District of Columbia Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has been awfully coy for more than a year about her bi-coastal romance with Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star, charter school operator, and now, mayor of Sacramento.
But there was no hiding the diamond folks apparently spotted on her left hand Wednesday night at an education reform event in downtown D.C. The Washington Post’s gossip columnists got on the case and got Rhee herself to confirm the engagement.
Naturally, the first thing most of us wonder is if Rhee will be leaving Washington soon. After all, KJ is only in his first term as mayor of Sacto, his hometown. He’s not likely to leave his job for a move East. Rhee has just been through the stormiest stretch of her nearly two and a half year run as chancellor, brought on mostly by her recent decision to lay off nearly 400 district employees, more than half of them teachers.
The chancellor told The Post that she’s not leaving D.C. any time soon, and her steeliness and tenacity to turn around decades of failure in the city’s school system seems genuine, even if you disagree with her methods. She doesn’t seem like a quitter, even for true love.
Still, anyone want to lay odds on how long for D.C. Michelle Rhee will be?
UPDATE: Mayor KJ confirms the news this morning in the Sac Bee. A spokesman for him says the engagement will be “long.” Couldn’t help but notice the Bee’s generic description of Rhee’s infamous Time magazine cover.
