In a letter sent last week to DCPS teachers, D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee directly addressed ten of the most frequent concerns she hears from teachers, ranging from “Some people say that you want to fire all the veterans in DCPS and replace them with Teach For America teachers or DC Teaching Fellows. Is that true?” to “There are too many initiatives going on. I’m worn out and overwhelmed. What’s your priority?” Rhee admits,…

Cue the “Hurricane Rhee” jokes. Here’s the latest being floated by Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee: ask the federal government to declare the D.C. public schools in a “state of emergency.” If approved, the step would give Fenty and Rhee unprecedented authority to rebuild the school system, which is the lowest-performing the nation, similar to what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the system there. This restructuring would likely…

While other school districts like Fairfax County and states like Massachusetts are in the midst of slashing schools budgets and cutting funding for education initiatives, D.C. seems to have found ways to avoid such measures, at least for a while. As we mentioned in the Morning Roundup, yesterday Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee asked the Council to approve a relocation of $100 million from the approximately $750 million schools budget. According…