Written by DCist contributor Sara Mead

The District of Columbia’s Public Schools open today for the 2007-08 school year, the first for DCPS under control of Mayor Adrian Fenty and the leadership of Chancellor Michelle Rhee. Questions that have become an annual start of school ritual in D.C.—Will students have textbooks? Will there be enough teachers? Will the bathrooms work?—take on added weight this year, because their answers offer the first tangible results by which parents and D.C. voters can begin judging whether Rhee and Fenty are delivering on promises to bring real improvement to DCPS.

So far Rhee has had something of a honeymoon period. She’s charmed the District’s press and political leadership. Her tour of the system’s dysfunctional textbook warehouse was a media hit. The Post reported glowing reactions from teachers and school leaders who met with her or attended a back to school conference last week. The City Paper even ran a long and positive article about her good relationship with the president of the city’s teacher’s union—something virtually unheard of among urban superintendents. District media, educators, political leaders, and residents are so fed up with the city’s educational failures that they’ve been willing to embrace whatever hope Rhee has to offer.

But we’ve been down this road before. Just three years ago Rhee’s predecessor, Clifford Janey, received a similarly glowing reception. Yet, while Janey made several positive changes—most notably instituting new academic standards with aligned assessments and professional development—the pace of change was just too slow. He failed to address serious problems with the system’s school support and physical infrastructure. City leaders became frustrated, and Janey was unceremoniously ousted immediately after Fenty gained control of the schools.