Opinion
School & District Management Opinion

Should DC Schools Chancellor Rhee Hire Friends or Put Work Out to Bid?

By Marc Dean Millot — November 15, 2007 3 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

In October, Brenda Belton, director of charter schools in the DC Public Schools infamous central office, plead guilty to four counts of theft and tax evasion. Among other transgressions, Belton admitted in court that she steered $446,000 in no-bid school training contracts to friends and received kickbacks for her efforts.

Washington Post staff writers Theola Labbé and V. Dion Haynes report that DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is considering contracts with nonprofit Charter Management Organizations (CMO) for schools in or approaching restructuring status.

According to (DCPS spokesperson Mafara) Hobson, Rhee told the parents and teachers she met with Monday that three nonprofits potentially could run some D.C. schools: St. Hope, a charter operator in Sacramento; Green Dot, which operates 12 charter schools in the Los Angeles area; and Philadelphia-based Mastery Charter Schools.

Rhee has a personal connection with St. Hope. She recruited teachers for St. Hope in her former position as chief executive and president of the nonprofit New Teacher Project. She also was a board member of St. Hope for about a year until she was appointed chancellor, according to a St. Hope official.

At her confirmation hearing before the D.C. Council in June, former NBA star Kevin Johnson, who serves as president and chief executive of St. Hope, flew from California to testify on her behalf.

Charter schools needed access to training. Some DC schools may well require the services of outside contractors to get on track towards Adequate Yearly Performance. In both cases, the right way to do this is for the school district to put the work out to bid and look for the best value (results at a price). There is no reason to believe that Belton’s friends were uniquely qualified to provide training, or that Rhee’s nonprofit CMO’s are uniquely qualified to turn around schools - or especially likely. And if Belton was paid on the back end, some are going to wonder if a new school for St. Hope isn’t the Chancellor’s way of repaying Kevin Johnson. Both are forms of corruption.

Again, we come to a question of the Chancellor’s judgment.

• The rationale for giving Rhee the power to hire and terminate central office employees at will is the dysfunctionality evidenced by Belton, and the urgent need to get modern management processes in place. Doesn’t even the appearance of hiring her own friends send the wrong signal to staff – that all this turmoil in the central office is not about improvement, but control?

• Imagine that Rhee has the right to hire and fire central office employees at will. Just how eager will procurement staff be to scrutinize a proposed DCPS-St Hope contract, let alone bring issues to the Chancellor’s attention?

• Where does this leave the school system when the Chancellor departs? With the cynical lesson that might makes right. If you are in control, hiring friends is just fine.

If we expect to improve school districts, we have to move away from the image of a Superintendent or Chancellor as the man or woman on a white horse. Michelle Rhee is no silver bullet, although that’s precisely the implication of giving her virtually unlimited power to hire and fire government staff and pick and chose her own school contractors.

We have to start moving towards the development of institutions that manage school portfolios based on analysis. That starts with procurement of the products and services expected to create high performing schools. No superintendent “knows” so much about this that they should be allowed to hire outside school managers because it seems like a good idea at the time. If it’s such a good idea, that will become clear in the competition for the work. If it’s not, the taxpayers and kids will be spared some pain.

Related Tags:
Opinion

The opinions expressed in edbizbuzz are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Assessment Webinar
Reflections on Evidence-Based Grading Practices: What We Learned for Next Year
Get real insights on evidence-based grading from K-12 leaders.
Content provided by Otus
Mathematics Webinar How to Build Students’ Confidence in Math
Learn practical tips to build confident mathematicians in our webinar.
Student Achievement K-12 Essentials Forum How to Build and Scale Effective K-12 State & District Tutoring Programs
Join this free virtual summit to learn from education leaders, policymakers, and industry experts on the topic of high-impact tutoring.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

School & District Management Principals Can't Manage Teacher Morale Alone. Enter the Go-Between
Principals can't check in with every teacher. Can a go-between leader help them out?
6 min read
The concept of joint teamwork, building a team. Working people connecting pieces of puzzles. Metaphor of cooperation and staff partnership.
Anastasiia Boriagina/iStock
School & District Management Quiz Quiz Yourself: How Much Do You Know About Marketing To District and School Leaders at Conferences and Trade Shows?
Think you know what catches a K-12 leader’s eye at conferences? Take this quiz and test your marketing savvy.
120122 mb data conferences 1385168396
Image by Getty
School & District Management School Leaders Look Out for Students as Trump Steps Up Immigration Enforcement
Experts say there are steps schools can take to proactively address mental health concerns stemming from ramped-up immigration enforcement.
6 min read
GettyImages 1353122771
E+
School & District Management Q&A The Skills Education Leaders Need to Meet the Moment
Natasha Trivers, CEO of Democracy Prep Public Schools, will be the next leader of the Broad Center at the Yale School of Management.
6 min read
Illustration of two cliffs with a woman on one side and a man on the other. Both of them are holding a half of a cog wheel and bringing the two pieces together to bridge the gap between them.
iStock/Getty