The announcement yesterday that the Washington Teachers’ Union has filed a lawsuit against the District of Columbia Public Schools for the allegedly improper dismissal of more than 70 teachers confirms that things really are getting ugly on the D.C. school scene. DCPS Chancellor Michelle Rhee heated things up earlier with the announcement this summer of a tiered pay proposal, which would introduce merit-based pay and extra bonuses for teachers willing to give up tenure for a year of probation.
Performance pay, although not quite the panacea Rhee makes it out to be, has the potential to improve D.C.’s schools. So it’s unfortunate that it looks more and more like the vote on the tier issue will be a referendum on Rhee herself. And with the Washington Post reporting that 50 percent of teachers describe themselves as “very” or “somewhat” dissatisfied with Rhee’s performance, she doesn’t want that.
Bothered by what they saw as the secrecy and capriciousness in Rhee’s school closures and teacher dismissals, many District teachers felt on edge well before the plan was announced. So the moment the news hit, many teachers got the impression that Rhee was scheming to slowly phase out tenure, as teachers new to the system were automatically placed on probation. While that’s not quite true—these teachers come off probation within four years—Nathan Saunders of the WTU could be heard on WAMU radio decrying the proposal while teacher Fred Klonsky called Rhee the “darling of the union haters” on his education blog.
For something as sensitive as childrens’ education, Fenty may have done better to pick a people person, something Rhee is not.
She seems to be overly defensive, sometimes without reason. Rhee told Fast Company magazine, “I’m not going to sit on public TV and take a beating I don’t deserve [from the City Council]. I don’t take that crap.”
Even when she drops the potty mouth and attempts to engage the other side in cooperative dialogue, Rhee still seems flippant and impatient.
When WTU and DCPS collaborated to hold contract informational sessions for teachers to lay out the facts of the two-tiered plan, Rhee faced the audience of teachers and community members with a “what-don’t-you-get?” attitude. Asked by a questioner if she would consider “a hybrid system mixing elements of the red and green plan,” she glibly answered, “No. What would that even look like?”
George Parker, the president of WTU, remains ostensibly optimistic.
“It hasn’t gotten to a point where it’s divisive yet,” Parker said. “I don’t know if we’re calling it working well, but we’re certainly working on it.”
But with the two-tier plan now rumored by the Washington Post to be at risk of being scrapped by the WTU without tenure safeguards, Rhee may want to remember that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
