December 18, 2007
Council Gives Rhee Power to Say 'You're Fired!'
The D.C. Council voted 10 to 3 today to give Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee the power to fire nonunion central office employees.
Council members Marion Barry, Phil Mendelson and Harry Thomas Jr. were the only votes against giving Rhee the power to fire. Thomas tried to get the council to approve an alternative bill that would have affected fewer workers, but the Council voted that alternative down 10-3 as well.
The Washington Post story still says that the number of employees this legislation will affect still numbers in the hundreds, which differs from the Examiner's take from this morning. Labor groups have estimated the number of employees who may now be fired directly by Rhee at 488.
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LMaooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Awesome Photoshop, now thats funny...This is good for DC, get rid of the crap thats been unproductive and clogging the system for years.
haha! one of the best pix you've done since snowpocalypse.
Nightmares!
submit that photo to the contest!
The caption for the photo should read:
This is what you see before you die.
It's a good beginning for Rhee. Things will hopefully improve with this first round of firings and she can come back to the Council and ask for a wider scope next time. If she's delivering results, they'll give her more authority, you know, for the sake of the kids.
Wow. The treatment really brings out Rhee's toothy sneer.
While I am all for making it easier for Rhee to drop the dead weight, I wonder if this will really make a huge difference. I usually don't like the City Paper much, but their article from a few weeks ago made some good points about this. Firing people won't help if the structure is left the same. For instance, it sounds like the dated technology is a huge issue when it comes to delays in teachers getting their paychecks etc. Tough talk is great, but I still wonder if she has the patience (and the funds) to deal with these long standing structural issues.
Good point on the structure/tech issue. It took DECADES for the school system to get rid of all the rotary phones and replace them with lines that could use voicemail. And did they ever finish revamping the payroll and finance systems? I know Williams spent millions on a new system that had to be scrapped because it wasn't doing what it was supposed to. So they had to rely on the legacy system (i.e., a bunch of filing cabinets somewhere downtown), and never could get a final tally on how many students were actually in the system.
Thanks Monkey, that article highlights just what I'm talking about. It's great that they're scanning in the old records, but where's the revamped system? Where's the new technology and filing systems? Do they even HAVE a filing system? They mention replacing the human resources director, but what the heck does that accomplish? You could replace him with that goddamn panda bear and there would be just as much accountability. If your "filing system" consists of post it notes, magic marker, and someone counting on their fingers, it doesn't matter who's in what position. I tried seeing if this Andrew Lew person, who is supposedly chief of the city's new "school modernization office" has done anything, and all I could find was a press conference declaring there would be heat in the schools (helluva job Andy!) and an article about him firing some building contractors. More tough talk, but where are the results?
Actually, hiring a panda would be a major improvement to the school system, since this drastically reduces the likelihood of embezzlement from the panda union. Although, I'm sure the new adminstrator would find a way to get premium bamboo and stripers on his expense account, as well as issue lucrative subcontracts to all his panda relatives.
is that Kim Jong-Il?