Schools Monday: Burning Down the House

It's awesome to see Michelle Rhee hitting the ground running.  I've said it before and I'll say it again: many years from now, people will look back on her appointment as one of a handful of major turning points in the effort to reform schools.  We've been storming the barricades for years, but very few of us have made it to the inside and gotten the keys to the kingdom...

Excluding gatherings of employees whose paychecks were signed by the schools superintendent, the last time I heard audiences cheering for the chief of the D.C. school system was, um, never. But as Chancellor Michelle Rhee made her way around town in meetings large and small ahead of today's opening of  the school year, she is being greeted with enthusiastic applause and actual yelps of encouragement. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't heard it with me own ears.
 
What are folks cheering about? Rhee has been here for about 15 minutes and obviously hasn't had a chance to make any significant difference in what goes on in the classroom or in the outcomes seen in one of America's most  dysfunctional school systems. But she has quickly done three crucial and  potentially productive things:

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Schools Monday: Burning Down the House
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2007/08/schools_monday_burning_down_th.html?nav=rss_blog

Excluding gatherings of employees whose paychecks were signed by the schools superintendent, the last time I heard audiences cheering for the chief of the D.C. school system was, um, never. But as Chancellor Michelle Rhee made her way around town in meetings large and small ahead of today's opening of the school year, she is being greeted with enthusiastic applause and actual yelps of encouragement. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't heard it with me own ears.