Casting a Giant Shadow

 

She may have been out of office for more than a half a year but former D. C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is still having an impact on the nation’s capital. For one thing, people are still moving into Washington neighborhoods based on her education reforms, even though she is not there to implement them and her replacement’s dedication to those changes remains an open question.

“On the upside, school reform is an inducement,” Henry Jaffe, a columnist for The Washington Examiner wrote on March 25, 2011. “If you don’t think Michelle Rhee’s reforms didn’t draw young couples, stop a few pushing baby carriages in Shaw and ask why they settled here. I have, and Rhee’s name often comes up.”

“So— memo to the city’s leaders: keep crime down, manage the city well, reform the schools— and they will keep coming. Dither in these goals and watch the numbers dive. It’s that simple.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.

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