Reform of public schools in the District of Columbia is the biggest victim of the recent city election. Mayor Adrian Fenty fell victim to Vincent Gray – and $1 million in spending by the American Federation of Teachers.
The biggest winner in the election was not Gray, but rather Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, the teachers’ union that represents DC school employees.
The school chancellor, Michelle Rhee, was appointed by Fenty and was aggressive at reforming the district that had been spending the most per student but achieving some of the worst results in the nation. She had pushed for eliminating ineffective teachers, rewarding the good ones and holding the adults more accountable for student outcomes.
Politico reported that the AFT gave $1 million “to a labor-backed independent expenditure campaign” that supported Gray’s candidacy.
Perhaps the most telling sentence from a related Politico article:
And while the teachers union has been careful not to claim the scalps of Fenty and his schools chancellor, Michelle Rhee, the election may serve as a political shot across the bows of other urban officials considering similar policies.
Weingarten and other labor bosses knew defeating Fenty – and in essence Rhee – would have a chilling effect on reform of America’s pathetic urban school districts.
How sad that Weingarten is content with the status quo in these cities. How sad that Weingarten fights for the rights of adults over the rights of students. But what should we expect? One of Weingarten’s predecessors, Albert Shanker, said it best:
“When schoolchildren start paying dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of schoolchildren.”
Rhee was clear in her analysis of the situation. She was quoted in the Washington Post:
“Yesterday’s election results were devastating, devastating,” Rhee said. “Not for me, because I’ll be fine, and not even for Fenty because he’ll be fine, but devastating for the schoolchildren of Washington, D.C.”
…
“I think part of the problem in public education to date has been that we all have to feel good, let’s not ruffle too many feathers,” she said, noting that when she arrived in 2007, eight percent of the District’s eighth graders were doing math at grade level.
“I am not going to sugarcoat that,” she said. “I am not going to make you feel better about that. That is an outcome that is absolutely criminal.”
Weingarten’s win means public education in our nation’s capital will continue puttering along, sucking more dollars and putting students further behind their peers in other districts, states and nations. Meanwhile, Weingarten’s union members are secure in their jobs.