DCPS teachers who supported D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s contract proposal from the beginning have got to be annoyed. On Monday, Rhee announced that the minimum 28 percent across the board raises offered in July now must be trimmed due to the poor economy. The contract negotiations have reached their 15th month. The District will soon submit a revised offer to the Washington Teachers’ Union, which has thus far resisted the contract. Rhee did…

Photo by cstein96 Local blogger DC Teacher Chic reported today on her blog that D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee will host Q&A sessions for teachers this afternoon (Wednesday, January 28) and tomorrow (Thursday, January 29), from 4-6 p.m. at 825 North Capitol Street, NE, in the 5th Floor Board Room. An open teacher Q&A sounds like a great idea, but good luck to the teachers scrambling to get from their classrooms to DCPS, in…

There’s been a lot of back and forth of late between The Washington Teachers’ Union and DCPS about a policy commonly called a 90-day plan. Some within the union have accused Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee of using 90-day plans as a means of targeting older teachers for dismissal. The Washington Post’s Bill Turque reported that Rhee spokesperson Dena Iverson denies any age discrimination, arguing that the average age of DCPS teachers who Rhee has…

Over the holidays, DCPS sent letters to parents notifying them if an “unqualified” teacher was teaching their children, resulting in a series of complaints and bureaucratic messes. For example, parents were asked to log into the DCPS website to get the names of the teachers, but those who logged in found their children’s teachers from the previous academic year. A number of teachers objected, noting that they had been incorrectly listed as “unqualified.” The…

One of the drawbacks to having a high-profile figure like Michelle Rhee running the city schools is that so much of the education coverage tends to be about Rhee herself, rather than the work her office is (or isn’t) doing. In a column last weekend, Colbert I. King argued that “the issue is not whether the chancellor is a polarizing figure with her take-no-prisoners approach, or is a fearless crusader against defenders of the…

Over the weekend the Post launched its investigative series/Pulitzer bait on the District’s charter schools, which together enroll about a third of D.C.’s students. In addition to profiling the high-performing D.C. Prep, the Post dug into the suspect financial benefits some members of the D.C. Public Charter School Board have received as a result of their board work, mostly through the complicated world of charter school loans and financing. The Post found conflicts of interest…

DCPS is now home to 23 new teachers with certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, more than doubling their ranks since 2007. This is a big deal, and good news for the District, where, according to a NBPTS release, only 47 teachers have ever received the honor. National Board certification, unlike generic teaching certification, is the closest thing the teaching profession has to a bar exam – it’s an advanced teaching credential…

Since D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee hit the cover of TIME Magazine last week, our “Michelle Rhee” Google alert has been blowing up — there is something about Rhee that gets people’s attention and elicits a response. Take this quote from the TIME story:”The thing that kills me about education is that it’s so touchy-feely,” she tells me one afternoon in her office…”People say, ‘Well, you know, test scores don’t take into account creativity and…

The big news last week was Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s presentation to the D.C. Council of her five-year action plan for DCPS, which included ideas like a parents’ academy designed to get parents to be involved in their kids’ education, and the creation of “theme” high schools for technology, foreign language, or gifted students. The Post has more, or you can download the entire plan here. Rhee also spoke about new discipline policies to address…

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…