Teachers and the law

Rhee Law

Michelle Rhee and the Laws of Education Reform

Education reform is perennially a hot-button topic in the United States, and the issue has only become more extreme if anything as the decades have progressed. Despite all this attention, however -- and some might even say in part because of the level and type of attention education reform receives from politicians -- education in this country only seems to have gone from bad to worse in many areas. International tests consistently show the United States near or at the bottom of the pack amidst developed nations in terms of reading proficiency, mathematics abilities, and knowledge in science, and there is little question that the progress of American students throughout their years of public education is slower than that of students in many European and Asian countries. Some areas have schools that are worse than others, for a variety of reasons that are quite hotly debated, and Washington, D.C. is one of those areas.

The extreme need for reform in the schools of Washington, D.C. is one of the reasons Michelle Rhee's job is both so tough and so controversial. Rhee is the chancellor of the district's schools, the first person to hold this newly created title, and she has brought major changes to the schools and the administration of the nation's capital (Risen 2008; Haynes 2008). Closing schools, firing large numbers of administrators, teachers, and office workers, Rhee has truly re-formed the educational infrastructure of Washington, D.C., causing many to champion her cause and her decisions while an equally vociferous group of protestors and detractors claim that she is destroying the schools, possibly with an agenda in collusion with the power elite in the city (Dillon 2008; Kristula-Green 2009). Whatever her motives, however, Rhee definitely has the law on her side.

The legal structure of the Washington, D.C. school district is complex, and warrants a brief overview before a further discussion of Rhee's legal authority is delved into. This can be said of any major metropolitan area's school district, and of many others besides, but Washington, D.C. is something of a special case due to its position as the capital of the United States. Lacking certain of the oversight figures, responsibilities, and other attendant features of a state government, certain operations within Washington, D.C. -- including oversight of the school district -- is managed by the United States' Congress (Risen 2008). This means that the legislative body of the federal government has a legal say in what goes on the Washington, D.C. school district, and ultimately must grant approval for the major changes that Rhee has brought to the school district (as well as to the changes that came to the system in previous decades that led, over time, to the situation Rhee stepped into).

Congress has granted this approval, though largely tacitly and indirectly, but the large changes made to the administration of the schools and at the school level itself have not been blocked or reversed by Congress, and this in and of itself gives Rhee some legal footing in continuing to make similar decisions. When the most powerful legislative body in the nation and arguably in the world (though this has no real legal implication) seems to provide the legal green-light for one's actions, it seems a fair assurance of security in the knowledge that these actions are truly legal. Though Rhee in no way derived her power from Congress, its continued support of changes to the school district is tantamount to support for Rhee.

There are other factors that must be considered when examining the legality of Rhee's authority, and her ability to make the changes she has made in a largely unilateral fashion. She had to work with the Washington, D.C. city council, for instance, to earn the authority to fire office workers employed by the school district, which was not a part of the powers of the office of the school chancellor in the legislation that created this position (Risen 2008). Until winning this right, Rhee maintained what she felt was a largely inefficient pool of office personnel, many of whom had become complacent and less productive due to an assurance of job security. After being granted legal authority to fire district employees, Rhee canned nearly one hundred clerical workers (Risen 2008). Still, she waited until legal authority had been granted by the city's elected officials before even attempting to make this type of personnel change, which shows that while Rhee is certainly drastic and controversial, she is also working within the confines of her job and how it is defined by the people of Washington, D.C.

Not everyone agrees with this assessment, seeing the very creation of the position of school chancellor as an affront to -- if not an outright circumvention of -- the democratic process (Kristula-Green 2009). Rhee's power as chancellor comes at the expense of the power of the school board, from whom control of the schools was taken away by the city's newly elected mayor in 2007, also the year Rhee was hired. This was seen as a consolidation of power that made the running of the schools less directly responsive to the people. Again, however, it was an elected representative (i.e. The mayor) making a decision within the parameters of his job that led to this change.