Five Reasons Michelle Rhee's Departure Does Not Spell Disaster for D.C. Schools

All right, so Michelle Rhee did not take my unsought advice -- which does happen now and again, even in my own house.

(I'd hoped that the hyped-to-the-heavens Washington, D.C. schools chancellor, who has dismissed as "overrated" such niceties as collaboration and consensus-building, might astound us by sticking around and at least trying to work it out with the city's mayor-almost-elect, Vince Gray. Sure, she owes her high profile as the country's best-known school reformer to Adrian Fenty, the incumbent Gray defeated in last month's primary, which effectively decided the race in heavily Democratic D.C. But putting aside personal affinities would have made kids the priority and cast Gray and Rhee as grown-ups and role models; can you imagine the bouquets that would have been tossed in their direction as the movie "Waiting for Superman" opened . . .)

Now that Rhee has opted to resign instead, however -- to no one's surprise, given her "après mois, le déluge" pronouncements both before and after Gray's primary victory -- you'd swear from the reaction that the presumptive mayor was doing a happy dance on the educational graves of the city's worst-off children. You'd think, too, that no one but Rhee cared about them. Or could possibly increase D.C.'s public school enrollment by 1 percent.

Washington Post Metro columnist Bob McCartney correctly observed that the heat is on Gray to prove he can move forward without her: "I've heard more than half a dozen District parents say they were thinking of moving to Montgomery County because of the prospect that the city's schools would worsen if Rhee left." The Wall Street Journal was downright mournful: "Michelle Rhee described her decision yesterday to step down as Washington, D.C., schools chancellor after 3½ years as 'heartbreaking.' We share the sentiment. That one of the nation's most talented school reformers was forced out does not bode well for students, or speak well of the man likely to become D.C.'s next mayor."

Forced out? Though Rhee called Gray's nomination over Fenty "devastating" for D.C. school kids, he by all accounts wanted to wait until after the election to decide anything. According to the Washington Post -- in a story co-written by Tim Craig and my husband, Bill Turque -- Rhee told Gray last week that she was quitting and wanted out as soon as possible. Rhee spokeswoman Anita Dunn denied that Rhee had bolted, and called the account "false.''

Even before the announcement of Rhee's resignation, the Journal's Bill McGurn blamed Barack Obama for Fenty's defeat -- and thus for undermining reform. And plenty of liberals are as committed as anyone on the WSJ's editorial board to the Rhee = reform narrative. Even here in the polypartisan PD, my view to the contrary is kind of an army-of-one outpost: "DC schools the first casualty of voters' incumbent dissatisfaction,'' says the Politics Daily Facebook page.

Still, there are reasons to hope that reform will survive Rhee's departure:

2) All parties -- Gray, Rhee's critics, and even the villains of the cartoon version of the reform effort, the dreaded teachers' unions -- have an interest in proving that Rhee, and not reform itself, was the problem. The plan under Henderson is Rhee's exact reform agenda, so how does giving someone else a chance to implement it amount to disaster?

3) As a recipient of a Race to the Top grant to D.C.'s public and public charter schools, Gray has to either continue reform efforts or stand to lose $75 million. That money has to be invested in failing schools, and is tied to evaluating teachers based on how much they "grow" the test scores of their students.

4) If Rhee is such a straight shooter, then why not believe her when she says her departure is in the best interest of D.C. school kids?