Parents of D.C. schoolchildren yesterday said they were skeptical about whether Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee’s personal approach to fixing the city’s long-troubled school system would be sustainable over time.
Mrs. Rhee drew applause from a crowd of about 50 gathered for a town hall-style community meeting at the Lamond-Riggs Neighborhood Library in Northeast for her personal approach and her commitment to bypass bureaucracy. Several parents noted that she had given out her personal e-mail address, answering individual e-mails and personally helping them with their problems.
But that led some in the crowd to question whether hers was a sustainable approach and whether, in the long run, she would be able to achieve systemic change.
“I’m impressed that she gave out her e-mail address, but how well will she be able to manage all that?” asked Ward 7 resident Willette Seaward after the meeting.
Miss Seaward echoed a resident who asked during the meeting whether Mrs. Rhee’s personal approach would cause her to “implode” under the weight of attempting to deal with individual problems herself.
Mrs. Rhee said she was attempting to build trust so the public would back her when she attempts to streamline the bureaucracy.
“I think that responsiveness is the first thing we can do in terms of rebuilding the public confidence,” she said.
Mrs. Rhee emphasized parental and community involvement in fixing the problems that abound in the public schools, ranging from declining enrollment and crumbling facilities to standardized test scores, which routinely rank D.C. school children among the lowest in the nation.
Mrs. Rhee said she has spent her first weeks in office listening to what the community has to say. That drew a favorable response from the crowd.
“A lot, if not all, of the solutions are actually already known,” she said. “I think the way we’re going to have as much progress as soon as possible is to actually learn from people who already know the problems.”
She cautioned the residents that she would not be able to fix everything immediately.
Mary Spencer, vice president of the D.C. Association of Community Organization for Reform Now (ACORN), which sponsored the forum, said the way Mayor Adrian M. Fenty chose Mrs. Rhee without public input may have pushed the chancellor to make community involvement a priority now.
“I still have heartburn about the way that she was placed,” she said. “But she’s making an extra effort now.”
Kerry Sylvia, a teacher at Cardoza Senior High School in Northwest, asked Mrs. Rhee during the meeting why she and other top school officials are earning six-figure salaries when schools around the District are in disrepair.
“I have to be able to attract the best talent to the city,” Mrs. Rhee, who is paid $275,000 a year, said in response to the question. “Doing that is going to create efficiency, which will allow us to push more money down to the schools.”
After the meeting, Ms. Sylvia said she was still concerned that the high salaries at the top were hurting the school system.
“I definitely think people should be compensated for what they do, but at the same time we’re in a school system where buildings are falling apart, literally,” she said.
Ms. Sylvia, who teaches world history and street law, said her classroom had no air conditioning. She also had not received the $100 promised by the school system to buy classroom supplies, she said.
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