Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst organization has 170,000 members in California
By Louis Freedberg ~ EdSource Extra
Michelle Rhee ~ Photo courtesy of Neighborhood Centers
StudentsFirst, the newest entrant into the California school reform landscape, has 170,000 members in California, according to its founder Michelle Rhee, the former Washington D.C. schools chief and wife of Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson.
“Week in and week out the largest number of membership gains we saw were from California,” she said in an interview yesterday. ”When we first hit 100,000 we finally said, ‘something is happening in California.’”
“Week in and week out the largest number of membership gains we saw were from California,” she said in an interview yesterday. ”When we first hit 100,000 we finally said, ‘something is happening in California.’”
Rhee founded the organization about a year ago after her controversial stewardship of DC public schools came to an end in 2010 when then-Mayor Adrian Fenty, who had appointed her, lost his reelection bid. As she unabashedly explained at a StudentsFirst gathering in San Jose last night, she was awarded the DC public schools chief post as a 37-year-old despite never having been a principal of a school, let alone run a district.
Rhee said that her organization now has 1.3 million members nationwide. What is still unclear is how active these members are, and the extent to which Rhee will be able to mobilize them.