Examining Michelle Rhee's Legacy in Education Reform

EDUCATION -- January 8, 2013 at 12:20 PM EDT

Examining Michelle Rhee's Legacy in Education Reform

Editor's Note: This post was edited on January 10th to include Thursday's live chat with John Merrow.

Tuesday's Frontline examines one of the most controversial figures in education reform in recent memory: Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of the Washington, D.C., public schools. During her three-year tenure, education correspondent John Merrow was granted incredible access to document her efforts in trying to fix a failing system.

While Rhee made national headlines from the start of her appointment, most notably as a young Korean American without prior experience running a school, she received even more attention over her policies on teacher evaluations and accountability.

Under a new evaluation system that tied teacher performance to student test scores, Rhee fired 241 teachers in July of 2010, a move that teacher unions called too harsh while supporters agreed it was the right course. The conflict worsened when enormous gains in student achievement raised questions about cheating.

According to a USA Today investigation, one school in particular, Noyes Education Campus, saw a 50 percent improvement in reading between 2007 to 2009. "There was one school where the fourth graders were erasing on average almost 13 wrong answers and correcting them to right answers," explained Marisol Bello of USA Today to John Merrow. "Statisticians are telling us, 'Your chances of winning the Power Ball are higher than this happening by chance.'"

Here's a look back at John Merrow's series on Michelle Rhee during her tenure as chancellor.

Weigh In:

Join a live chat with education correspondent John Merrow and a panel of journalists and experts Thursday at 3:30 p.m. ET.

Beginning October 24, 2012, PBS NewsHour will allow open commenting for all registered users. We hope that the elimination of our moderation process will enable a more organic discussion amongst you, our audience. However, if a commenter violates our terms of use or abuses the commenting forum, their comment will be removed. We reserve the right to remove posts that do not follow these basic guidelines: comments must be relevant to the topic of the post; may not include profanity, personal attacks or hate speech; may not promote a business or raise money; may not be spam. Anything you post should be your own work. The PBS NewsHour reserves the right to read on the air and/or publish on its website or in any medium now known or unknown the comments or emails that we receive. By submitting comments, you agree to the PBS Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which include more details.