A Conversation with Los Angeles about Education w/ Michelle Rhee

This blog is long overdue.

On February 15th, 2012, I went to an educational meeting in LA organized by StudentsFirst, an organization with the purpose of making radical changes to the educational system in CA because everyone knows it's failing America's future generation right now. It's led by a woman named Michelle Rhee who totally revolutionized the system in Washington, D.C. during the late 1990s and early 2000s. She came to talk about the current situation in CA and answer questions people had--about tenure, charter schools, etc.

Regarding Michelle Rhee, yes, I believe both her and her supervisor were let go. Not too sure about the specifics though. For her to reform the educational system in CA, the state would have to become a member of StudentsFirst for her to get permission to do anything. So far, the state hasn't invited her or her organization. Only 15 states in the country so far have claimed membership. During the talk though, she did inform us that there are currently 150,000 StudentsFirst members in CA and that 40,000 of them reside in LA alone. Still, the state believes her tactics to reform the system are a bit too liberal and aggressive so they don't want anything to do with her.

Some other issues discussed were:
- Tenure system: As of today, Ms. Rhee is against the tenure system. The original purpose of the tenure system was to protect teachers, who back then were mainly women, from their male superiors abusing their powers and sexually discriminating the female teachers. Nowadays, she believes the tenure system no longer serves its purpose and is one of the main reasons why the CA schools are ineffective. She also made a good point: studies show that there is no correlation between a teacher being tenured and student achievement. Also, to note, CA is the only state that still practices "last one in, first one out," which isn't very encouraging for first year teachers, the ones who are likely to be the most motivated and passionate.
- Charter schools: Some people are for or against Charter Schools, but she mentioned that it doesn't matter how to school is labeled or not. What matters in the end is if the school is effective or not. It's as simple as that. She believes that concentrating on the label of the school takes us away from figuring out what's best for the students.