big splash in the nation's capital. Not quite.
Rhee's campaign gives new meaning to the old adage, "familiarity breeds contempt." Progressives of her ilk are now engaging in an all-out war against her while politicians on the right have taken up with the tiger reformer in their battle against teachers' unions and support for privatization of public schools through the charter system. Just as there are diverse political factions within the Republican Party, the
