Photo by Michael DeAngelis.

Today is D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s last day on the job. As the controversial education reformer leaves the District behind, there will be plenty of hand-wringing over her three-year-long tenure. The Post’s Bill Turque does a good job summarizing the gains Rhee oversaw and the list of things that she left unresolved.

More broadly, though, today is probably as good a time as any to give Rhee credit where it’s due. We’re not talking about test scores — because while those went up, they’re a fickle way to assess how well the whole system is doing. And it isn’t about how many people Rhee fired (there’s still plenty of controversy over how that actually happened, after all), the schools she shuttered or the new contract that she negotiated with the recalcitrant Washington Teachers Union. Rather, Rhee deserves props for making education reform an indispensable issue and being strong-willed enough to the necessary first reforms that many others may have shied away from.