Richard Phelps Reviews Michelle Rhee’s “Reforms,” Ten Years Later, Part 1
A decade ago, Richard Phelps was assessment director of the District of Columbia Public Schools. His time in that position coincided with the last ten months of Michelle Rhee’s tenure in office. When her patron Adrian Fenty lost the election for Mayor, Rhee left and so did Phelps.
Phelps writes here about what he learned while trying to improve the assessment practices of the DC Public Schools. He posts his overview in two parts, and this is part 1. The second part will appear in the next post.
Rhee asked Phelps to expand the VAM program–the use of test scores to evaluate teachers and to terminate or reward them based on student scores.
Phelps described his visits to schools to meet with teachers. He gathered useful ideas about how to make the assessments more useful to teachers and students.
Soon enough, he learned that the Central Office staff, including Rhee, rejected all the ideas he collected from teachers and imposed their own ideas instead.
He writes: CONTINUE READING: Richard Phelps Reviews Michelle Rhee’s “Reforms,” Ten Years Later, Part 1 | Diane Ravitch's blog
Richard Phelps Reviews Michelle Rhee’s Reforms, Part 2 | Diane Ravitch's blog - https://wp.me/p2odLa-rOk via @dianeravitch