Earlier this afternoon, Sahil Kapur, a Washington reporter for Raw Story, tweeted what could well be the biggest news in the District since, well, Mayor Adrian Fenty lost his re-election bid — that D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee had resigned. According to an unnamed source, Kapur wrote, “Michelle Rhee just quit via a 4-line email to the DC public school staff, source says. Yet to officially submit resignation.” I checked with a DCPS source, and this was news to her — no email from Rhee announcing her intention to leave. TBD has gotten confirmation from Rhee’s spokesperson that she hasn’t resigned, but that she did produce a statement endorsing the need for continued reforms. No surprise there, really. Rhee may have campaigned for Fenty and threatened not to work for Gray, but she’s not so politically tone-deaf to up and leave at the beginning of a school year — with four months left of her current boss’s term to boot. I mean, Rhee resigning now would be so monumentally stupid that even her most fervent supporters wouldn’t be able to justify it. But Rhee’s not that stupid, and no, she hasn’t resigned.
Martin Austermuhle