August 29, 2007
Rhee Wants Power to Say 'You're Fired!' to Employees
D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee plans to ask the D.C. Council to suspend personnel laws to give her the authority to terminate several hundred DCPS employees she plans to fire without having to reassign them to other jobs. A story on the front page of today's Washington Post indicates at least some Council members may be skeptical of Rhee's plan, which reportedly includes adding new upper-level managers while at the same time downsizing the central administration by 30 to 40 percent. The story rather oddly quotes an anonymous Council member who called the potential firings a "TNT issue" that could be met with skepticism by the Council.
Currently, DCPS central office employees have the contractual right to be placed in a lower-ranking position after being relieved of their duties while maintaining their current salary. These contractual obligations are the very thing that have prevented previous superintendents from significantly restructuring the school district's administration, even though serious restructuring is always cited as the first thing that needs to be done to fix D.C. Schools.
The power to fire is exactly the kind of authority the Chancellor should have under the mayoral takeover of D.C. Schools, and any Council member who feeds anonymous quotes like this to a Washington Post reporter should really think again. While acting as the gatekeepers of Mayor Fenty's big plans is to be expected of this Council, standing in the way of meaningful reform -- which absolutely must include firing redundant and ineffective employees -- is irresponsible and frankly, fairly dumb. As Sara Mead noted on this site on Monday, we've been through the early stages of a new head of DCPS who was expected to lead a wave of radical change and didn't deliver many times before. Should members of the D.C. Council begin actively preventing the new Chancellor from being able to make big changes at the central office, you can be sure voters, who swept in Mayor Fenty by a huge majority last fall thanks in large part to his promise to radically reform our failing schools, will remember.
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LET HER HAVE IT!
Oh no she di' int!
A story on the front page of today's Washington Post indicates at least some Council members may be skeptical of Rhee's plan, which reportedly includes adding new upper-level managers while at the same time downsizing the central administration by 30 to 40 percent.
So instead of having 18 Assistant Deputy Directors to the Deputy Assistant Director for Assistance Direction, you will have 14 Directors for Assistant Deputy Direction. Now that's what I call "rightsizing!" Good to see Rhee going all Lean Six Sigma on their narrow asses.
Game over, man. Just nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
As a parent of a DCPS student, more power to her. Her presence has made a notable difference.
If I screw up at work there is no agreement to allow me to take a lower responsibility job at my current salary. I just get the door and a card board box for my stuff. The DCPS employees need to be shown how those of us who work in the real world are treated.
This is indeed a "TNT issue" (by the way: Who the heck says TNT?). One reason is that these employees' union will have to go to war over this proposal. Another reason is the big ol' racial funfest that this will cause: the majority of these employees are black; Rhee and her top peeps are not. Sure won't take long for the Barrys of the city to make a big racial stink about this. I agree that Rhee needs this sort of power to be effective (and WTF about someone who is canned simply getting a lower-sounding title, but the same pay?). But the racial components of this are going to be HUGE.
Good luck trying to get this one past the unions. I see walkouts in DC's future. Any bets as to who blinks first? Either way, keep your eyes on the councilmembers who try and stand in the way.
For decades, it's been impossible to fire anyone in DCPS for incompetence. You could only promote them out of your division. Hence, today, the inmates run the asylum, pull in six-figures a year, work three-days-a-week (if that), and go on fact-finding missions to the Bahamas to see how they screw kids out of an education there. These people have outlasted mayors, city councils, school boards, control boards, and having to re-apply for their jobs, which they always get.
The policy as described does sound a little bit crazy, but it's not entirely clear we're talking about firing people for incompetence here. Rhee has been talking about a complete shakeup of the DCPS central office and bureaucracy, and fundamentally adjusting the way some departments and offices are structured. It sounds to me like she's requesting the authority to fire a lot of personnel who have NOT been found to be incompetent, but rather are in jobs that her team believes are non-essential.
I'm not saying she shouldn't be given the authority, and indeed she probably should. At the same time, it would be nice to feel confident that there are measures in place to make sure that this process actually weeds out low-performing employees, and offers SOME potential for "downsized" employees who are otherwise competent to find other positions in the system. If positions are being eliminated primarily for structural reasons, there are still likely to be problem employees left in the system after this initial sweep.
The rule about keeping your current salary even after you're demoted is downright ridiculous, and should obviously be eliminated. If you've been moved into a position with decreased responsibility, you earn a decreased income ... how is that unjust or unfair in any way?
Fire them! Then fire a few more. I hope she compiles a list of the pitiful stats about the school system and just starts rattling them off when some fool on the Council questions why she should have the power to fire the incompetent morons that populate the central office.
Hopefully all of the people who surely will comment on this site will also make their opinions known to the mayor and the City Council. The inefficiencies of this system need to be be wiped out. I know -- that's stating the obvious.
Off with their heads!!
Good article, dreadful headline.
Do they even know how many people work for DCPS? I recall they blew a couple mil to develop a modern payroll and staffing system and it didn't work so they had to go back to the legacy system (something run on mainframes, bailing wire, and hamsters in treadmills). I'm pretty sure they can't even nail down an exact number of students, their tracking system is spread out over filecabinets and buildings on opposite sides of the city.
If the position doesn't directly support the teachers, eliminate it. A lot of those admin positions are only there to deal with mandatory Fed paperwork related to grant money, but it's not like they're doing their job anyway.
Somer, the tone of this article baffles me. You seem to think that firing 30-40% of the admin employees of DC Public schools is a completely "no duh" thing to do. How could laying off hundreds of people be a good thing? As earlier commentators have mentioned, this is not about performance, this is about mass lay-offs regardless of performance.
If it needs to happen fine, but the DC Government needs to have jobs lined up for these people. Rhee should not be so politically and organizationally naive to think she can just wave a wand and ruin the lives of hundreds of people without an appropriate backup plan.
I love the ominous "watch the councilmembers who stand in the way!" comment. Who do you think is more important to a candidate, an annoying internet troll who has no personal connection to this issue other then a perverted sense of "justice", or 200 people who have been FIRED, and are pissed off about it?
Any Councilmember that votes against this is voting in favor of keeping the stunningly crappy school system DC has had for the past 30 plus years.
This has been a long time coming.
ha, MonkeyE, yes, I've talked to principals about Six Sigma many times
I wish I could get demoted to a lower ranking position while still keeping my salary. I'd like the title, and responsibility, of an intern again.
To get out of the funk it is in, the DCPS needs to be run like a privately owned business. To hell with the union. Let Rhee fire who she wants to fire and reorganize what she wants to reorganize. Didn't she get hired to take care of things? Let her!! If she fails, then it is her fault.
If the Council isn't going to let her make these executive decisions then why even have her at all? Does the DC Council expect her to be their puppet?
Just the fact that, "Tests show that in reading and math, the District's public school students score at the bottom among 11 major city school systems..." and "The District spends $12,979 per pupil each year, ranking it third-highest among the 100 largest districts in the nation. But most of that money does not get to the classroom. D.C. schools rank first in the share of the budget spent on administration, last in spending on teachers and instruction." (Wash Post; Can D.C. Schools Be Fixed?; June 10, 2007)
...should be justification enough for Rhee to fire away. Get rid of the bureaucratic deadwood already.
@ guest12
Why does the DC government have to have jobs lined up for those that are fired/laid off?
Government jobs are not an entitlement is not. Are the DC public school employees not adults? Why can't they find another job somewhere else? The employment market here is quite robust compared to other places I've lived.
Guest #12, you seem to have forgotten the largest group to have an interest in this - The parents of the approximately 50,000 students. I do believe that the Council will care more about their input than 200 displaced ex-employees.
And you wonder why Walmart resists unionization...
Why is it...that every year they find something wrong with all the DC schools and then they show 100's of people volunteering they're time to help.
Millions of dollars are poured in and the media shows a few clips of people working. THEN! The next year the schools fail the grade again and..
you get the picture..rinse/shampoo/and repeat.
What's going on!? I'm single and I don't have any kids. Is this my tax money!?
Gust 12 here
Have any of you ever been laid of from a job for purely down-sizing reasons? Do you know how insane it is to be fired? You treat this really flippantly. And yes, 200 insanely pissed off people is a lot worse then thousands of people who really dont have much invested in slimming the admin dept of DCPS.
Those 200 pissed off people are supporting families and local economies. It's not in the governments best interests too remove 200 well paying jobs from the economy.
It's the governments responsibility to have these jobs lined up, so they dont have pissed off people on their hands. Cause, and here's social change 101 folks, pissed off people hold those responsible for their situations accountable.
@12 What is your basis for saying that the contributors to this blog have "no personal connection" to this issue? This "internet troll" is a DC resident, reliable voter, and pays thousands of dollars in city taxes per year. You don't consider that a vested in interest in seeing that the DCPS's Central Office is run efficiently and effectively?
And I recall nothing about DC government employees being guaranteed lifetime employment. There is no such entitlement.
This is why I am generally unsupportive of public sector unions. Like a private sector union, they are primarily responsible for negotiating the contracts of its members with management. And like a private sector union, it's not their job to look out for the interests of the customer (i.e. the students of DCPS). Fair enough, but unlike a private sector union, they are legally able to bribe and coerce management in the form of campaign contributions. Add to the fire the fact that we live in a town full of Democrats who are less likely to take sides against a politician favored by unions, and you have a system designed to ignore the interests of the customer.
And as for that guest worried about the hundreds of employees. Who cares? For one, they're probably not DC residents in the first place, so let Maryland worry about it. And for another thing, if this is the path to improving public schools, wouldn't the interests of thousands of DCPS children trump the interests of a few hundred redundant employees?
For decades the DCPS have been viewed by the political class as one bottomless kitty of jobs and construction contracts. It's bad enough that public money gets wasted like that; it's shameful that that money came at the expense of generations of DC children. Maybe, just maybe, that political class has finally scraped the bottom.
What's at issue here is the brazen way she is demanding these layoffs. The district just hosted a job-fair, there are lots of DC government jobs that need to be filled. Rather then walking in and demanding the prompt lay-offs of 30-40% of your underlings, chill for a moment and make a politically viable, win-win decision. If there are no open jobs, and these jobs are redundent, then of course they should be eliminated. But there are most certainly jobs these folks can be shuttled into. So rather then demanding the right to FIRE hundreds of people, she should have been researching the situation to demand something less crazy like TRANSFERRING them to the DMV or some such thing.
a guest12/21
So I assume that you also think that the DC government or Fed is obligated to hire any and all homeless people that would accept a job (whether or not they are qualified and whether or not they will actually do the job)?
I have known people that have lost their jobs (thankfully not me) and it did suck but they didn't run to the government asking for handouts or cry fowl. They LOOKED and FOUND another job, maybe not right away but they made it happen, its called personal responsibility.
Sure the government is beholden to its citizens, but they're never going to make everyone happy. Its called Real Life 101. And it in fact may be in the best interest of the government to get rid of 200 people if they could serve thousands of other people better (especially students).
Yes, I've been laid off, and no, I did not hold it against the company that did it. At least not for long. I understand that these people have been essentially "promised" a job for life, but, in the words of GOB Bluth, "COME ON!"
If it needs to happen fine, but the DC Government needs to have jobs lined up for these people.
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I am very liberal, very liberal, but when my dotcom went under we lost our jobs with 5 days notice. period.
the DC government doesn't owe these people anything other than a paycheck and a retirement plan. Jobs are earned based on what you provide to the organization. how could you possibly, ever, think otherwise?
And yes, 200 insanely pissed off people is a lot worse then thousands of people who really dont have much invested in slimming the admin dept of DCPS.
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wrong. you're way off base here. are you a parent of a DC student? At the beautification day last Saturday every single parent was demanding firings and many said they requested firings in letters to Fenty and Rhee.
But there are most certainly jobs these folks can be shuttled into.
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aaaaarrrrrrggggghhhhh!
What kind of manager are you? Have you ever managed a team ever?
People "shuttled" into jobs they didn't apply for, have no experience in, and don't want?
aaaaarrrrrrggggghhhhh!
how about this quote regarding job shuttling:
"Worst idea today."
Cause, and here's social change 101 folks, pissed off people hold those responsible for their situations accountable.
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Themselves?
Because that's what we're talking about here, self-responsibility.
Rhee isn't doing anything to anyone else, these people did it to themselves the day they decided not to go to grad school. Don't you dare think it's something external happening to these people.
"Rather then walking in and demanding the prompt lay-offs of 30-40% of your underlings, chill for a moment and make a politically viable, win-win decision."
I understand your point about not making unnecessary firings for the sake of it, but in my opinion, there is a lot of deadwood in that office. If there are positions that need to be filled elsewhere, let them apply for it. I don't want school reform held up while we worry about transfering a bunch of unnecessary employees.
And frankly, a good deal of the people that need to be fired, need to be fired not because they're unnecessary, but because they're outright counterproductive. I'd rather see them completely off the public payroll.
Sounds to me like Rhee's setting this as a starting point for negotiations. That 40% firing level, after negotiations with the Council and unions, will likely be whittled down to something like 20%. She won't get carte blanche firing power, but something close enough to prune the deadest of the deadwood. The rest, she can buyout their contracts, offer them early retirement, plasma teevees, double-parking permits at Shiloh, whatever it takes to GET THEM THE HELL OUT.
This shot across the bow is meant to show parents that school admin will be held accountable; to show the council they need to lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way; and to show admin that halfassed excuses and patronage have gone the way of the former Mayor-For-Life and sanitary napkin belts. Straight UP.
To follow up on #8, I hope folks will contact their city council member and let them know how they feel about this.
A friend of mine, who is a DCPS teacher, said that many of the principals and teachers in DC take jobs in the central office for a few years before retiring so that there pensions will be higher based on the higher salary for central office jobs.
I think the layoffs will be racially charged unless Rhee starts filling new top spots with black people or the black council members support her and are willing to speak up. The last thing you need is Chea, Mendleson, Graham, Evans, etc. to be supportive without people like Thomas, Barry, Gray, Brown etc on board.
Rhee should just go ahead and fire them. Ban then from the buildings and stop issuing paychecks. Let them and their enabling union sue and let it be tied up in court for a while. Even if the city loses, and it would, the message would have been sent and these incompentents would have been outed to the public.
I have no sympathy at all for admnistrators in a system than can not get even get the right textbooks to the right schools before the first day of classes. If they had any dignity at all every one of them would have resigned in shame years ago.
I don't know all the details (someone who knows NYC schools can correct me), but didn't NYC Gov't negotiate with the unions to increase compensation for employees in return for the right to fire those who do not perform?
The union is not going away, and they have their employees to look out for (in style of any interest group), but this might be a way to deal with it. Pay those who perform, cut out those who don't.
The union is not going away, and they have their employees to look out for (in style of any interest group), but this might be a way to deal with it. Pay those who perform, cut out those who don't.
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Sadly they rejected merit pay in favor of seniority pay. Weird but true.
If someone younger than you is going to come along and do your job better for less pay, damn right you're going to favor seniority instead of merit.
This may be a TNT issue, but the explosion is irrelevant. There is nothing to lose, because the schools don’t work as it is. So what if the teacher’s union throws a fit, plays the race card, or goes on strike? The kids aren’t learning anything now anyway. Tell the union up front: you strike, you all get fired, and the kids stay at home while we build a new system. They aren’t learning anything from the schools as it is, so an educational Armageddon and rebirth would be a boon to most of DC’s children.
And for my next magic trick, I will be firing incompetent and underperforming teachers!
Oh wait.. that will never happen. Well, I guess getting rid of useless admin will at least make the system cheaper, even if we still can't teach the kids anything.
Only incompetent workers should go not everybody. People should not lose jobs in this current economic situation. I would suggest that they should give everybody a fair chance by defining their work and roles and give them 6 months time. If they dont deliver they should go. But without defining their work they should not be fired.