Is D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee engaged in “heroic school reform”? Your editor would argue no; if anything, the hero aspect arises more from how we in the education press covers Rhee (and the general lionization and demonization of the Teach For America alum) as it is from any of Rhee’s P.R. people. No matter what you think, the long-term impact of Rhee’s efforts is an open question. Dropout Nation‘s Contributing Editor, Steve Peha, offers his own thoughts on what he views as a tension between heroic reform and building collective capacity (something which I don’t necessarily thinks has to be; you need both great leaders to get the ball rolling and build long-term capacity). But Peha definitely makes some good points:

Two recent articles in the Washingon Post, one by Jay Matthews, the other by Sam Chaltain, have looked at the performance of controversial DC Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee.

Chancellor Rhee has many ardent supporters and probably just as many detractors as well. But no one would dispute her impact on DC schools or even on American education as a whole. When the history books are written, she will have at least a paragraph or two, and she may deserve even more.

Ed Reform 101 is now entering its second semester, and Ms. Rhee is teaching important lessons with every move she makes. So pay attention, boys and girls, because there’s going to be one heck of a test at the end.

What most of us learn from Ms. Rhee, of course, will have nothing to do with her results. Most of us, both pro and con, see what we want to see through the myopic lens of our own confirmation bias.

If we like hard-nosed, rough-knuckled, heroic reform, Rhee can do no wrong. If instead we favor a more consensus-driven approach where leaders work their magic through cooperation rather than confrontation, we are unlikely to feel that Ms. Rhee’s approach should inform the way we run our schools.

The “lessons” of Ms. Rhee’s tenure appear to have been “learned” already, and unlearning them probably won’t be possible for most of us regardless of how things turn out. But we shouldn’t dismiss class just yet.

Win or lose, America loves its heroes, and Ms. Rhee is an iconic representative of what is clearly a new class of heroic education reformers. On the block, however, is not an individual person’s career but a philosophy of educational change.

What is becoming known as the “heroic” model of education reform is getting its first big-city test in D.C. Results so far are mixed. But even heroes need a little time to move mountains. So how will this experiment play out and what’s really at stake?

There are three possibilities for Ms. Rhee and D.C.:

1. Mayor Fenty loses his re-election bid and Ms. Rhee is asked to leave. This is a win for Ms. Rhee who will claim, not without justification, that she didn’t have time to finish what she started. It’s probably a “no decision” for D.C. schools, although one could argue that simply overcoming inertia, which Ms. Rhee has done, is a big win historically.

1. Ms. Rhee stays on for two or three more years but school performance continues to be mixed. Rhee will still win because at least a few good things will have happened. For D.C. schools, it’s another “no decision”, a hollow victory over inertia as entropy begins to reassert itself, and a classic “What do we do now?” moment. This middle-of-the-road outcome is probably the worst thing that could happen because it would provide no clear indicators for DC or the rest of our country about what works and what doesn’t.

1. Ms. Rhee stays on and schools improve noticeably. Another win for Ms. Rhee, of course, and an important victory for D.C. schools. But also—and here’s where I think the real lesson comes in—a validation of the heroic model of school reform.

It is fitting, I think, that our nation look to its capital for leadership in education. One might hope such leadership would come from our President, our Secretary of Education, or from Congress. But if it comes from D.C. Public Schools, I think that’s even better.

But what if heroic leadership doesn’t work? And how will we really know until after Ms. Rhee leaves?

Ms. Rhee is very young for a superintendent. She could play out her entire career in D.C. But heroes, if I remember my Batman episodes, tend to return to their regular lives after the crisis is under control; they don’t hang around in their cape and tights unless there’s still heroic work to be done. That’s not a bash on heroes. It’s just the way it is. There’s always another Commissioner Gordon with another crisis to deal with, and most heroes, when they hear an earnest cry for help from am earnest but challenged public official, feel the need to slide down the Bat Pole, head for the Bat Cave, rev up the Bat Mobile, snag their sidekick, and crusade their way in caped fashion to the next encounter with Evil.

So the future of D.C. is not about Rhee; it’s about post-Rhee. And in some ways, I think this period in D.C. schools history, rather than the current period, will be the most instructive for the district and our nation.

One problem that I see is the same problem Gotham City experiences: Batman and Robin save the day, but poor old Commissioner Gordon has to keep calling them over and over again. It seems the Gotham City police never develop what some people might call “collective capacity”. With Batman and Robin doing the heavy lifting, the police have no need, or even any opportunity, to improve.

Heroic leadership is exciting. It’s all BANG! POW! WHAM! And the bad guys are taken care of. This is the stuff of great daytime TV drama. But it is not without risk. We tend to think the risk is in the completion of the task itself, but this risk pails in comparison to the much larger risk of heroic leadership that drains a system of the capacity to lead itself.

For example, Ms. Rhee has recruited many people. Will these people stay after she is gone? Ms. Rhee negotiated, along with American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, a huge and historic performance-based pay increase for teachers. What will happen after the current contract runs out? Ms. Rhee has been an avid supporter of charter schools. Where will her successor stand on this issue and what will happen to these new schools if DC is no long so charter-friendly? The IMPACT teacher evaluation program is just getting started. Will it continue? What kind of hole will be left in the district when Ms. Rhee leaves? And will her successor be able to fill it?

Our country is full of amazing people who care about schools. There’s no shortage of heroes here. But is the heroic model of reform viable in the long run? Or is an approach based on “distributed leadership” and the creation of “collective capacity” more appropriate? The former seems more grand and compelling; the latter more sustainable and conservative.

Regardless of how Ms. Rhee fairs personally, or how DC fairs academically, our nation fairs well if we pay close attention to the post-Rhee period in D.C. schools and view her experiment as the first test of heroic leadership for large scale education reform. If anyone can make heroic leadership work it is Ms. Rhee. But if she can’t make it work, then we have to make a sharp about face in our approach to educational change.

“Collective capacity” isn’t just jargon. It’s a legitimate measure of organizational ability, one that takes into account the fact that in large entities raising the competence of all participants is the only viable strategy for lasting change. This theory argues that most systems, when they are lead in the heroic fashion, snap back to their old form shortly after the hero leaves. By contrast, “collective capacity” approaches have the potential to create long lasting if not permanent change.

In America, we love our heroes, of course. And even though most of the truly great things we have accomplished, like winning World Wars, building national highway  systems, and creating the Internet have all been accomplished through “collective capacity” and “distributed leadership”, this approach is neither compelling, controversial, nor “media friendly”. Instead of a mad dash to the finish line, it’s more of a tortoise-like slog, a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race approach that few people seem to have the patience for these days. But if winning the race is what matters most, hiring talented tortoises instead of heroes might make more sense. D.C. will tell the tale, but the final chapter won’t be written until long after its main character has exited.

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Remember, read to your sons and daughters.

“We’re going to stop lying to children and lying to families [about curriculum quality]… We have to challenge the status quo on when schools are failing… We think it is unacceptable” — U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on Common Core State Standards and overhauling failing schools at the Military Child Education Coalition’s annual conference, via Dropout Nation’s Twitter feed (go ahead and follow).

“What’s frustrating is that there is a real issue here demanding attention. The trade-off between flexibility and prescriptiveness in federal school turnaround policy is a complicated one without a lot of good answers.  Too much flexibility and districts and states take the easy way out and do nothing meaningful for students stuck in lousy schools. Too prescriptive and you get meaningless box-checking (as we may be seeing overall with the current dollop of school improvement funds), perverse consequences, or you stifle innovative approaches that might work if educators could try them.” – Andy Rotherham responding to Michael Winerip’s claptrap of an article on the consequences of federal education policy.

“We need to push school districts to frame summer school as a good thing, something extra — not a punishment. There is a cultural barrier that we have to overcome.” – Ron Fairchild of the National Summer Learning Association on the need for summer learning (and ultimately, for year-round schooling), in Time.

“But why are we more willing to overlook lackluster test scores in middle class schools?” Mike Petrilli on laggard middle class schools (traditional and charter).

“My hope is that many of them improve, but at the same time, we need to make sure the bar is high. I’ve got two children in the system, and I don’t want a ‘minimally effective teacher’ and I don’t think anyone else does, either.” — D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee on her decision to dismiss 241 laggard teachers.

“Each year we visit the teachers at least twice – once in the beginning and ten again towards the end of the year. It’s a great opportunity to understand how our kids are progressing and to brainstorm areas of concern or ask questions. But the one thing that always surprised me is that no one from the school has ever asked us to review the teachers. Ever… I think the current model doesn’t give enough credit to our great teachers and doesn’t shine a bright enough light on the teachers that aren’t delivering the goods.” — Tech investor Bijan Sabat on the need to evaluate teachers.

“While you argue about Duncan and standardized testing and charters…teach little keisha, tyrone, twon how to read, ok?” — Nikolai Pizarro (@iwantwealth) on the complaining of defenders of traditional public education over school reform.

Check out Dropout Nation this week for news and commentary on the reform of American public education. And listen to this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast on recruiting, developing and rewarding more good-to-great teachers.

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On this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast,  I offer some important steps towards recruiting and developing more high-quality teachers. Eliminating tenure, eliminating seniority-based benefits and embracing the use of student performance data — along with moves such as the dismissal of 241 poor-performing teachers last week by D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee — are important steps towards improving teacher quality. But we must also improve how we recruit, train and reward good-to-great teachers in order to improve instruction for every child and foster high quality performance throughout all of American public education.

You can listen to the Podcast at RiShawn Biddle’s radio page or download directly to your iPod, MP3 player or smartphone. Also, subscribe to the podcast series. It is also available on iTunes, Blubrry, Podcast Alley, the Education Podcast Network,  Zune Marketplace and PodBean. Also, add the podcast on Viigo, if you have a BlackBerry, iPhone or Android phone.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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(Click on the headline to watch the video)

Certainly Michelle Rhee knows how to stir up controversy — especially when it comes to her efforts as chancellor of D.C. Public Schools to improve the district’s abysmal quality of teaching and curricula. Her decision to dismiss 241 teachers rated as ineffective by the district’s year-old IMPACT system (which uses student test score data as part of evaluations) is going to be contested by the district’s dysfunctional American Federation of Teachers local and will play its part in the election battle between her patron, Mayor Adrian Fenty and rival (and Rhee foe) Vincent Gray. Rhee’s bedside manner isn’t exactly lovely. But she deserves much praise for her Churchillian commitment to seriously overhauling a school system once called the Superfund Site of American public education and for slowly revamping an obsolete regime of teacher compensation that is terrible for children and high-quality teachers alike.

In this clip from her 2008 testimony before the House Education and Labor Committee, Rhee not only explains why improving teacher quality is important, but why we can no longer count on integration and the noble desire to improve education for all children to address racial-, ethnic- and gender-based achievement gaps. Improving education for all children not only requires dedication to the idea that all children can learn and deserve the best education. It also means restructuring a system that has long damned itself (and kids) to low expectations. Also, watch this Dropout Nation video on how Rhee’s teacher czar, Jason Kamras, is working to improve teacher quality and the challenges he faces in doing so.

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Check out some of the coverage of the reform of public education that caused waves last month:

• Dallas teacher Bill Betzen and Charter Insights‘ Doug Hering told readers how institutions in their respective regions were dealing with the dropout crisis.
• A look at what happened to D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s push to reform teacher quality.
• Who is an Iron Man? My example hits closer to home.
• And, of course, Dropout Nation podcasts on how strong black men can save younger generations, separating the Michael Bloombergs of school reform from the Charlie Crists, and how to make parents true players in education decisionmaking and engagement.

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As disappointing as the Washington, D.C. school district’s contract with its American Federation of Teachers local may be, the fact that the district’s performance management system — the first in the nation that uses test scores as a dominant factor in teacher evaluations — remains intact is a great victory for efforts to reform teacher quality. This Dropout Nation report and video from this past January, which features the man at the heart of this effort, offers some insight on why D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s push to improve the quality of education in the district has come under such fire.

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As D.C. Public Schools and the American Federation of Teachers’ Beltway local continue to spar over competing contract proposals — and Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s school reform plans — the district’s teacher quality czar continues to implement IMPACT, the performance review program that features the use of student test score data in evaluating teacher performance.

Jason Kamras may be the most-important person in education today. Yes, more important than Arne Duncan or Joel Klein or any of the two national union heads or even Rhee herself. On Rhee’s behalf, he is overseeing the most-comprehensive reform of teacher evaluation and performance management going on today. More importantly, he is already saying that the results he sees from this effort may be used in wide-ranging ways, from rewarding the best teachers to deciding which ed schools are deserving of D.C.’s patronage.

At a meeting with education professionals last night, Kamras admitted that the plan still needed some work. Although D.C. held a mass professional development session early in the school year, along with other meetings, Kamras said the district needed “to do more communication [with teachers]. We can never do enough of that” He also noted that the student benchmark tests given throughout the year aren’t fully included in the value-added analysis used in evaluating teachers; the final value-added assessment isn’t completed and delivered to teachers for their evaluations until July, just when they have to decide whether to stay and go through the remediation (if they are lagging) or quit. That said, Kamras notes that the rest of the evaluation scores, which are given in June, should give teachers more than enough info on where they are likely to stand; especially if their performance is in  the proverbial red.

Kamras notes that there is still more work ahead. D.C. Public Schools is working with its test provider on delivering the final standardized test data in time so all the information can be used to fully evaluate teachers in a more-timely manner. There is also some discussion on how to use technology to conduct teacher observations; but, as Kamras noted in response to one question, cameras in the classroom aren’t comforting to teachers (who often prefer in-person observations) and given D.C. law (which requires a person to give permission to being taped on camera), it may not be worth it. Kamras notes that if a teacher rejects the use of cameras, then “we’re back at square one.”

The biggest impact may come in terms of choosing which ed schools from which D.C. and its sister traditional districts and charters schools they choose. Kamras said last night that if an ed school produces far too many laggard instructors, he will tell them that he’s not recruiting from their schools — and will tell his colleagues throughout the D.C.-Virginia-Maryland region as well. He will likely tell those districts about the successful ed schools as well. This could actually result in improvements in teaching quality throughout the area — and ultimately, the nation.

The efforts in D.C. are certainly interesting to watch. Whether or not other school districts will follow its model will largely depend on the willingness of school chief executives to take on the lax performance management cultures and servile relationships districts often have with their union locals. As you can see below, here is a short clip of Kamras’ response to a question about how he thinks performance pay will shake up teaching.

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