Tag: Adrian Fenty

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If you are, as my colleague, Steve Peha, still disappointed in former D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee for not sticking it out after her patron was ousted as Chocolate City’s…

If you are, as my colleague, Steve Peha, still disappointed in former D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee for not sticking it out after her patron was ousted as Chocolate City’s mayor, you will certainly have high hopes for her newly-launched Students First initiative. And if you are a general fan of work, as this editor is, you can’t help but support the initiative’s goals of rallying parents and community members to embrace and demand reform America’s teaching corps — and ensure that every student is given high-quality instruction.

At the same time, Students First is in some ways, less than satisfying. Why? Because Rhee’s initiative still doesn’t hit the sweet spot when it comes to school reform: Merging policy savvy with hard-core, take-it-to-the-streets activism and entrepreneurial (and operational) drive.

Right now, there is a divide of sorts within the school reform movement between the Beltway reformers (who spend plenty of time on policymaking and working the halls of Congress and statehouses), the grassroots activists (who do the tough work of rallying support door by door) and charter school operators and reformers working in state agencies and school districts (who put ideas into practice). While the three sides share the same goals and concern for reforming education so that every child can write their own story, they don’t see eye-to-eye when it comes to getting things done. More often than not, the three parties often fail to understand the shortcomings of their own approaches and the importance of the work their colleagues are doing.

The biggest offenders are the Beltway-based reformers. As seen in the reaction earlier this year from big-named players such as Rick Hess to the Los Angeles Times’ special report on the low quality teachers in L.A. Unified schools, the Beltway reformers seem to prefer bloodless talk about reform than taking the steps to make reform a reality (including publicly naming laggard teachers and the institutional leaders who protect them). Beltway reformers are also more comfortable with theory and policy than making things work and rough public battles with teachers unions and other defenders of traditional public education. They fail to understand the key lesson of every reformer, activist and revolutionary of any sort: You don’t accomplish anything without afflicting the comfortable within the status quo.

This problem extends beyond the sparring matches. Beltway reformers fail to understand that it takes more than policy to make reforms work. Save for a few outfits such as the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (which actually authorizes charter schools), most are unwilling to do the unglamorous, difficult task of working with families and communities — from listening to concerns, providing time and other resources, and dealing with the messiness of families (many of which are struggling with a litany of other issues) — in order to make reforms a reality. Although organizations such as Democrats for Education Reform are now playing more-prominent roles in political campaigns, they haven’t mastered the brutal art of election politics; so they end up conceding ground to teachers unions and other status quo defenders.

At the same time, grassroots activists and school reformers on the ground fail to understand the importance of policymaking, which often includes winning over politicians with carefully-worded jargon, working those legislative committee rooms, and crafting legislation that achieves the politically possible. As important as their shock troop work is to winning reform on the ground, they must still understand that the ground game is one part of the war over reforming American public education.

As for charter school operators and in-district reformers? Their problem lies in the fact that they are often too focused on operations and mission than on thinking about how their work can help make the case for reform. More-importantly, as Rhee herself admitted in October in a Wall Street Journal she co-wrote with her former boss, Adrian Fenty, reform-minded operators don’t always realize the importance explaining to community members how their efforts will improve the quality of education for their kids. Nor do they dare to actually question their opponents within traditional public education on their essential anti-intellectualism and misunderstanding of such matters as economics and management theory. The operators can certainly teach the ed school profs and the teachers union bosses a few things about what the real world actually looks like.

Yet all three groups are important to making school reform a reality. Working together, they temper each other’s excesses, force one another to consider flaws in thinking, and inform each other’s work. The school reform movement needs thinking activists, men and women who both know how to work the corridors of power and get their hands dirty in the trenches, skilled at policymaking, bomb-throwing and implementing all at once. This need is why Dropout Nation discusses both policy and practice; they all must come together in a continuum of actions in order to foster a revolution (and not an evolution) in public education. Reformers can’t just stay in the Beltway , work the streets or operate schools; they must get involved in all three areas.

Rhee has shown success in the policy wonk and school operations arenas; she has also displayed her flaws in rallying grassroots support. Students First offers her an opportunity to get her hands dirty in all three areas, learn from her mistakes, and put some of the lessons she has learned into practice. And she can show all three groups within the school reform movement how to not be limited by their respective perspectives.

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School Districts in Trouble School Leadership Still Waiting in D.C.

Steve Peha: Back to Michelle Rhee

Steve Peha

November 18, 2010 10:05 am November 18, 2010

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While others are focused on the silly argument over whether Joel Klein’s successor as New York City’s schools chancellor, Cathleen Black, is qualified to run a school district (Dropout Nation’s…

While others are focused on the silly argument over whether Joel Klein’s successor as New York City’s schools chancellor, Cathleen Black, is qualified to run a school district (Dropout Nation’s answer is yes), our Contributing Editor, Steve Peha, is still thinking about what he considers the failed promise of the other superstar among reform-mineded current and former school chieftains, former D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. He offers some more thoughts today as part of the series Still Waiting in D.C.:

So far, we don’t know if Mayor-Elect Vincent Gray’s interim chancellor, Kaya Henderson, is a dainty scamperer. If she turns out that way, we’ll know what Mr. Gray’s campaign against Michelle Rhee was about: Bring in the bruiser to knock things around, knock her around, and then send her packing, while Dr. Caspar Milquetoast takes the credit for ushering in a new era of consensus-driven leadership—and the coinage of yet another oxymoron. This group leadership thing never makes any sense to me: even a young lad in grammar school, I knew that “leader” was a singular noun. But rules we teach in one part of education are often contradicted in other parts of education.

No matter what happens, while Rhee’s work will survive for years to come, the end of her short tenure troubles me for several reasons. I discussed some of them last month. Here are more:

I had hoped she would become a model of a new kind of big city school leader. At such a young age when she was hired, she could have served her city for decades, ushering in dramatic change while also preserving stability.

I had hoped that Rhee would validate Teach For America’s real promise — that of putting new people into the field of education for long and highly influential careers — would be validated at the highest level. (Perhaps it has been and I just don’t feel it.)

I had hoped that D.C’.s schools would one day become the best urban schools in our nation. In some respects, this is selfishness on my part. I’m just embarrassed that my nation’s capital city treats its citizens so poorly at times.

I had hoped that a replicable model of school governance and successful reform might emerge. Sadly, Rhee leaves nothing replicable behind, least of all her approach to school leadership.

Clearly, I didn’t get what I wanted out of this deal. Sadly, I have no one to insult, threaten, or belittle as a result. For that, there’s plenty of culpability go around. I will admit that Rhee is to me still something of an enigma, a Sphinx-like riddle I can’t puzzle out. How someone so committed to the welfare of children would leave those kids behind after an election result that did not go in her favor.

I’m sad this didn’t work out. I’m frustrated, too, as I’m sure are many D.C. residents, that such a promising opportunity ended so poorly for everyone.

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School Leadership Still Waiting in D.C.

Steve Peha: D.C. School Reform Opponents Are No Angels

Steve Peha

October 13, 2010 5:00 am October 13, 2010

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Certainly, D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee (who may resign today) was working up her Wicked Witch of the West routine. But the folks who voted out Mr. Fenty, and…

A little too proud, a little too smug -- and not all that concerned about the education of kids? (Photo courtesy of Politico)

Certainly, D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee (who may resign today) was working up her Wicked Witch of the West routine. But the folks who voted out Mr. Fenty, and who will surely rejoice when Ms. Rhee is replaced, may not exactly be maxing out the maturity scale either. Their most consistent complaint about Rhee is that she offended them. And they were certainly right about that. But is it better to be right about being offended, or is it better to be right about educating kids?

Sometimes brilliant doctors are offensive, too; surgeons, in particular, are noted for their hubris. But when they’re saving your kid’s life, you kinda let that slide, don’t you? As mature adults, with the lives of our babies in the hands of others, it seems to matter much more how capable those hands are, and much less what comes out of the mouth they may be paired with. Sure, I’d love it if Marcus Welby could fix my 7-year-old’s Neuroblastoma. But I’ll gladly put up with Gregory House if he can get my little girl to her next birthday.

As school district hands go, Rhee’s are pretty good, and her mouth isn’t nearly as bad as Dr. House’s. She’s no Marcus Welby, but she runs a tight ship. By most accounts, D.C. schools run better now than ever. So while Rhee has acted immaturely with regard to her speech and conduct, her detractors made that most classic of childish errors: thinking it was all about them when it was really all about the kids.

What’s more important? The welfare of children or the feelings of adults? I guess we know now that both Ms. Rhee and the folks in D.C. at least agree on one thing – we all care about kids, but we care about ourselves just a little more. This is hardly an indictment; just human nature, really. But acknowledging it changes what we can learn from this experiment and how we can all do better next time.

As someone who has often been guilty of the very same offense, I’m not going to judge it too harshly. After all, if adults can’t get their own needs met, they can’t really meet their kids’ needs either. I think Maslow had a good take on this.

The situation in D.C. is what it is. It is a bunch of adults putting their needs for self-promotion, or respect, or whatever amount of love they never got from their parents ahead of the needs of the children in their schools. Rhee had the smarts and the skills to court her opposition. At the same time, there was no need for her detractors to constantly exhibit the “ignoble strife of the madding crowd.”

There was a lot to be gained here through mere civility. Perhaps the biggest lesson of all is simply that smart people with good intentions can accomplish more for others when they intentionally act smart, instead of intentionally acting spiteful or taking offense when no positive result can come of either posture.

Over the years, I have heard few complaints about the Chancellor’s intelligence, determination, dedication, results, or any other “bottom line” concern – nobody said she wasn’t getting some very good things done. In particular, she seems to have reorganized the district operationally to the point where it now functions as a viable enterprise.

If you’ve ever worked in a dysfunctional big-city school district, you know how hard it is to improve operations and how vital as well. But Rhee will get no credit for this or even a friendly parting gift as she leaves her Ken Jennings-like run from a game show that could find no better metaphor than in Jeopardy.

Some have argued that Rhee was not effective at all, that her gains were largely the result of her predecessor’s efforts. I suppose that’s a possibility. Lucky for Rhee’s long-time detractors, it’s an impossible one to disprove. Personally, I find it hard to believe that none of what Rhee did had an impact (no pun intended), and I think, as time goes by, we’ll see that many of her initiatives stand the test of time.

I doubt, for example, that her successor will toss out every change she inspired. In fact, it may be the next Chancellor who does the serious coat-tail riding here, a person certain to be much more conciliatory simply because he or she will have had the advantage of Ms. Rhee’s “smash mouth” school governance and the resulting mile-wide gap at the line of scrimmage through which just about anyone could scamper daintily to the end zone.

This is the third installment of a series on the Michelle Rhee legacy and the impact on school reform. You can access the series by clicking on Michelle Rhee or here.

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School Leadership Still Waiting in D.C. This is Dropout Nation

Steve Peha: Why Rhee Should Read First Corinthians

Steve Peha

October 12, 2010 5:00 am October 12, 2010

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“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish…

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

Perhaps I’ve missed some of the nuances of principled civil discourse with regard to public schooling in our nation’s capital. Perhaps the brouhaha has been exaggerated in the media and the adults in question have all been calmly and courageously sharing tea and crumpets while working out their differences about how to improve a tough urban school district.

But to tell ya the truth, the whole thing has seemed like a lot of “he-said-she-said” to me—with “she” spittin’ out some real beauties.

It’s both strange and sad that those of us who care so much about children are so often given to childishness ourselves. Maybe it goes with the territory. In D.C., I think there’s been plenty of childish behavior on all sides—probably more among adults in city offices than among children in city playgrounds.

In Ms. Rhee’s case, she seemed to delight in bratty quips as soon as she got the job. I never understood this. She was hired by Fenty and given his full imprimatur. Fenty had just won every ward in the city. Rhee had real power. So why be cranky and abusive when all she had to do to get whatever she wanted was ask nicely while pointing to the mayor’s office?

Rhee often proclaimed that she didn’t do politics. Her apolitical stance was just posture; she does, in fact, does politics. Privately, she’s a political force of nature by sheer force of will. Publicly, she stumped for Fenty during his recent campaign, even alluding to the likelihood that she would quit if he lost. Short of actually running for office, that’s as political as politics gets.

Ms. Rhee’s “posture” of indifference to the patently political nature of being a big city school leader, and her antipathy toward those who wanted her to play along, was equal parts pose and power play. When Fox News says its “fair and balanced”, we know precisely that it’s not. When someone in a political position says, “I don’t play politics!” we know she is a master of the game.

Ms. Rhee’s “I’m-all-about-what’s-best-for-kids” argument, while surely sincere on some level, was a red herring. Matthew Yglesias solves the mystery here by pointing out that her emphasis was not on the less glamorous work of local school governance but on the more rewarding enterprise of national self-promotion.

Ms. Rhee is smart, tough, efficient, effective, and one heck of a talented politician. I think she’s also a darned good school leader—minus the attitude. Her “I don’t do politics” strategy would have been the perfect cover if she hadn’t decided to blow it so often. For what reason other than personal aggrandizement or political gain would she pose—voluntarily—in Time as The Wicked Witch of Education Reform?

In the best-selling business book, “Good to Great”, Jim Collins and Tom Porras to the necessity of what they call Level 5 Leaders. Among their many qualities, these people typically work quietly and diligently, letting others share the spotlight and even take some of the credit. These people have energy and smarts and grit. But they also have wisdom and maturity. Ms. Rhee did not. We have childishness in school; we don’t need more from the people who run it—nor do we need it from the people who oppose the way someone is running it.

MEANWHILE RHEE CLEARLY CULTIVATED her own problems, seemingly at times with the intent not of serving children so much as serving herself. How do we know? Cui bono? Life got a little better for kids in D.C., but it’s gonna get a lot better for Rhee in the very near future. I just hope she can make it on to Oprah before the last season is over.

I’m not a knee-jerk Rhee-basher. I think she’s done some amazing things in DC and I’ve been a cautiously optimistic supporter of hers since she started. I have applauded her willingness to take risks and her ability to get things done in the face of entrenched special interests. I think her commitment to kids is real but I think her immaturity ultimately leads her to be more committed to herself than anyone or anything else.

Given a light greener than the one Gatsby pined for on Daisy’s dock—the greenest of green lights from a popular and powerful mayor—she popped off about this and that for reasons only those who know her intimately could possibly understand. I’m still dumbfounded that she worked in such a calculated fashion to piss people off and to draw attention to herself at the expense of her own success—and possibly that of her biggest supporter, now outgoing mayor Fenty.

Sad, too, is that the Chancellor’s selfless passion, which she used as cover for her excesses, wasn’t strong enough to help her curb them. As with President Obama, I admit to “buying the poster” with Rhee. I wanted her to be successful because I wanted my nation’s capital to have the best schools in the nation, and I wanted her to be the best school leader in the nation. I liked the fact that she was young, tough, whip smart, and no-nonsense. That’s why all her nonsense so befuddled me.

Ultimately, I believe Rhee cared about kids but had contempt for the people caring for them. Contempt is the most corrosive of emotions when it comes to the forming of healthy human relationships. As such, it’s not a viable strategy for successful leadership. No matter how talented or effective a leader is, not even results and charisma can make up for contempt.

Folks just don’t warm to being held in contempt even if you do educate their kids and make the trains run on time. Arrogance, by contrast, is actually tolerable, especially if one is right on a regular basis. Had Ms. Rhee dialed herself back a tad to mere arrogance, many things might have played out differently, especially for D.C.’s kids.

All in all, I think her sandlot stats have been pretty good. But she shouldn’t have spent so much time kicking at the mound and swearing at the umpire like a hot-headed rookie hurler who he thinks he knows where the outside corner is better than the big guy standing behind the plate. Why not just bring the heat like Strasburg? And try to avoid the Tommy John surgery, of course.

If we are fortunate, Ms. Rhee will learn from her experience and return to run another big city school district some day. If she leaves the realm of school district leadership, the loss will be ours, not hers. She has a bright future ahead. Many of the challenges she encountered in settling into her role as Chancellor wouldn’t exist at all in the private sector. If that’s where Rhee goes next, I’m sure she’ll be very successful. But I think our education system will have suffered a loss.

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School Leadership Three Thoughts

Two Thoughts on Education This Week: Elections Department

RiShawn Biddle

September 15, 2010 10:45 am September 15, 2010

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What this week’s primary elections actually tell us about the battle over reforming American public education: Voters Are Concerned About More Than Education: The problem for single-issue activists, no matter…

Photo courtesy of the New York Times.

What this week’s primary elections actually tell us about the battle over reforming American public education:

Voters Are Concerned About More Than Education: The problem for single-issue activists, no matter who they are, is tunnel vision. They are so focused on one particular issue that they think it should be the paramount factor in supporting or opposing a candidate. What is forgotten is that for the average voter — neither monomaniacal nor able to spend one’s time focusing on a particular issue (or on any issue, given the scarcity of time and the needs to keep kids clothed and roofs over heads) — no one particular issue alone, no matter how important it may be, is the one on which they will make decisions.

More often than not, they are judging candidates based on several factors largely based on their personal experiences: Is the candidate likable; can he get the job done; is he connected to the community in which the voters live; and is he part of the networks (from churches to bars) with which they spend time. Essentially, the voter may agree with a candidate on several issues, but find that person generally distasteful. Or, if they are in middle age or senior citizens, take the view that a younger candidate doesn’t have enough gray hairs on the head and needs to wait his turn (a particular problem in the black community). Or they may know the incumbent or challenger is corrupt and a machine politician, but remember what that person did for them on a personal level. Or they are more concerned about the economic problems of the present and see no connections between those matters and the future that they think only their grandchildren will see. Or they just don’t agree that education is all that important an issue, period. The candidate’s position on one issue alone ultimately matters little.

This is something school reformers must keep in mind as they moan over Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s loss in yesterday’s primaries and the victories of school reform opponents such as New York State Senator Bill Perkins (whose senseless opposition to charter schools should be an outrage to Harlem residents and Black America in general). In the case of Fenty, it is clear that his reform of D.C. Public Schools wasn’t the only factor in his defeat; if anything, Michelle Rhee was the single-biggest reason why most Fenty voters sided with him (and why even some Fenty foes are having second thoughts about supporting the winner, Vincent Gray, who will oust Rhee in order to keep peace with the city’s Ancien Regime). Once you take school reform out of the equation, Fenty’s other problems — a demeanor at which even Churchill would look askance, mediocre management of city government, and the inability to manage the particularly virulent race issues that color D.C. politics — almost guaranteed him defeat. He was a one-term mayor before he even ran for re-election.

As for Perkins? He is a longstanding incumbent with deep roots in Harlem. He is also an old-school black politician — and there are plenty of voters his age who will have to be forced to the sidelines before the New Jacks take charge. His opponent, Basil Smikle, doesn’t have that deep network, lacks such privileges and didn’t have enough young voters he could on for victory. Another reformer, Michael Castle (who lost Delaware’s Republican senatorial primary) didn’t mention those credentials very much — and given the recriminations among conservative activists over the excesses of the George W. Bush era (including the No Child Left Behind Act), couldn’t use that background for any positive or negative effect.

Meanwhile the school reform politicians who won — including Perkins’ fellow state legislator, Sam Hoyt — have also connected to their voters on other important issues; in the case of Hoyt, the very privileges of incumbency that favored Perkins also favored him. School reform may have been the high-profile talking point, but for the voters, not the only one. Neither school reformers nor defenders of the status quo in public education may have captured anyone’s imagination.

Certainly, school reformers are right in arguing that overhauling American public education is critical. But they must remember that school reform isn’t the only issue on the minds of voters. If reformers are to win over the rest of the electorate, they must present clear connections between the need to improve education and the concerns voters find to be more-pressing.

The Importance of Building Community Ties: Green Dot Public Schools founder Steve Barr notes that he always spent time in a community — from churches to social groups — listening, talking and reaching out, before starting a new school there. Why? Because black and Latino communities — like all minority communities — are suspicious of outsiders bearing promises (and have the memories of past promises unkept deeply ingrained in their thoughts). Essentially, you can’t convince people to ally with you until you build connections with them.

This week’s primaries are stark reminders of this reality. In Harlem, Basil Smikle offered compelling reasons for voters to oust Bill Perkins from his New York State Senate seat — and he had backing from school reform activists, both in Harlem and outside of it. But the reformers only had connections to new Harlem residents, who don’t have deep community ties. The reformers also didn’t have enough strong ties to longtime residents, who think that their supposed Chocolate City is getting a tad too pale and middle class (despite the fact that Harlem has always been a diverse community with strong middle class base — and given the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and the presence of such institutions as the Schonburg Center, upscale even). And while some charter school operators have made strong ties to their communities, others still have a superficial relationship with community players that won’t help in beating back someone as influential as Perkins.

The lack of strong ties communities shouldn’t surprise school reformers, especially among the Beltway crowd. The lack of strong support in communities has been the single-biggest obstacle to sustaining reform. And if school reformers don’t start getting into the game by building ties with churches and grassroots activists — and rallying the millions of single parents, grandparents and immigrant families ready to play their part in reforming public education — they will not be able to keep their hard-won gains.

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School Leadership

The Future of Mayor-Led Reform

RiShawn Biddle

September 9, 2010 10:40 am September 9, 2010

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Sometimes, it’s about the man leading the reform, not about reform itself. Judging by Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s troubled re-election campaign alone, one would dare say that mayor-led school…

: Sometimes, it’s about the man leading the reform, not about reform itself.

Judging by Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s troubled re-election campaign alone, one would dare say that mayor-led school reform — including mayoral control of traditional school systems and other mayor-led reforms — is just a bad idea. Same would also be true if one looks at the fall of another municipal paragon of school reform, Bart Peterson, whose acclaim as the first mayor to authorize charter schools didn’t insulate him from losing his job as Indianapolis mayor three years ago.

Such thinking would be understandable. After all, mayors face more than enough threats to their long-term futures in politics — reforming city governments alone (much less just running them) leads to gaining entrenched enemies — without wading into the even-more treacherous landscape of public education. Once a mayor attempts to either take over a failing district, he or she is naturally rallying school board members, locals of the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers, superintendents and others; they may generally loathe one another, but they have greater enmity toward supposed interlopers invading their coteries. If the mayor succeeds in taking control, he now has a powerful rival in the form of NEA and AFT locals, who have the resources and ground games to whip up a frenzy among their supporters. All this before the mayor actually gets to the job of reforming schools.

Meanwhile, the average citizen — often still stuck in the old paradigm that education isn’t a city government concern — is still unsure of whether mayors should be in the education business. Even of the mayor does a great job on reforming schools, he must also get the other aspects of city government right: For many, keeping streets clean, cutting down crime, cutting taxes and improving quality of life are far greater concerns than education.

But one really judge the worthiness of mayoral control just on Fenty’s problems or Peterson’s fate. The former is in trouble because of his lack of appealing demeanor, stumbles in managing other aspects of city government, and missteps in handling Chocolate City’s race-based politics. Fenty is paying more for blunders such as canceling a meeting with the late Dorothy Height (a paragon of the civil rights movement) over one of his controversial moves as he is for challenging D.C.’S educational Ancien Regime.

Peterson’s strong efforts on school reform were not matched with equal effort on tackling the Circle City’s rising crime, improving quality of life in less-tony areas, and, as seen with his support of the now-completed Lucas Oil Stadium for the Indianapolis Colts, being fiscally prudent with taxpayer money. Citizens saw him as a complacent failure and showed him the door.

Mayors must still be as successful in improving the rest of city government as they are in school reform. That’s just the way it is. Residents aren’t just going to praise the mayor for fixing schools — especially if they are failing in other areas. This means mayors must be at skilled at managing goverment and keeping their supporters behind them; whether or not they launch school reforms, their jobs would still be the most-complicated in American politics.

The successes of New York City’s Michael Bloomberg, Richard Daley’s tenure in Chicago and John Norquist’s school voucher efforts in Milwaukee are better examples of how mayors can lead school reforms; their remaining challenges are also better examples of why the reform of American public education can’t just start or end at the central offices of school districts or one-off programs — and why the traditional school district model is no longer worth sustaining.

More importantly, as seen in efforts by the mayors of Rochester and Milwaukee to take control of the local district, the continuing saga in L.A. over Antonio Villaraigosa’s effort to nudge L.A. Unified toward reform (an effort first undertaken by predecssor Richard Riordan), and the problems of low educational achievement in Hammond, Ind., Alexandria, Va., and elsewhere, mayors can no longer ignore the critical links between the long-term efforts of keeping middle-class residents and commercial activity in their cities and improving education. They must embrace school reform because so many of the issues with which they must wrangle are connected to it. Mayor-led reform is critical, not only in sustaining school reform, but in keeping cities thriving. No mayor wants to preside over Detroit-like despair.

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