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D.C. Schools Chief Institutes Tough Changes, Weathers Controversy

Transcript

After one year on the job, Washington, D.C., schools chief Michelle Rhee has slated schools to close and planned personnel changes to help boost the struggling education system. John Merrow reports on her efforts.

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Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

  • JOHN MERROW:

    For these teachers in Washington, D.C., the end of the year was bittersweet.

  • TEACHER:

    Transition time for us.

  • JOHN MERROW:

    Their school, P.R. Harris, was closing for good. Principal Jeffrey Grant decided to treat the staff to an afternoon cruise on the Potomac.

  • JEFFREY GRANT, Principal, P.R. Harris Educational Center:

    Let's go out here and celebrate each other and find ways to come together, celebrate our successes.

  • JOHN MERROW:

    It was a welcome break from what had been a stressful year for many.

  • TEACHER:

    Oh, today is a sad day for me, a very sad day. I've been in this building for 24 years.

  • JOHN MERROW:

    P.R. Harris is just one of the 23 under-enrolled schools that Chancellor Michelle Rhee ordered closed during her first year in office.

  • MICHELLE RHEE, Chancellor, Washington, D.C., Public School System:

    We've made some really tough calls, and we've followed through on those calls, and that, in some ways, has been unlike anything that people have seen before.

  • JOHN MERROW:

    Many were surprised when Washington's new mayor, Adrian Fenty, hired Michelle Rhee to fix the city's ailing school system, which serves almost 50,000 students.

    Rhee had never led a school district before, never even been a school principal. But over the course of her first year in office, the former teacher and nonprofit CEO moved at a break-neck pace, trying to make good on the mayor's charge to turn the schools around, whatever the cost.

  • ADRIAN FENTY, Mayor, Washington, D.C.:

    The time for dramatic change begins today.

    I'm like the rest of the average Joe's out there. I'm tired of people talking about how bad the schools are, and I want someone to fix the schools so that they're the best school system in the country.

  • JOHN MERROW:

    Rhee kicked off the school year by meeting with each of the district's 156 principals. Most were asked to improve; a few were asked to leave.

  • MICHELLE RHEE:

    No, I'm terminating your principalship now.

  • JOHN MERROW:

    Rhee's next target was her own central office, notorious for bureaucratic blunders and financial mismanagement. She fired more than 15 percent of her employees, angering union leaders.

  • RALLY SPEAKER:

    It is not reform. It is dictatorship.

  • MICHELLE RHEE:

    Sir? Can I just…

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