Kudos to Friends of Bedford (and to Rhee shutting down horrific schools and bringing in good operators):

As prospective mayor Vincent Gray's education advisors begin to discuss changes in the way Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee ran D.C. schools, it should quickly become apparent they should keep their hands off one of Rhee's smartest moves — handing management of Coolidge and Dunbar high schools to a sharp team of educators from New York City.

Lost in all the primary election skirmishing over teacher dismissals and conflicting test score data was this encouraging statistic: under the Friends of Bedford group, in just its first year here, the portion of students testing proficient or advanced in reading went from 38 percent to 53.6 percent at Coolidge and from 18.2 percent to 31.9 percent at Dunbar. No other high school in the city came close to making such gains in a subject where improvement here has been rare.

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Rhee initiative that will, thankfully, outlast Rhee

Jay Mathews

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2010/09/rhee_initiative_that_will_than.html#comments