Radical (11 page)

“And what?” I demanded.

“And I told him not to worry because you were already slated to come in and meet with him next week,” Victor blurted out.

“Victor!” I was pissed. “I told you that my meeting with him was not to interview for the job. I'm not interested in being chancellor.”

“Well—it is now!” Victor replied and hung up.

T
HOUGH
I
WAS A
bit nervous that the mayor would be mad that I was not interested in the job, and that I might be wasting his time, I figured he'd take one look at me and dismiss the idea anyway.

I showed up in D.C. in the middle of May, went to my conference, and called Victor to get the details on the meeting with Mayor Fenty. There was tremendous speculation about whom the mayor was going to choose as the city's first chancellor. Reporters were watching his every move. Fenty's aides arranged for me to come in to City Hall late at night, and not to sign in. They directed me to enter through a side door, under the cover of darkness.

Who were they kidding? Was I the only one who realized that I could sign in and out of that building fifty times and no one would ever conceive of the idea that I might be a candidate for the position?

Abby Smith met me at the door. Abby was a TFA alum I knew who was now working with Victor and Eric Lerum, Victor's chief of staff. On the way up to the mayor's office, I was joking around. They wore game faces. It became clear that for them this was a big meeting. Abby had sung my praises to the mayor. If I bombed, her credibility was on the line.

“Hmmm,” I thought. “It might be harder to get out of this than I figured.”

I entered the conference room of the Bullpen, Fenty's take on Bloomberg's open-office model. There were no walls in the office, just a large open space with everyone sitting at desks. Fenty believed it would lead to transparency and good energy.

I sat down. Fenty wasn't there, but the interviews commenced. Dan Tangherlini, the mayor's city administrator, grilled me for a half hour. No introductions, no niceties; he just started pitching questions.

“Where would you send your kids to school?”

“What would you do in your first hundred days?”

“What's your assessment of what's wrong?”

I answered his questions matter-of-factly. In my mind, I wasn't interviewing for the job. I still had no intention of being a school superintendent, but he caught me off guard, and I just reacted.

Then Mayor Adrian Fenty abruptly walked into the room, introduced himself, and started asking questions. After we exchanged pleasantries, he started in with some questions of his own.

“Tell me what you're like as a manager.”

I told him I was good at sniffing out talent. My staff jokes that I have a “seven-minute interview”—that after seven minutes I can tell whether someone is good or not. I said I try to hire people who are a lot smarter than I am.

“I see my job as manager as knocking down the barriers that stand between my staff and their doing their jobs well,” I said. “I try to create the environment where the people I hire can be successful.”

“That sounds great,” Fenty said. I wasn't sure he had paid much attention. “Is this job something you'd consider?”

“Actually, Mayor, I agreed to this meeting not to interview for the job but to tell you about The New Teacher Project. I live in Denver, have two kids and a tough personal situation. I'm not really certain that I could even honestly consider this job.”

“Well,” he said, “I think it's a great opportunity, and I really think you should consider it.”

And with that, Mayor Fenty left the room.

I picked up my things, and Abby walked me out of the building. I went back to my hotel room and called Klein.

“Well?” Joel asked excitedly.

“Eh,” I said. “He didn't knock my socks off. I don't think I can take this on, and I don't know that I even want to. In the back of my head I sort of wanted him to inspire the heck out of me. If I was ever really to consider taking on a job like this, I would want to be working for someone who is really exciting.”

“Can I be honest?” Klein asked. “You're an adult now. You don't need your boss to inspire you. You can be the inspiring leader. What you really need in this situation is a mayor who will back you up one hundred percent. You're focused on the absolute wrong thing.”

“I don't know,” I said. “The bottom line is I don't think we really connected. I wouldn't be surprised if this thing ends here.”

“Well, get some rest. Sleep on it,” Klein said. “We'll see.”

I woke up at four the next morning so I could catch a flight to Denver to get back in time to attend my daughter Olivia's pre-K graduation ceremony. When I landed, I turned on my phone and checked my messages. The first one was from Klein.

“Joel Klein. Call me as soon as possible,” it said.

I called.

“Well, he didn't knock your socks off, but you knocked his socks off. Fenty called me first thing this morning. He wants you to be the first chancellor of the Washington, D.C., public schools.”

“Holy crap” was the only thing I could get out of my mouth.

F
OR THE FIRST TIME,
it dawned on me that the possibility of running the D.C. schools was real. Despite my genuine efforts to downplay my desire and capacity for the job, Klein had advocated for me, and Fenty was ready to offer up the position.

And for the first time, I started to imagine myself as chancellor. True, it would put stress on my daughters and Kevin. We would have to pull up stakes again and move to D.C. I was reluctant to add strain to an already shaky situation.

But if I were at the helm of a public school system, I could put into practice many of the recommendations TNTP had proposed to other school districts. Perhaps I could bring along some of my best staff from TNTP. Perhaps we could put in place a process to evaluate teachers. We could gather data to measure student achievement. Maybe we could streamline the way the system terminated incompetent teachers. We could reward the best teachers. We would start making students—rather than adults—the top priority.

It was definitely intriguing. The first conversation I had was with Kevin. Though we were essentially separated, we were still living in the same house. And while our marriage was on the rocks, we talked constantly and trusted one another. I told him what was happening.

“Wow! What a story,” he said. “This is unbelievable!” As an education reformer himself, Kevin understood the challenges and the opportunity. He was incredibly excited by the prospects. We talked for a couple of hours.

“Look,” he said, “the bottom line for me is that I think this is a nearly impossible job. But if
anyone
can do it, you can. I think you should do it. I would be willing to move across the country so you can take it.”

That conversation made the prospect a reality for me for the first time. It allayed my greatest fear. If Kevin was willing to move back to Washington, D.C., with me and our daughters, maybe I could actually make this work.

N
EXT
I
MET WITH
Kati Haycock and Jan Somerville from the Education Trust, an organization that had supported TNTP. They were two of my most trusted confidants.

“No freaking way!” said Kati, voicing her disbelief and her disapproval at the same time. “You know this city and its school district are on a completely different level of dysfunction. Don't do it.”

“Come on,” I pleaded. “We always sit around lamenting about what superintendents
aren't
doing. This is a chance for us to put our money where our mouths are. We could walk the walk!”

“She's right, Kati,” said Jan. “It would be pretty spectacular!”

“Absolutely
not
,” said Kati. “You'll get slaughtered by the racial politics. It won't even matter that you're smart and capable with all of the right ideas. The racial politics will do you in, and I care about you and your career way too much to let that happen.”

Her thoughts definitely gave me pause. I thanked them both and hugged them as I left the dinner, even more confused than before. As I turned to leave, Jan gave me a half, knowing smile. I think she sensed I was inclined to do it, and she was already wishing me luck.

Then I called Kaya Henderson. Kaya was one of my favorite people in the world. Her mom, Kathleen, was an educator in their hometown of Mount Vernon, New York, and became a school principal at thirty. Kaya excelled at Mount Vernon High, got a degree in international relations from Georgetown University, and later got a master's in leadership there. Education was her passion. She taught middle school Spanish in the South Bronx, where she became enraged by the raw deal that poor kids were getting in public schools. She joined Teach For America, where we met and became kindred spirits. I brought Kaya into The New Teacher Project. She rose to become vice president of strategic partnerships and ran Teaching Fellows programs, including the one in Washington, D.C. Kaya knew D.C., the schools, the unions.

“You are never going to believe this,” I told her.

“What?” she asked excitedly. She knew I wasn't one to exaggerate.

“They want me to become the chancellor of the D.C. schools,” I said.

“Shut up and stop messing with me,” Kaya retorted.

“No, I'm serious!” I said.

“Okay, that's crazy! This is crazy! Oh my dear sweet Jesus!” She was yelling.

When she calmed down she asked, “Are you going to do it?”

“That depends on one thing,” I said.

“What?”

“You have to come with me. I won't do it without you. You have to bite off your pinkie.”

At TNTP I'd told the senior staff an old Korean story about a group of rebels who'd gone off to fight during the Japanese occupation. In order to prove their loyalty, they each bit off the top of their pinkie and wrote their name in blood on a banner. When TNTP was entering into a new three-year strategic plan I told the senior management team they all had to bite off their pinkies and sign up for three years.

Kaya knew what I was talking about.

“Lord help us, this is so nuts,” she said.

“Well?” I asked.

“I'm in, mama! Let's go!” she said.

M
Y LAST MEETING WAS
with John Deasy. He was the head of the Prince George's County, Maryland, public schools and one of my favorite superintendents. He was unapologetic about his focus on closing the achievement gap, so I felt a kinship with him. We met for dinner on Pennsylvania Avenue, a few blocks from the White House.

“Do it!” he said. “You
have
to.”

“Ugh, I don't know,” I lamented.

“What's not to know? This is what you've been waiting for your whole life.”

“I don't know this guy, the mayor. I mean, it would be one thing if we knew each other and I trusted him, but I don't know him from Adam. What if he turns out to be a flake?”

“Let me tell you one thing. I've been watching this whole scenario unfold, being right across the border. This guy, Fenty, he is putting his entire political life on the line to take over the schools. And he wants you to be his chancellor. And you're asking whether or not you can trust him? He's putting his political life in your hands, for God's sake! Have a sense of perspective!”

I
N OUR FIRST MEETING,
I had not connected with Adrian Fenty. He seemed distant and cold. With Joel Klein's and John Deasy's encouraging words and Kaya's commitment to join me in mind, I returned to D.C. to meet with Fenty one-on-one. I needed to look him in the eyes, measure his words as he asked me to be his chancellor. And I needed to ask him a few essential questions.

This time Fenty ushered me into the cavernous mayoral suite, in the top floor of the John Wilson Building, on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and Capitol Hill. This time he was dressed in a dark blue suit, crisp white shirt, and polished black cap-toe shoes. His head shone. His eyes burned.

“You don't want me to take this job,” I said.

“Yes, I do,” he responded. “I am certain that you are the right person to help our children. We need you.”

“Your job, as a politician, is to keep the noise levels to a minimum. There is no change without pushback. In order to really fix this system, we'd have to do really radical things that would undoubtedly cause you a lot of headaches.”

“As long as what you do is in the best interests of the kids, I don't mind the noise.”

“Why me?” I asked. “In any world, it doesn't make sense.”

“I'm looking for someone who has a passion for educating children and will work long and hard to improve achievement. I've been living in D.C. my entire life. I know that we will never be a great city until we have a great public school district for
all
of our kids.”

“What,” I asked, “would you risk for a chance to turn this system around? Because I can't make any guarantees. . . .”

He considered the question. He paused. His eyes relaxed.

“Everything,” he replied.

I believe he smiled. He had me at “everything.”

5

Breaking Barriers

I
n taking the D.C. job, I had my sights set on breaking through barriers in a school system that had resisted reform for decades. Reporters presented a more immediate hurdle: could I open schools on time? The questions cascaded the day we discovered a warehouse where books and supplies had been languishing—for years.

“Mayor Fenty!”

“Chancellor! Chancellor!”

“Chancellor Rhee! Can you answer a few questions?”

The mayor and I were touring the warehouse jammed with boxes upon boxes of unopened textbooks, notebooks, and unused classroom furniture. I looked at the mayor out of the corner of my eye, but neither of us broke stride. He signaled to me that we should stop. We both pivoted and grounded ourselves for what we knew would be an onslaught of questions.

“Is this what you thought it would be, Chancellor?”

“How bad is it?”

“Are you going to be able to open schools on time?”

“We need to know if schools will be opening on time, Chancellor!”

I had been on the job for two months, with most of that time spent trying to get ready for school opening. Every day and everywhere I went, reporters and parents asked whether schools would open on time. I didn't understand it. Schools were slated to open on August 27. That was the first day of school. Why was there so much confusion about that?

As it turned out, for years in Washington, D.C., judges had ruled that because of violations to health and fire code standards, the schools could not be opened. Whenever that happened, city officials would scramble to meet a minimum threshold of acceptability. It often resulted in school opening being delayed two to three weeks.

“I guarantee you,” the mayor said with authority, “that schools will be opening on time this year.”

“How, Mayor? Are all the books delivered? Are all the buildings ready? How can you be sure?” they asked.

“I'll let the chancellor answer your specific questions,” the mayor said.

“Yes,” I wondered to myself. “How indeed?” And then I stepped in front of the cameras.

O
N THE MORNING OF
Tuesday, June 12, 2007, Mayor Fenty asked me to meet him before eight o'clock in his private office in the John Wilson Building, D.C.'s city hall, around the corner and down the street from the White House. I dressed in a cream-colored jacket, black and cream skirt, and black heels. Fenty's people had set a press conference for nine thirty to introduce me as the first chancellor of D.C. schools.

“Let's go down and meet the city council members,” he said.

Every Tuesday the city's thirteen council members gathered for an informal breakfast near their grand, ornate chambers in the Wilson Building. What a lovely way to meet the legislators, I thought, right? Wrong.

My official introduction to the city was unorthodox at best. It had begun two days before, when I arrived in the city on Sunday morning with my two daughters and my parents. As we walked off the plane, we passed a newspaper stand. The front page of the
Washington Post
asked, “Can D.C. Schools Be Fixed?”

“Oh, Lordy,” I thought.

Starr, my eldest daughter, was right behind me reading the same headline.

“Yes!” she shouted. “My mommy's going to do it!”

I clamped my hand over her mouth and shuffled us to baggage claim.

Once settled in the hotel, I got a call from Mayor Fenty.

“Hey,” he said, “how was the trip?”

“Fine, sir,” I answered.

“The kids and your parents settled in?”

“Yes, we're great, thanks,” I said.

“Okay, okay, good,” he continued. “I'm thinking about meeting with an editorial board writer tonight. Not sure if I should have you come or not. What do you think?”

My mind was racing. I'd never been in this kind of situation before.

“Well, it might be better if you laid the groundwork without me. But if you think I should attend I'm willing,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, mostly to himself. “I'll get back to you.” And he hung up.

A short while later I got another call. This was from Victor Reinoso, the deputy mayor for education.

“The mayor wants you to come to the meeting. Carrie Brooks will be at the hotel in fifteen minutes to pick you up,” he said.

“Victor!” I said. “We haven't even prepped or discussed what he wants me to say! Shouldn't we be a little more prepared before my first major interview?”

“It'll be fine,” Victor said. “You'll do great!”

He was about to hang up.

“Wait
, Victor!” I shouted into the phone.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Who's Carrie?”

I
ARRIVED AT
C
ITY
H
ALL
early that Sunday afternoon and sat in the mayor's waiting room for a few minutes. Then I was motioned to come back in the room where the mayor had been meeting with the
Washington Post
writers.

Fenty was sitting at the head of the table. Jo-Ann Armao and Dave Nakamura were sitting in the two seats to his right. Armao wrote most of the
Post
's editorials on local matters; Nakamura covered D.C. politics. I filled the seat to his left and started talking.

“In my core, I'm a teacher. That's why I'm so excited about this opportunity. I realize that I'm a bit of an unconventional choice, but I know schools and I know school districts.”

Armao and Nakamura were looking at me as if I were purple.

“Why don't you back up,” the mayor said, “and tell them who you are and why you're here.”

Are you kidding me? I figured the mayor had been prepping them, teeing up the conversation and explaining why they were sitting there on a Sunday afternoon. The announcement of the new chancellor was the biggest scoop in the city. But apparently the mayor had just been engaged in small talk. They had no idea who I was.

“Of course,” I said. “I apologize. My name is Michelle Rhee. I am the new chancellor of the Washington, D.C., public schools.”

Jo-Ann Armao's jaw dropped.

David Nakamura smiled. He knew he had a scoop.

L
ATE
M
ONDAY NIGHT, THE
day before the scheduled announcement, the mayor called Clifford Janey, the sitting superintendent, to tell him he was fired. Then he called District of Columbia Council chairman Vincent Gray to ask for a meeting. It was at 11 p.m.

“Are you people insane?” I asked Victor and his chief of staff, Eric Lerum. “Who calls for a meeting at eleven p.m.? And who takes a meeting at eleven p.m.?”

“Oh, trust me,” Eric said, “the chairman will be in the office. And he'll take the meeting.”

The mayor and I walked up to Gray's office. It was four minutes after eleven o'clock.

When Fenty had proposed his takeover of the schools in January and guided the legislation through the city council, he had agreed to collaborate with the legislators in searching for and choosing the first chancellor. That's not exactly what transpired.

“I would like to introduce you to Michelle Rhee, our new chancellor,” Fenty said.

Though I could tell he was shocked, Gray tried not to show it. I'm sure his mind was racing, and he was paying scant attention to my introduction of myself and my experiences. After a few minutes of small talk he stood to shake my hand. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Ms. Rhee. I look forward to working with you.”

T
HE NEXT MORNING, AS
we huddled in the mayor's office shortly before the announcement, the staff guided George Parker and Nathan Saunders into the room. Parker was president of the Washington Teachers' Union; Saunders was the VP. I had had some experience with George through my work at The New Teacher Project. I knew him to be a fair and reasonable guy.

“Hey, Kaya!” he exclaimed and kissed Kaya Henderson on the cheek as he entered into the room.

“So you know Kaya, that's great!” the mayor said. “And that must mean you know our new chancellor, Kaya's boss, Michelle Rhee.”

“Uh, yeah, Michelle, nice to see you,” George sputtered.

“As you know,” the mayor continued, “the Public Education Reform Act requires that you have the opportunity to meet the chancellor candidate. So here she is.”

George, like Vincent Gray, was stunned.

“I think we're ready to go down to the press conference now, Mr. President,” the mayor said. Then he asked, “Are you comfortable?”

“Uh, yeah,” Parker said, and we headed downstairs to stop at the council breakfast, before the press conference.

The
Washington Post
had blasted the news of my nomination on the front page that Tuesday morning. When we got downstairs, the council members had already read the paper, and the press was buzzing outside of city hall.

The mayor introduced me to the council members one by one. I shook hands and tried to make small talk. More thin lips and stunned expressions.

“We would love you to join us for the press conference,” Fenty said. At 9:15 a.m., we all filed out and stood in front of the Wilson Building, the sun splashing across the steps, a bank of cameras staring at us.

As the mayor stepped up to the podium, a reporter spoke first.

“Mayor Fenty! Mayor Fenty!” she screamed. “Why do you insist on showing favoritism to the
Washington Post
? There are many media outlets in this city! It is unconscionable that you would repeatedly show favoritism to the
Washington Post
alone!”

He ignored her.

“Within the past hour,” Fenty said, without skipping a beat, “I have signed a mayoral order appointing Michelle Rhee acting chancellor.”

No one could even hear what he was saying because this woman was screaming over him. Yet he continued as if nothing was happening. Is that what I'm supposed to do, too? Just pretend I don't hear this lady screeching in my ear?

I stepped to the microphone. I smiled. Silence.

“Good morning,” I said. Some clapped, tepidly. I looked up. My family and friends were the only ones putting their hands together.

“Thank you, Mayor Fenty. I see this as a tremendous opportunity. . . .”

We smiled. We shook a few hands. It seemed like a dream.

T
HERE WOULD BE NO
opportunity to mend fences or smooth ruffled feathers.

After a brief stop at District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) headquarters, we hopped in a van for the first foray in a summer-long tour of the District of Columbia, from border to border. Aboard the van were Tim Daly and Ariela Rozman, my successors at TNTP. They were helping to staff me for the first few days because they knew me best.

Our first stop was Benning Elementary School, on D.C.'s east side. We headed away from downtown and the National Mall on Pennsylvania Avenue, drove up Capitol Hill past the House office buildings, the U.S. Capitol to our left, and crossed the Anacostia River to Ward 7, home to D.C.'s black working and middle class. I started to see firsthand how much my new home—the city behind the monuments—was starkly divided by race, class, and power.

The Founding Fathers created the District of Columbia in 1790, fulfilling plans spelled out in the Constitution. They envisioned a federal enclave that would house the government, but they wanted to separate it from the state politics of Maryland and Virginia. It was placed under federal control in 1801, with Congress and the president to run the city. They didn't anticipate the population that would come to live in the city around the government. Waves of residents have since flocked to the District of Columbia, especially during the two world wars. Many African Americans migrated up from North Carolina and formed a solid middle class, nurtured by jobs in the federal government. Under segregation, schools such as Dunbar High were among the finest in the nation.

For more than 150 years, except for a brief period after the Civil War, the District of Columbia suffered without an elected local government. It failed to develop a homegrown political class. White supremacists in Congress ran the city as if it were a plantation. They disregarded the health, welfare, and education of the black underclass, which grew and eventually settled in neighborhoods east of Rock Creek and across the Anacostia River.

When President Dwight Eisenhower desegregated the D.C. schools in 1954, many whites moved to the suburbs. By 1960, D.C. had become the first majority African American city in the nation.

President Lyndon Johnson started the move toward limited self-government in 1965, which paved the way for local leaders and civil rights activists to run for local office. Marion Barry was among them. Barry's first step into elective politics was a run for school board president in 1971. D.C. schools were already among the worst in the nation. Barry vowed to improve the schools and campaigned across town in a Camaro with the poster “United To Save the Children.” He won, but rather than improve the schools, he used the post as a stepping-stone.

Home Rule—with an elected mayor, city council, and school board—took effect in 1974, under President Richard Nixon. Barry was elected mayor first in 1978, and then three times after that.

As head of the school board and in his four terms as mayor, Barry paid scant attention to the schools. When pressured to reform education, he said that schools were under the control of the school board, which was statutorily accurate. For the next twenty-five years, school buildings fell into disrepair, the Washington Teachers' Union controlled the classrooms, nepotism ruled the central administration—and generations of African American students were not taught to read or write, add or subtract. The dropout rate was above 50 percent.