Washington DC\’s Office of the State Superintendent of Education is currently looking for a new Chancellor of DC Public Schools (prior to 2007, this position was referred to as Superintendent). In this two-part series, we take a historical look at some of the District\’s recent Chancellors, including their origins, challenges, and contributions to the city\’s educational system.
For Part 1, we introduce three recent and well-known Chancellors: Michelle Rhee, Kaya Henderson, and Antwan Wilson. (Not included in this highlight are two of the District\’s recent interim Chancellors, John Davis and Dr. Amanda Alexander.)
Michelle Rhee
Michelle Rhee served as the Chancellor of DC Public Schools from July 10, 2007 to October 30, 2010. She was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan and received her Master of Public Policy from Harvard University. Her acceptance of the role as DC\’s Chancellor was immediately preceded by a major shift: the DC Board of Education was centralized and effectively changed into an advisory board. This allowed the mayor\’s office to make changes to the school system without waiting for board approval.
Upon resigning from office in 2010, Rhee founded StudentsFirst, \”a nonprofit organization building a national movement to defend the interests of children in public education and pursue transformative reform.\”
In a city plagued with racial and socioeconomic gaps in student achievement, Rhee made headlines for initiating innovative education reform policies that aimed to improve the city\’s academic performance. During Rhee\’s chancellorship, several benchmarks were achieved, including significant improvements in standardized test pass rates in reading and math, plus increased high school graduation rates. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, test scores in the District improved at a significantly faster rate compared to students in other major urban districts.
Rhee championed incentives for teachers who produced higher test scores and fired low-performing teachers. In 2010, Rhee and the teachers\’ unions agreed to a contract that offered pay raises and bonuses to teachers who showed strong student achievement, while at the same time limiting seniority protection for teachers and imposing a one-year pause on teacher tenure. (Two years earlier, Rhee\’s attempt to renegotiate teacher compensation failed, when she offered higher achievement-based salaries with no tenure rights or significantly smaller pay raises with tenure retained.)
A total of 266 DC teachers and school administrators were laid off by Rhee during her time in office.
Despite promising signs of positive change under her chancellorship, significant achievement gaps remained between high-performing and low-performing school districts, particularly between white and black students. Rhee was also criticized for closing schools without public hearings and failing to take into consideration the input of community stakeholders when making decisions about how to improve schools. She took credit for improving the physical conditions of many schools, however critics have asserted that most of these facility improvements were spearheaded by the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization, an agency unrelated to Rhee.
On a personal note, Rhee was accused of being \”abrasive\” and not working well with others. She was also accused by opponents of promoting cheating to improve student test scores, although a 2012 investigation by the District of Columbia\’s inspector general revealed no evidence to support these claims.
Rhee\’s involvement in education prior to her role as DC Chancellor has also been called into question. As a teacher in the Baltimore City Public School District, Rhee claimed to have contributed to significant improvements in math and reading test scores among her students, however later investigation revealed that these improvements were not statistically significant and that data from a Baltimore city test official could \”neither support nor refute Rhee\’s claims of her educational abilities.\”
Overall, Rhee left a controversial mark on the DC public school system, with many critics and supporters behind her.
Kaya Henderson
Kaya Henderson served as the Chancellor of DC Public Schools from June 22, 2011 to September 30, 2016. She was born in Mount Vernon, New York and received her Executive Master\’s degree in Leadership from Georgetown University. Rhee nominated Henderson for the role of Deputy Chancellor of the DC Public Schools in 2007 and was officially appointed Chancellor in 2011 upon Rhee\’s resignation. Henderson, like her successor Antwan Wilson, \”largely contributed to promote the school reforms launched by\” Rhee and then-mayor Adrian Fenty.
After her resignation from the role of Chancellor in 2016, Henderson was censured for an ethics violation by the District of Columbia Office of Government Ethics for soliciting financial contributions from a company that did business with the city. The company Henderson sought contributions from (for a gala honoring high-performing teachers), was a food contractor who reportedly served spoiled food and improperly billed the school district. Ultimately, Henderson was not fined by the Office of Government Ethics.
Henderson was also later found to give preferential treatment in the school lottery to certain citizens and city officials by allowing them to enroll their children in schools outside the typical attendance boundaries, although Henderson defended her actions and claimed they were within District law.
Antwan Wilson
Antwan Wilson served as the Chancellor of DC Public Schools from February 1, 2017 to February 20, 2018. He was born in Wichita, Kansas and received his Master\’s degree in Educational Leadership from Friends University. He was appointed Chancellor by current DC mayor Muriel Bowser. During confirmation hearings, Wilson advocated for greater resources for DC public school students, including increased tutoring, longer school days, and more extracurricular activities for middle school students.
Prior to his chancellorship in DC, Wilson served as Assistant Superintendent of Public Schools in Denver, Colorado and Superintendent of Public Schools in Oakland, California. In Denver, he was credited for reducing rates of suspensions, expulsions, and dropouts while simultaneously helping to increase graduation rates. However, Wilson was harshly criticized for leaving the Oakland Unified School District in a state of financial distress, citing reports that he underspent on books and supplies, created new positions and departments that were not properly budgeted, and hired new executive staff members with excessive salaries.
In DC, Wilson enacted a policy that prohibited the Chancellor of DC Public Schools from giving special permission to individuals that would allow them to bypass the admissions lottery system and transfer their children to other schools outside their assigned school boundary unless permitted under certain exceptions. Yet Wilson later admitted that he asked for a special request from DC\’s then-Deputy Mayor for Education to transfer his daughter to a different school, in lieu of entering the lottery. This drew intense criticism and ultimately led to calls for Wilson\’s resignation, which he initially refused. After being placed on administrative leave by Mayor Bowser, Wilson quickly resigned.
Concluding Thoughts
It\’s evident that DC\’s recent Chancellors have been no strangers to controversy. And while the DC public school system continues to be a national leader in terms of rates of urban school improvement, many inequities and disparities remain.
In Part 2, we\’ll discussion of DC\’s Current Superintendent: Dr. Lewis Ferebee, and what District needs in its next superintendent
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https://dcps.dc.gov/biography/dr-lewis-ferebee
https://edforwarddc.org/antwan-wilson-selected-next-dcps-chancellor/
https://prospect.org/education/d.c.-became-darling-education-reform/
D.C. Schools Chancellor Says He ‘Got It Wrong’ On Daughter’s Transfer
https://www.nap.edu/read/13114/chapter/5#43
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaya_Henderson
Former Oakland school superintendent forced to resign after one year as head of DC schools
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antwan_Wilson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Rhee
https://dcps.dc.gov/release/dc-public-schools-continues-be-fastest-improving-urban-school-district