Containing Michelle Rhee

Containing Michelle Rhee: The Washington Post’s Use of Complementary Objectivity in Its Coverage of Michelle Rhee’s Leadership Decisions in District of Columbia Public Schools

By Jessica A. Western

B.A. in Journalism, May 1999, University of Maryland College Park M.A. in American Studies, May 2006, University of Maryland College Park

A Dissertation Submitted to

The Faculty of The Graduate School of Education and Human Development of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Education

May 18, 2014

Dissertation directed by

Kelly Sherrill Linkous Assistant Professor of Educational Administration

The Graduate School of Education and Human Development of The George Washington

University certifies that Jessica A. Western has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Education as of February 28, 2014. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation.

Containing Michelle Rhee: The Washington Post’s Use of Complementary Objectivity in Its Coverage of Michelle Rhee’s Leadership Decisions in District of Columbia Public Schools

Jessica A. Western

Dissertation Research Committee:

Kelly Sherrill Linkous, Assistant Professor of Educational Administration, Dissertation Director

Nicholas Paley, Professor of Educational Foundations, Committee Member

Jason Johnson, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education, University of Washington, Seattle, Committee Member

Dedication

To my husband, Cole, who encouraged me to dream big and supported me unwaveringly throughout this entire endeavor. To William, Grady, and Dean, I hope this inspires all of you to dream big in your own lives and to know that if you work hard enough anything is possible.

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Abstract of Dissertation

Containing Michelle Rhee: The Washington Post’s Use of Complementary Objectivity in Its Coverage of Michelle Rhee’s Leadership Decisions in District of Columbia Public Schools

Michelle Rhee was an unexpected choice for the chancellorship of the District of

Columbia Public School System when then D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty announced her appointment on June 12, 2007. At 37 years old, Rhee was young and, to most of the constituents in D.C., appeared inexperienced and unqualified for the position of school

Chancellor. Rhee had never before run a school, let alone a school district. This study analyzed The Washington Post’s coverage of Rhee and her protracted battles with the

Washington Teachers’ Union and the D.C. Council during her tenure as Chancellor of the

District of Columbia Public Schools. As the school reform debate continues to rage in

21st century America, it is important to understand how the mainstream media reports on the dramatic changes in school governance, leadership, labor unions, and teacher evaluation systems that have become the hallmark of the reform movement. While

Rhee’s chancellorship was marked by several key decisions and events, this study focused on her decisions to utilize legal authority granted to her to make personnel decisions affecting the DCPS system and took a critically-oriented discourse analysis approach to analyze how those decisions were reported and commented on by The

Washington Post. The study found that the use of “complementary objectivity” allowed the Post to take a pro-Rhee-reform stance, while pacifying her critics with an anti-Rhee- personality commentary. Three dominant cultural myths were regularly utilized by The

Post in order to promote Rhee’s positional power while containing her personal power.

The Post relied on the cultural myths of the “liberal media” and “journalistic objectivity” to promote Rhee’s positional power and legitimize the power of the office of chancellor, as well as promote the neo-liberal ideas contained in Rhee’s reforms. The Post’s coverage arguably also invoked the cultural myth of the “model minority” to contain

Rhee’s personal power within dominant cultural narratives of race, class, and gender.

Table of Contents

Dedication…………………………………………………………………………….…..iii Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………...iv Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………vi Chapter 1: Overview of Study…………………………………………………………….1 The Superintendent as Leader and Communicator………………………………..3 The Historical and Political Context of DCPS……………………………………7 A Brief Summary of Rhee’s Chancellorship…………………………………….14 Statement of the Problem………………………………………………………...20 Purpose and Research Questions………………………………………………...21 Statement of Potential Significance……………………………………………...22 Conceptual/Theoretical Framework……………………………………………...23 Summary of Methodology……………………………………………………….24 Limitations/Delimitations………………………………………………………..25 Definition of Key Terms…………………………………………………………26 Chapter 2: Literature Review…………………………………………………………….28 Constructing “the Media”………………………………………………………..29 Selection of Education News Stories in Media & Education Policy Literature…35 Neoliberalism, the Market, and Capitalist Hierarchies in the Media…………….43 Power, Control, and Discursive Positioning……………………………………..45 Gap Analysis……………………………………………………………………..48 Inferences for Forthcoming Study……………………………………………….50 Chapter 3: Methods………………………………………………………………………51 Overview…………………………………………………………………………51 Epistemological Paradigm……………………………………………………….51 Theoretical Framework…………………………………………………………..54 Research Design and Processes………………………………………………….57 Research Methods………………………………………………………………..59 Validity…………………………………………………………………………..62 Ethical Considerations…………………………………………………………...64 Chapter 4: Findings………………………………………………………………………65 Chapter 5: Interpretations, Conclusions, and Recommendations………………………107 Modern Media Myths…………………………………………………………..108 The Myth of the Model Minority……………………………………………….115 Complementary Objectivity…………………………………………………….125 Recommendations for Future Research………………………………………...127 Conclusions……………………………………………………………………..128 References………………………………………………………………………………129 Appendix A: Researcher Identity Memo……………………………………………….137 Appendix B: Lexis/Nexis Search Results………………………………………………143

Chapter 1: Overview of Study

Michelle Rhee was an unexpected choice for the chancellorship of the District of

Chancellor. Rhee had never before run a school, let alone a school district. An alumnae of Teach for America (TFA), Rhee had three years of experience as a teacher in a failing urban elementary school in Baltimore City and, since 1999, had run The New Teacher

Project (TNTP), an off-shoot of TFA dedicated to recruiting and training high-quality teachers in urban districts. Notwithstanding her limited teaching and administration background, these experiences gave Rhee a unique combination of varied expertise, a combination that Fenty decided was the answer to DCPS’s legacy of problems.

During her tenure at TFA and TNTP, Rhee came to whole-heartedly believe that the key to turning around the failing public schools in America was recruiting and hiring effective teachers. In 2003, Rhee and her team at TNTP released a research report titled

“Missed Opportunities,” a journalistic-style probe concluding that the shortage of urban teachers was a myth, even in the supposedly higher-need areas such as math and science

(Whitmire, 2011, p. 56). A follow-up report in 2005, “Unintended Consequences,” described how principals in urban schools were hamstrung by labor contracts and union hiring rules from choosing the teachers that were hired in their schools (Whitmire, 2011, p.59).

These two reports landed Rhee in a battle with the United Federation of Teachers

(UFT), the labor union representing New York City public school teachers. In 2005, Joel

Klein, Chancellor of New York City Public Schools, was attempting to renegotiate the hiring terms of the teachers’ contract. These negotiations ended in arbitration, at which point Klein asked Rhee to testify concerning the data collected in the TNTP reports about teacher hiring procedures, union contracts, and the effects they had on schools. Her testimony and ability to stand up to UFT’s president, Randi Weingarten, were a deciding factor in the arbitration, which won Klein a significant victory over the union concerning work rules and teacher hiring processes. (Whitmire, p.59-62) Two years later, in 2007,

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty was in the market for a school Chancellor, one who could turn around an urban school district that ranked last in the nation. Fenty contacted Klein, who had previously helped Fenty in his successful bid for mayoral control of D.C. Public

Schools. Klein recommended Rhee, calling her a “change agent” (Whitmire, 2011, p.76).

Fenty courted Rhee and finally convinced her to take the challenge. It was a challenge she would meet head on. While Rhee arguably had a pronounced effect on DCPS during her time as Chancellor, her inability to effectively communicate her message of “teacher effectiveness” to stakeholders, despite widespread support for her reform efforts, would be one of the leading factors in her rapid exit from the post.

While much has been written about Michelle Rhee in the popular press, very little scholarly attention has been paid to her Chancellorship to date. Oh (2010) presented an in-depth reading of Time magazine’s coverage of Rhee and her school reform initiatives, arguing that the magazine employed what he terms “complementary objectivity” (Oh,

2011) to present an image of Rhee that appears balanced on the surface, but in fact works to promote her pro-capitalist, pro-market school reforms, while at the same time arguably containing her within the discourse of the model minority and critiquing her based on

dominant narratives of race, class and gender (Oh, 2010). While Oh’s study is informative and contributes the theoretical construct of “complementary objectivity” to a scholarly examination of media coverage of Rhee as a public figure, the study is limited by the fact that it only considered one media text, the Time magazine article and its accompanying photograph.

This study built on the work of Oh (2010) by utilizing his theory of complementary objectivity to analyze The Washington Post’s coverage of Rhee and her protracted battles with the Washington Teachers’ Union over the negotiation of a revolutionary teacher contract and the D.C. Council over her legislative authority to make personnel decisions during her tenure as Chancellor of the District of Columbia Public

Schools. Just as Oh (2010) discovered in his analysis of the Time magazine article, this study found that The Washington Post’s coverage of Rhee, particularly with regard to her interactions with the union and the D.C. Council, worked to promote Rhee’s pro-market, anti-union reforms, while critiquing Rhee’s personality and communication style, and attempting to arguably contain her personal power by utilizing dominant cultural narratives of race, class, and gender.

The Superintendent as Leader and Communicator

Research has shown that the average superintendent’s tenure, particularly in urban school districts, is three years (Kowalski, 2005). Often these superintendents were hired because the school system was in need of a “turn-around.” In an article that equated the turnover of an urban superintendency to a tempest, Murthada-Watts (2000) used Rist’s

1990 research as a foundation to argue that minority candidates, and especially women of

color, “do not typically attain urban superintendencies until the district ‘has deep-seated, nearly intractable problems’.” In such instances, these newly appointed superintendents often stepped into the position and immediately had to contend with the high expectations of the school board that appointed them and the public that they served: expectations that included assumptions that the newcomer would “act immediately, engage and build alliances with cultural communities of difference, expeditiously negotiate partisan school board politics, attend to mayoral and gubernatorial edicts, and promptly make fiscal decisions that will stave off attackers of public schools” (Murthada-Watts, 2000, p.604).

These tasks were often difficult and attempts to live up to these expectations often backfired on the newly appointed superintendent. In their 2008 study of superintendents and professional victim syndrome, Polka and Litchka found that superintendents often become the district’s scapegoat when desired reforms or actions do not go as planned, often being bullied or harassed by the school board that elected them, as well as other groups or organizations within the community they intended to serve. “The contemporary American school superintendent is expected to carry out a majority of the roles and duties of the office in a very public manner. This ‘public presence’ is becoming increasingly more acute.…Superintendents of schools have become the focal point in their respective communities for ensuring that the schools are progressing congruently with contemporary expectations” (Polka & Litchka, 2008, p. xii).

In 1993, the American Association of School Administrators developed its

Professional Standards for the Superintendency, intended to guide those preparing future educational leaders and elucidate the skills deemed necessary for success in the superintendency. In the introduction to the document, it stated: “These Professional

Standards for the Superintendency are sure to influence the ongoing efforts of practicing school administrators, the content of university courses, the substance and accreditation of professional development and university preparation programs, the certification of superintendents, and the selection and evaluation of top school executives” (Hoyle,

1993). The document included eight standards for practicing and aspiring school superintendents in the areas of: 1) Leadership and District Culture; 2) Policy and

Governance; 3) Communications and Community Relations; 4) Organizational

Management; 5) Curriculum Planning and Development; 6) Instructional Management;

7) Human Resources Management; and 8) Values and Ethics of Leadership (Hoyle,

1993). While all of these standards were essential to the successful leadership of a school system, this study chose to focus on the implications contained within Standard 3:

Communications and Community Relations. As written in the AASA guiding document,

Standard 3, all superintendents should be able to:

Articulate district purpose and priorities to the community and mass media; request and respond to community feedback; and demonstrate consensus building and conflict mediation. Identify, track, and deal with issues. Formulate and carry out plans for internal and external communications. Exhibit an understanding of school districts as political systems by applying communication skills to strengthen community support; align constituencies in support of district priorities; build coalitions to gain financial and programmatic support; formulate democratic strategies for referenda; relate political initiatives to the welfare of children (Hoyle, 1993).

While the expectation that school superintendents be effective communicators was formalized in the AASA standards document in 1993, research on the history and evolution of the superintendency in America shows that this was not a new prerequisite for educational leaders. In fact, “communication skills have been recognized as essential for school superintendents from the position’s inception” (Kowalski, 2005). Yet,

research on preparation programs aimed at producing candidates to the superintendency showed that very little, if any, time is spent training future educational leaders on the intricacies of communication and public relations theory. Conversely, the acknowledgement of the need for effective communication skills in educational leaders has been tempered by flawed understandings of communication theory within the educational world. While acknowledging that superintendents need to be able to communicate clearly and effectively with the public and the media, educational leadership programs seemed to be operating on two faulty and antiquated assumptions:

Anyone can communicate effectively, and administrators should alter their communicative behavior as they transition from one role to another. These convictions have become much more consequential – both for local school systems and for superintendents – in the context of an information-based and reform-minded society. Studies centered on performance evaluation (e.g., Beverage, 2003; Peterson, 1999) and on administrator dismissals (Davis, 1998), for instance, reveal the penalties administrators incur for inconsistent and incompetent communication (Kowalski, 2005, p. 112).

These faulty assumptions about the importance of communication were not limited only to education; research on the differences between government and corporate communication practices in general has shown that “historically, public sector administrators and elected officials largely have devalued the role of communication and avoided public relations as a management tool” (Liu et al., 2010, p.190) despite the fact that the “public sector faces intense media scrutiny because a basic duty is to report decisions and actions to the public via the media” (Liu et al., 2010, p.191). This media scrutiny has become the proverbial double-edged sword for many leaders in the public sector. In a study of the effects of mass media on executive leadership in contemporary democracies, Helms (2008) found that “while skillful political leaders and their

supporters may at times be able to use the media as a means for their political ends, there is more evidence from a comparative inquiry that the media add to the manifold constraints on executives and executive leadership in the contemporary Western democracies, making leadership (even) more difficult than in the past” (p. 30). As our society rapidly continues to become more mediatized (Fairclough, 1999), it is imperative that all modern leaders, including educational leaders, have a firm grasp of the intricacies of communication theory and an understanding of the importance of public relations in disseminating their leadership message to the public.

The Historical and Political Context of DCPS

The governance of the District of Columbia Public Schools organization has a complicated and storied history with political and emotional roots dating back to the Civil

War, Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Home Rule movement of the late 20th century. Public education began in the District of Columbia on

December 5, 1804, when The Washington City Council “passed an act ‘to establish and endow a permanent institution for the education of youth in the city of Washington.’ The youth to be educated were only the white children; there were no public schools for

African American children before the Civil War” (Kinsman, 2003, p.31). Upon passage of this act, the District became a progressive, pioneering city in terms of public education. “During its history, the District of Columbia has had as many as four school systems: whites-only systems in Washington City, Georgetown, Washington County (the rural remainder of the District) and a system of black schools” (Levy, 2004, p.2). The white systems were finally unified in 1874, although they maintained racial segregation

and continued to separate the schools in the District into Division I (whites) and Division

II (blacks) until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against segregated schools in their 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Throughout the first 150 plus years of public education, the parties responsible for overseeing school governance changed frequently.

From 1804 to 1858, schools were managed by elected City Councils. From 1858 until

1871, the elected Mayor was responsible for public schooling, although the Secretary of the Interior was given control of the post-Civil War black school system from 1862 to

1874. The Division I white schools were overseen from 1871 to 1874 by a presidentially appointed Territorial Governor. From 1874 to 1906, a presidentially appointed Board of

Commissioners took control of both systems; then from 1906 to 1969, the schools were alternately overseen by the judges of the D.C. Supreme Court and the D.C. federal district court. D.C. residents were finally allowed to directly elect a school board in 1968, which allowed “the first taste of local democratic control for D.C. residents in the twentieth century” (Hannawy and Usdan, 2008, p.114). However, it was the mid-twentieth century and Brown v. Board of Education decision that thrust D.C. into the national spotlight in terms of education policy.

In the post-Brown, post-Sputnik era, both race and education became issues of national debate. The schools of the nation’s capital were directly under federal control and directly under the watchful eye of the Washington press corps which avidly reported educational problems in Washington because these were national problems appearing in exaggerated from in the capital city. All of the actors, then – politicians, educational policy analysts, activists, reformers, and journalists – had their own reasons to widely advertise the shortcomings of the District’s public schools (Diner, 1990, p.121).

Washington, D.C. rapidly integrated in the wake of the Brown decision due to its federal governance. “The District…was still under direct control of the national government, and officials moved quickly. Only eight days after the decisions, the appointed school board

adopted a desegregation policy” (Henig, 1997, p. 448). This move was hailed as an example to school systems across the nation that it was possible to successfully desegregate without violence or rioting. “‘The press celebrated massive compliance when on September 13, 1954, the Washington public schools opened with mixed classes and faculties throughout the District’ (Wolters 1984, 12)” (Henig, 1997, p. 448). What many outside the District failed to realize was that the D.C. public school system had been in a period of demographic transition since 1949. In 1949, the enrollment of white students and the enrollment of black students in District schools were approximately equal (Diner, 1990). “The rate of racial turnover clearly accelerated in the aftermath of desegregation, but the racial shift in student enrollment began before large-scale desegregation was underway; moreover, much of the early shift in enrollment percentages was driven as much by the in-migration of black children as the out- migration of whites, and the decline of white students was steady and sustained rather than dramatically abrupt” (Henig, 1997, p. 448).

Despite the rapid move toward integration, the legacy of segregation and the divided District school system remained a challenge in the governance of D.C. schools.

Thirteen years after Brown, a D.C. activist returned to court with the Hobson v. Hansen case, which attempted to remedy the inequities between white and black students, as well as white and black teachers, that remained entrenched in the public education system

(Hannaway and Usdan, 2008). Meanwhile, the demographic shifts continued to create a majority black school system, as more African American students moved into the system and white students continued to move out of the system, except for a few wealthy enclaves in particular neighborhoods that had remained majority white despite integration

efforts. District residents began to lose faith in the public school system, as a post-

Sputnik focus on student achievement forced community leaders to begin to evaluate what students were actually learning in the schools – the outputs -- rather than per pupil expenditures and the distribution of funds – the inputs.

Four closely related developments caused this ‘crisis of confidence.’ Actual conditions in the schools worsened at a time when the schools had to absorb increasing numbers of students with weak educational backgrounds. Racial prejudice remained widespread and was now directed against the desegregated school system. The public’s expectations of the schools escalated, particularly among black people whose aspirations were aroused by the civil rights movement. Finally, the media devoted more and more attention to the schools and student achievement as desegregation and its aftermath made education front-page news (Diner, 1990, p. 120).

Yet, despite the tension and turmoil created by the Brown v. Board and Hobson v.

Hansen decisions, D.C. residents finally had something to celebrate in 1968, when they were afforded the right to vote for an elected school board. With this historic event,

“‘African American leaders celebrated the chance to reverse a century of racism in management and hiring.’ Given this history, governance changes have to be seen through a racial prism” (Hannaway and Usdan, 2008, p. 118). In 1974, Congress granted the

District Home Rule, allowing them to also elect a City Council and Mayor. Home Rule and the right of residents to elect their own leaders in the areas of city and school governance became sacrosanct in the majority African American city and symbolic of the hard-fought struggles and victories of the Civil Rights Movement.

The District school system remained under the governance of the elected school board, overseen by district Supreme Court and federal district judges, until 1996, when the city was on the verge of bankruptcy and deemed to be in such disarray that Congress stepped in once again and appointed a Control Board to take over the daily operations of

the school system. “[T]he control board fired Superintendent Franklin L. Smith, hired retired Lt. Gen. Julius W. Becton Jr. to replace him, reduced the elected school board primarily to an advisory body, and transferred most of its authority to a new board of trustees” (Henig, 1999, p. 4). In 2000, the authority of the Congressionally appointed

Control Board expired. School performance had not drastically improved since the public began to consider the system in “crisis” half a century earlier. The D.C. schools were renowned as one of the worst systems in the country, with only a small percentage of students proving proficient in reading and math on the National Assessment of

Educational Progress (NAEP). Despite attempts at the time by Mayor Anthony Williams to gain complete mayoral control, a new, hybrid school board was put into place.

Then-mayor Anthony Williams wanted to take over the schools, citing the same reason that Mayor Fenty would cite seven years later – to establish a clear line of accountability. After much discussion and negotiation among various district and congressional actors, the proposal put forward in the referendum provided the mayor with more, but still very limited, control. The mayor would appoint four of the nine school board members, and a new State Education Office was created under the aegis of the mayor with a small number of district-wide responsibilities, but little authority over the schools (Hannaway and Usdan, 2008, p.118).

The referendum vote that approved the hybrid elected-appointed board, while granting the Mayor more control than had been held by an elected official in the District in the twentieth century, also highlighted some significant divisions within the residents when it came to their beliefs about school governance. “By 2000, the battle lines were…clearly drawn. The struggle was between principles of local democratic control on one hand, and principles of identifiable accountability for student outcomes on the other. The divisions by race and class were stark” (Hannaway and Usdan, 2008, p. 119).

As the twenty-first century began, new federal legislation in the form of the No

Child Left Behind Act began to hold schools accountable on a national level for student achievement. On every measure, District schools lagged significantly behind other school systems, even when compared to other large, urban school districts with similar demographics. In November 2006, a young, energetic African American named Adrian

Fenty was elected mayor of Washington, D.C. Fenty ran on a platform of improving education in the District. The day after he took office in January 2007, he announced his plan to take control of the District school system. Fenty modeled his plan after the mayoral takeover of the schools in New York City by Mayor Bloomberg, who appointed

Joel Klein to be Chancellor of New York City Public Schools, and had the backing of the

Federal City Council, which was “composed of and financed by two hundred of

Washington’s business and cultural elite. They include presidents of the local universities, bank presidents, managing partners in major law firms, the Chairman of the

Board of the Washington Post, the heads of the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian

Institution, as well as leaders of major local corporations and at least one national philanthropic foundation” (Hannaway and Usdan, 2008, p. 120). After pushing legislation through the City Council and Congress allowing him to wrest control of the schools from the recently re-elected school board, Fenty took complete control of the

District school system on June 6, 2007. His first act late that night was to fire the

Superintendent of Schools, Clifford B. Janey. His second act the following day was to introduce Michelle Rhee to the Washington, D.C., community as the newly appointed

Chancellor of DCPS. “Fenty’s proposal to take over the schools was bold. His appointment of Michelle Rhee was even bolder. Perhaps bolder yet was the way he did

it. The fact that he was nonetheless unstoppable probably speaks volumes about the depth of dissatisfaction with business as usual in D.C. education governance, the commitment of Fenty to education reform, and the hopes that people were pinning on this new energetic leader” (Hannaway and Usdan, 2008, p.122). While Fenty actively courted Rhee for the position of Chancellor specifically because Joel Klein recommended her as a “change agent” who would provide a major shake-up for the district, he arguably failed to consider the deep-seated tensions he would bring to the surface with his move to take control from the popularly elected board and his appointment of someone viewed as an outsider by the community to the highest post in the organization. “Hening argues that for many black residents ‘the school system was less important as an institution to prepare youth for work and college than as an institution that played both real and symbolic roles as a springboard for local self-rule and an important source of jobs and status within the Black community’” (Hannaway and Usdan, 2008, p. 118). For Rhee, the issues of local self-rule were only part of the hill that she had to climb in order to gain acceptance in the D.C. community. “The head of the schools, the chancellor, is an outsider. She does not come from the ranks of educational administration; she is not from D.C.; and she is not black in a city where the population, especially the school population, is predominantly black” (Hannaway and Usdan, 2008, p. 126). It is this legacy of desegregation, Civil Rights, and Home Rule that created the tapestry of cultural, political, social, and racial tensions that were present when Rhee stepped into the role of Chancellor and created many of the roadblocks that she encountered as she attempted to lead large-scale, district-wide educational reform.

A Brief Summary of Rhee’s Chancellorship

When Adrian Fenty announced Michelle Rhee as the first-ever Chancellor of

DCPS within hours of securing mayoral control over the school system, no one was more surprised than the D.C. Council members who had granted Fenty through their passage of the Public Education Reform Amendment Act of 2007. “In a meeting late Monday timed to preserve the surprise announcement, Fenty introduced Rhee to Vincent Gray, the council chair who would later emerge as a Rhee critic and successfully run against

Fenty… Even more last minute and seemingly off-handed was the announcement to the other council members. They weren’t informed until just before the press conference when Rhee entered a breakfast meeting and introduced herself” (Whitmere, 2011, p.80).

This surprise announcement would lay the groundwork for a contentious and conflict filled relationship between Rhee and Fenty and the D.C. Council, most notably Council

Chairman Vincent Gray. Despite this rocky start, the Council still voted unanimously to confirm Rhee’s appointment on July 11, 2007. Rhee got to work immediately:

Rhee, who was at the council meeting when she was confirmed, rushed out of the council chambers to a phalanx of media. She said filling 14 principal vacancies and readying schools for the first day of classes on Aug. 27 are priorities. “There’s not a lot of time to sleep,” she said (Stewart, 2007, para. 2).

As the summer of 2007 drew to a close and the opening of schools loomed, Rhee generated little controversy, concentrating on upgrading facilities and ensuring that textbooks were delivered to schools on time for opening day. Her efforts received positive praise from the D.C. Council, teachers, principals, parents and community members in general. In a Post feature story on the opening of Bruce-Monroe Elementary

School in Columbia Heights, Principal Marta Palacios was quoted: “‘For years, they never paid attention to us…’ She said her dealings with the administration of new

Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee have given her ‘a feeling of hope and enthusiasm because we see the results’” (Moreno, 2007, para. 5).

The positive vibe did not last long. On August 29, 2007, a mere two days after receiving plaudits for her successful opening of the system, Rhee announced her first major attempt to shake-up the status quo of DCPS. In its front-page story on August 29, the Post’s headline screamed “Rhee Seeks Authority to Terminate Employees” and the lead paragraphs informed readers:

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee is preparing plans to fire up to several hundred employees over the coming year, part of a major restructuring of the school system’s central office aimed at streamlining operations, District government sources said. As the initial piece of her strategy, Rhee has begun drafting legislation that would ask the D.C. Council to suspend personnel laws so that the chancellor would have the authority to terminate employees without having to reassign them to other jobs… The chancellor’s actions are aimed at taking on the intractable central bureaucracy of the 50,000-student system, blamed for scuttling generations of reforms, said council members who have met with Rhee (D92, para. 1-3).

The article continued to detail the legislative steps necessary for Rhee to gain this authority, citing the need for the D.C. Council to approve legislation suspending current personnel laws and granting Rhee the power to terminate employees for any reason. This move by Rhee ultimately culminated in the Public Education Personnel Reform

Amendment Act of 2008, which was introduced to the D.C. Council on Friday, October

12, 2007; passed by the D.C. Council with a vote of 10-3 on December 18, 2007; and became D.C. law on Thursday, March 20, 2008.

In the midst of moving the Personnel Reform Act through the legislative process,

Rhee dropped another bombshell on the DCPS community – her plan to close numerous under-enrolled schools across the district in an attempt to “right-size” the system and eliminate waste. On September 28, 2007, the Post reported: “City educational leaders

also said yesterday, for the first time, that they plan to close some schools next year”

(Labba, 2007, para. 2).

As the coverage of the school closures exploded into a political nightmare for

Rhee and Fenty, garnering large amounts of negative coverage, the unions worked to conflate the school closure issue with the proposed personnel legislation. On December

6, 2007, the Post reported on a new radio advertisement being launched by the union to rally opposition to the personnel legislation. The article attributes remarks to the union spokesperson, Dwight Kirk, that acknowledge the intentional attempts of the union to conflate these two issues in the minds of the public.

Kirk said the unions are hoping to tap public sympathy in the wake of Rhee’s announcement that she plans to close 23 schools, an action that is drawing the ire of parents, council members and community leaders who say their voices were not heard when Rhee, with Fenty’s backing, made her list (D170, para. 4).

Rhee ultimately persevered, gaining the legislative authority to reclassify central office employees as “at-will” workers, subject to termination at any time, and closing 23 schools by the end of the 2007-08 school year. On March 7, 2008, Rhee utilized her new-found authority to fire 98 central office workers from DCPS, enraging union officials and heightening tensions with the D.C. Council, who, despite having granted her the authority to initiate such firings, were rankled by the fact that Rhee had failed to inform them of the firings prior to taking action. “Some council member said they were dismayed by the dismissals. Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) said he was upset that Rhee told him about the firings after the fact” (Haynes & Woodlee, 2008, para. 21). Rhee’s communication style and lack of transparency with the D.C. Council and the public would become a recurring theme throughout the later years of her tenure.

With the central office personnel authority and school closures battles won, Rhee dug her heels in with the Washington Teachers’ Union, attempting to renegotiate the teachers’ contract, which had expired in 2007. In April of 2008, Rhee negotiated an agreement with the President of the Washington Teachers’ Union, George Parker, to grant her the authority to reassign the teachers who would be “excessed” due to the closing of the 23 schools, with no guarantee of seniority protections. This was a huge victory for Rhee and a precursor to the authority she would seek over teacher assignment in the final contract.

On July 4, 2008, Rhee announced that she was planning to fire 750 educators from DCPS (250 teachers and 500 teacher’s aides) who had missed the June 30th deadline for certification renewal. While completely in her authority to do so, as federal law requires teachers to be certified in order to be highly qualified under the No Child Left

Behind law, this move angered teachers and their representatives within the Washington

Teachers’ Union, who claimed that many of the teachers let go were “good teachers,” despite their lack of certification credentials. Simultaneously, Rhee proposed a new teacher pay structure that would have allowed DCPS teachers to choose one of two tracks

– the “green track,” in which they would forgo tenure protections for the opportunity to earn salaries upwards of $100,000, and the “red track,” in which teachers could opt to maintain their tenure protections, but remain eligible for only modest raises over the length of the contract. This proposal effectively split the Washington Teachers’ Union membership into two camps, mostly by age. As the Post reported on August 14, 2008,

“Less than two weeks before classes begin, many of the District’s 4,000 public school teachers are locked in a heated debate over Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee’s proposal to

offer salaries exceeding $100,000 for those willing to give up job security and tie their fates to student achievement… The split in the teaching corps largely, but not exclusively, is occurring along generational lines, with younger teachers more willing to accept the risks and older ones often questioning the proposal” (Turque, 2008, para. 1-4).

The Washington Teachers’ Union refused to bring Rhee’s proposal to a vote with its membership, effectively never giving teachers the right to decide their own fate regarding Rhee’s salary structure. Instead, negotiations remained deadlocked. In an effort to prove to the union that a collective bargaining agreement was not needed in order for her to fire ineffective teachers, Rhee resorted to what she referred to as her

“Plan B,” invoking a long-standing but little used D.C. law, allowing teachers to be fired for ineffectiveness after being placed on a 90-day probationary period requiring observations and mentoring from peers. As the union continued to stall in contract negotiations, Rhee asked principals to submit names of “ineffective teachers” who should be placed on the 90-day plan. This attempt by Rhee to sidestep the union and utilize her legal authority to remove ineffective teachers pitted Rhee against not only the

Washington Teachers’ Union but the American Federation of Teachers and their newly elected president Randi Weingarten. Rhee also began working on an overhaul of the teacher evaluation system, which Rhee was not required to negotiate because “Congress gave the school system sole authority over the issue in the mid-1990s after the WTU refused to renegotiate the then-existing evaluation system within the District” (Turque,

2009, para.3).

As DCPS teachers entered their second year of working without a contract, Rhee made her boldest move yet. Due to budget shortcomings, identified in the fall of 2009

after the beginning of the school year, Rhee fired 266 teachers. Existing D.C. law stated that in times of a “reduction in force” due to budgetary circumstances, teachers could be terminated without regard to seniority or other tenure protections. There was an immediate outcry from the union that Rhee had “manufactured” the budget crisis in order to justify purging older teachers from the DCPS teaching force. The union challenged these terminations; however, a judge determined that Rhee was on solid legal ground when she made the decision to terminate the teachers. The following spring, Rhee faced heightened criticism, when she announced a $34 million budget surplus that had just been discovered. The union returned to court, claiming that this surplus was further evidence that Rhee had manufactured the budgetary crisis in the fall of 2009.

Meanwhile, Rhee and the WTU were able to ultimately reach an agreement on a teacher contract. The contract was presented to the teachers and the public in the spring of 2010 and was ground-breaking in terms of the power that it gave Rhee over teachers.

Under the new contract, tenure became a due-process mechanism that provided teachers some protections from termination. However, when determining which teachers should be reassigned or excessed in the event of a reduction in forced, seniority would only play a minimal role, with the bulk of the weight going to the most recent teacher evaluation, the needs of the school, and student achievement. The contract also included a “mutual consent” clause, which meant that teachers dismissed from one school had to interview for open positions at other schools and find a principal willing to hire them. Gone were the days of “involuntary transfers,” where a bad teacher was simply moved from one school to another because of tenure and seniority. Teachers also had the option to

voluntarily enter into a pay-for-performance bonus plan that would reward them for student achievement.

The final months of Rhee’s tenure as Chancellor of DCPS were consumed with the 2010 mayoral election. Vincent Gray, the D.C. Council Chairman, who developed into a vocal critic of Rhee’s leadership style and communication techniques, opposed

Adrian Fenty in the election and ran his campaign on an anti-Rhee platform. Rhee, in turn, campaigned heavily for Fenty. The election became, in effect, a referendum on

Rhee and despite the fact that most D.C. residents polled said they were happy with the reforms Rhee had brought to DCPS, Fenty was defeated in the Democratic primary on

September 14, 2010. A few weeks later, Rhee announced her resignation from the post of Chancellor, and ended her leadership of DCPS on October 31, 2010.

Statement of the Problem

As the school reform debate continues to rage in 21st century America, it is important to understand how the mainstream media reports on the dramatic changes in school governance, leadership, labor unions, and teacher evaluation systems that have become the hallmark of the reform movement. Since roughly only one third of U.S. households have children enrolled in K-12 public schools at any given time, most people who participate in the political process gain the majority of their information about the educational system and its policies from the representations presented to them through the mass media (Gerstl-Pepin, 2002; Blackmore and Thorpe, 2003). Therefore, as the vast majority of citizens do not have a personal connection to the public schools that are being reformed, there is a need to understand what cultural constructs modern media outlets

utilize to frame the discourse on school reform for the public. Educational leaders must understand how the media has framed school reform efforts so that they are able to deftly negotiate the various minefields that await them upon entering an urban superintendency.

While superintendents face numerous challenges, including navigating school board politics, balancing ever-dwindling budgets, and raising student achievement, it is arguably more difficult for any superintendent to be successful if (s)he is constantly battling a negative public image. Superintendents become public figures upon their appointment to the position and, therefore, become a target of media attention. The ability to properly navigate the minefield of press coverage and successfully manage the resulting public image in order to garner stakeholder support is essential to becoming a successful leader. This study examines how one leader, Rhee, had her leadership decisions regarding personnel issues framed for the public by the media’s reporting during her tenure as Chancellor of D.C. Public Schools. It is the hope of the researcher that this study will illuminate for other educational leaders the impact that press coverage of school leadership decisions can potentially have on public discourse within a community.

Purpose and Research Questions

When Michelle Rhee took over the floundering District of Columbia Public

Schools organization, she attracted a media spotlight to her education reform efforts. The story of a young, Korean woman with no experience running a school district taking over a notoriously failing, majority African American school system quickly became a national drama rife with racial tensions, gender biases, and leadership assumptions that

played out over the course of three years in major media outlets. While Rhee’s chancellorship was marked by several key decisions and events, this study focuses on her decisions to utilize any and all legal authority granted to her to make personnel decisions affecting the DCPS system and how those decisions were reported and commented on by

The Washington Post. The research question for the study is as follows: What dominant cultural narratives did The Washington Post, as the “paper of record” for D.C., utilize in their reporting and commentary of Rhee’s leadership decisions regarding personnel issues?

Statement of Potential Significance

All research must be able to claim significance in several specific areas: practical significance, professional significance, policy significance, and personal significance.

Practically and professionally, it is essential that novice and veteran educational leaders alike understand the impact that press coverage of their actions and decisions can have on the community’s public discourse on education. Education is considered a public trust and the community considers itself a vital stakeholder in the public education process. It is critical that educational leaders understand the impact, both positive and negative, that press coverage can have on the ability of a leader to leverage social and political capital within a community. In terms of policy, most, if not all, school systems have a policy devoted to communication with the media. This study can help districts better understand the potential impact of the relationship between educational leaders and the press and prepare them to draft more thoughtful policies regarding public information within their school districts. Personally, the story of Michelle Rhee and DCPS has always been of

interest to me. As a young woman who was entering the ranks of educational leadership in the summer of 2007 when Rhee took over DCPS, I eagerly read the press coverage that surrounded her appointment and her subsequent leadership decisions. As an educational leader in a school district geographically close, but demographically miles apart, from

DCPS, her story was even more intriguing – and readily available – to me. Prior to my career in education, I studied and worked as a journalist in the Washington, D.C., media universe. Therefore, when deciding on a topic of interest for my doctoral research, the story of Rhee as an educational leader and an exploration of how her leadership efforts were covered by news media outlets held a unique significance for me as a researcher.

For a more in-depth assessment of how my past experiences impacted this study, see

Appendix A – Researcher Identity Memo.

Conceptual/Theoretical Framework

The conceptual framework for this study was based on the extensive scholarly work done in the fields of communication studies and sociology on media framing and discourse analysis. While there are many different disciplinary perspectives on and uses for discourse analysis, this study relied most heavily on the qualitative work that has been done with an emphasis on the social constructivist perspective on framing. While a significant amount of the scholarly literature on framing came from a classical, quantitative, content analysis perspective, recent scholarship has begun to emphasize the importance of considering framing from a social constructivist paradigm (Reese, 2001).

This social constructivist perspective placed “greater emphasis here on how issues are framed as a result of social and institutional interests” (Reese, 2001, p. 3) and presented

“framing as an exercise in power, particulary as it affects our understanding of our political world” (Reese, 2001, p. 3). Van Dijk (1988) argued that due to the fact that the news media is generally trying to reach the largest audience (circulation) possible, “a considerable amount of generally shared knowledge, beliefs, norms, and values must be presupposed” (p. 74). Gee (2005) explained that “language-in-use is everywhere and always ‘political’” (Kindle Fire Version, Location 280). He went on to explain that:

By “politics” I mean how social goods are thought about, argued over, and distributed in society. ‘Social goods’ are anything that a group of people believes to be a source of power, status, value or worth, whether this be “street smarts,” academic intelligence, money, control, possessions, verbal abilities, ‘looks,’ age, wisdom, knowledge, technology, literacy, morality, ‘common sense,’ and so on through another very long list. (Gee, 2005, Kindle Fire Version, Location 280).

Summary of Methodology

This study took a critically-oriented discourse analysis approach to the story of

Michelle Rhee in order to better understand how Rhee and her leadership decisions were represented. It was an attempt to “map the discursive field” (Thomas, 2004) of a particular policy conflict between an educational leader, the organization she was attempting to lead, and the public she was attempting to serve. As Gee (2005) explains:

…discourse analysis is always a movement from context to language and from language to context. We gain information about a context in which a piece of language has been used and use this information to form hypotheses about what that piece of language means and is doing. In turn, we closely study the piece of language and ask ourselves what we can learn about the context in which the language was used and how that context was construed (interpreted) by the speaker/writer and listener(s)/reader(s) (Kindle Fire Version, Location 599).

This study considered news articles and editorial copy about Rhee during the time of her chancellorship in DCPS that appeared in the The Washington Post. The Washington Post was chosen because it is widely considered to be the newspaper of record for the

Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. It has the largest circulation and reaches the largest percentage of the local D.C. community. A search of the lexis/nexis archives of The

Washington Post between June 12, 2007, and October 31, 2010, returned 1,118 results when the search term “Michelle A. Rhee” was used. I entered all documents from this search into the software program QDA Miner Lite for a basic content analysis. I coded the documents for emergent themes that were repeatedly applied to discussions of Rhee and her leadership decisions in DCPS. Overwhelmingly, the majority of the documents published by the Post focused on Rhee’s authority to make personnel decisions affecting

DCPS employees and teachers and the resulting conflicts between Rhee and the

Washington Teachers’ Union and Rhee and the D.C. Council. I analyzed these documents using Oh’s (2010) theory of complementary objectivity to examine how the post appeared to present balanced coverage of Rhee’s tenure, but actually worked to promote Rhee’s positional power and pro-market reforms, while containing Rhee’s personal power within the public sphere by producing critiques of her personality and communication style.

Limitations/Delimitations

This study was necessarily limited in its scope and its focus. In order to map the discursive field in question and complete a meaningful discourse analysis of the media coverage surrounding Rhee’s chancellorship, I chose to focus on the news outlet that is widely considered to be the most representative of the D.C. community. Many other news outlets covered Rhee’s story, including other local newspapers, national newsmagazines, and numerous local broadcast outlets. I also looked at Rhee and her

story through a leadership lens, therefore I was concerned with how Rhee was written about as a person and a leader. I was not concerned with stories about DCPS during her tenure that did not in some way focus on Rhee, her ability to lead DCPS in a wide-scale school reform effort, or her leadership decisions related to the turnaround of the District’s school system with which she had been charged.

Definition of Key Terms

Discourse: The text and its context – how meaning is communicated through language

(written or oral, grammar, syntax, style, denotation, connotation, etc.), as well as the sociohistorical context within which it is communicated.

Complementary Objectivity: Use of quotes, attribution, and information in journalism to present two seemingly opposing viewpoints, but in which “both sides work toward a similar ideological effect” (Oh, 2010).

Positional Power: “The power a person derives from a particular office or rank in a formal organization system” (Northouse, 2010, p.8).

Personal Power: “The influence capacity a leader derives from being seen by followers as likable and knowledgeable” (Northouse, 2010, p.8).

Critically-Oriented: “For the critically-oriented educator, power is an all-or-nothing phenomenon. That is, a person either possesses power or does not; a person is either an

oppressor or a member of an oppressed group…. This power is exercised ‘through unobtrusive forms of control,’ primarily through knowledge and communication

(Forester, 1986a, p.44)” (Capper, 1998, p. 356-7).

Neoliberalism: A political philosophy which “accept[s] the basic soundness of capitalism, believe[s] government has an important role to play in a modern society, and [is] deeply concerned about equality issues” (Fowler, 2009, p. 125).

Myth of the Model Minority: A cultural myth which “romanticizes Asian Americans as hardworking, successful ethnic minorities who fulfill the ‘American Dream’ by overcoming harsh circumstances while remaining quiet and submissive” (Chao et al.,

2013, p. 85).

Chapter 2: Literature Review

It has been well documented that the mass media’s coverage of political issues and policy agendas has a direct impact on the public’s political knowledge and perception of political issues (Jerit, J., Barabas, J. and Bolsen, T., 2006). Since roughly only one third of U.S. households have children enrolled in K-12 public schools at any given time, most people who participate in the political process gain most of their information about the educational system and its policies from the representations presented to them through the mass media (Gerstl-Pepin, 2002; Blackmore and Thorpe, 2003). In England,

Australia, and Canada, there is a growing body of empirical research and theoretical scholarship that explores the interconnections between mass media coverage of education news, education policy formation and implementation, and public discourse on educational issues. In the United States, however, academic research exploring the impact of mass media coverage of education news on the public’s perception of education policies and the resulting public discourse is comparatively slim. For this chapter, I reviewed the emerging body of global literature on the mass media and education policy discourse. The literature reviewed for this study was limited to studies of news media coverage of educational policy issues and did not review any studies of fictional representations of teachers. The review examined this body of work to determine the constructions of the media used by researchers, the educational topics of interest covered by the media that have been studied, and the ideological themes that reoccur throughout the literature.

Constructing “the Media”

The literature on mass media coverage of educational policy issues presented three major constructions from which researchers have approached their study of “the media.” These constructions were identified in the literature based upon how the researchers themselves defined “media” and its role in society. The first of these was a pluralist construction of the media as an entity that should be an unbiased observer and educator for the public good. The second was a propagandist construction of the media as a passive tool, without the capability of resistance, for government agencies to utilize to promote their agendas. The final representation of the media in the academic literature was a critical, Marxist construction of the media as an autonomous, yet highly capitalist, entity working to promote common-sense ideologies in order to maintain the hegemonic structures of the current capitalist system and maximize their own profits as corporate monoliths.

The “media as virtuous educator” pluralist construction posited that the media, as the Fourth Estate, has a right and responsibility to serve the public good and inform the citizenry in order for the most effective form of participatory democracy to flourish.

Moses (2007) and Saenz and Moses (2010) in their investigations of how newspapers in

Michigan covered the debate about Affirmative Action found that reporters covering this story typically did so in “incident-based” (Saenz and Moses, 2010) articles that contained little to no historical context and rarely offered any theoretical or moral justification for

Affirmative action. (Saenz and Moses, 2010). This presented a problem for the authors because, as Moses argued in 2007, the media must play a more significant role in educating the public about policy issues so that the public can make informed decisions

based on autonomous deliberations.

The media have a responsibility to help educate a citizenry so that it is adequately prepared for well-informed deliberation. In order to fulfill their responsibility of informing the public about political issues and fostering meaningful deliberation, the news media must contribute to providing members of the public with enough information for autonomous deliberation.” (Moses, 2007, p.153)

A similar construction of the media as public educator was found as an underlying assumption in Jerit et al.’s (2006) discussion of the impact media coverage of political events has on the information environment.

All else held constant, increasing the amount of newspaper coverage will raise the average level of knowledge in the population, but it should primarily benefit those with high levels of education…. Restated, we expect increases in print coverage to boost the incercept (i.e. the average level of knowledge in a given survey) and to strengthen the relationship between education and knowledge. (p.268)

The idea of the media as the main contributor to the information environment held by

Jerit et al. presupposed the pluralist notion of the media as educator for the common good. Jerit et al. also assumed that this increase in “knowledge” was a positive thing, that the information added by the media coverage to the information environment and the resulting increase in knowledge by the public was providing a public good. Jerit et al. did not acknowledge the idea that the knowledge added by the media could have been harmful to particular populations, created a cynicism in the general population, or otherwise disrupted the flourishing of participative democracy.

Though doubtful of the media’s capacity to act as an educator for the common good, Adkins-Covert, T., et al. (2000), attempted to prove that local media, especially within a community that has an attentive and politically active constituency, would act to encourage a “marketplace of ideas” concerning important community policy issues.

After examining a year’s worth of news coverage of three separate community issues, the

authors concluded that the media failed to detail alternative accounts of the events and therefore did not serve to further participatory democracy. After analyzing the content of the articles, the authors concluded that this is due to the fact that reporters often failed to ask the “why” question concerning community events, which effectively closed the door to public debate on the issue(s).

The second possible construction of the media in the literature was that of passive agent for the transmission of government propaganda to the general public. In 2004,

Gerwitz et al. examined the role of “spin” in the policy process. Examining policy and the media coverage of it based on government press releases, speeches, and publicity materials for a particular education policy in England, Gerwitz et al. (2004) examine how heavily policies are spun by government agencies in order for them to be positively covered by the news media and, ultimately, accepted by the public. The authors also posited that, due to the overwhelming amount of spin attached to a policy, the spin itself eventually became a constitutive element of the policy process, in effect impacting how the policy was implemented, funded, evaluated and altered. (Gerwitz et al., 2004).

Franklin (2004) was even more critical of the use of spin to promote educational policies.

He examined England’s Labour party’s news management strategies, as well as several advertisements produced by the government to promote their education policies to the public. Franklin argued:

Politicians’ preference for soundbites above sustained policy debate reflects the extent to which their determination to set the news agenda and to use media to inform,shape, and manage public discourse about policy and politics have become crucial components in a modern statecraft and system of governance which is characterized by what I have elsewhere described as the ‘packaging of politics’ (2004, p.256).

Ungerleider (2006) took a similar view of Canadian media coverage of educational

policies, when he combined his examination of Canadian news stories on education with his personal experiences as a Deputy Minister in a Canadian provincial Ministry of

Education. He stated that in his experience government agents are the main producers of information that becomes “codified as news” (Ungerleider, 2006, p.76). He argued that this was because government agencies provided a constant stream of information to journalists that could be easily attributed back to a credible, authoritative source.

(Ungerleider, 2006, p.76). The reason the newspapers were so willing to promote the government’s message, according to Ungerleider, was that both the mainstream Canadian media and the government shared a neoliberal ideological lens through which they viewed the world. In his examination of media coverage of educational policies and practices, Anderson (2007) likewise examined the government’s use of the media to propagandize their policies, providing as an example the 2005 scandal that occurred when the U.S. Department of Education “got it’s hand slapped by the General

Accounting Office (GAO) because it paid $186,000 to a public relations firm to produce favorable news coverage of President Bush’s education policies” (p.104). Unlike the previous authors, however, Anderson also looked outside of the government agencies themselves for examples of how media is co-opted by political spin and pointed to the rise in neoconservative and neoliberal right wing think tanks that produce educational

“research” and package it for use by the media. Haas (2007) expanded on this inquiry into think tank research and media coverage, showing that news organizations frequently referenced think tanks, even ones without research as their main objective, when reporting on education news, facts, statistics, and research, despite the fact that these organizations were not held to any standards in terms of the reliability or validity of their

research. As such, the media was simply reproducing the ideological arguments of the political interests that funded and maintained the think tank, rather than objectively reporting on issues of education policy.

The final, and most widely adhered to, construction of the media within this literature was that of news organizations as autonomous entities that are inherently market-driven and therefore worked to reify “common-sense” ideologies that promoted the existing power structures within society. The development of this conceptualization of the media was traced through the scholarship of Pettigrew (1997), Thomas (1999,

2003, 2004), Macmillan (2002), Blackmore and Thorpe (2003), Greenberg (2004),

Blackmore and Thomson (2004), Lingard and Rawolle (2004), Fleming-Rife and Proffitt

(2004), Stack (2006), Rawolle (2010), Stack (2010), Oh (2011), and Tamir and Davidson

(2011). Relying heavily on Bourdieu’s theories of social fields and chains of production and consumption, as well as Fairclough’s theorizing on the “mediatization” of public policy, these authors examined the agency of the journalists, the intentions of the policy- makers, and the acceptance/resistance of the audience, and constructed the media as one of many actors in the policy process through which power hierarchies, narratives of dominance/submission and inclusion/exclusion, and hegemonic practices that constitute our “common-sense” understandings of education were negotiated. Contrary to both the pluralist and the propagandist views of the role of media in the policy process discussed above, within this third framework media outlets “may have competing agendas and interests with regard to the issues they report. Accordingly, what gets privileged depends on an ordering of priorities in response to the exigencies of prevailing circumstances”

(Pettigrew, 1997, p.402). Similarly, Blackmore and Thorpe (2003) explored how the

mass media acted in a “mediating” way through the policy process, stating: “We discuss how the media, as a relatively autonomous agent with its own interests and agendas, mediates relations between the state, schools and parents in unpredictable and self- interested ways, but in so doing shaping the field of education policy” (p.578). Thomas

(2004) invoked the conception of the public sphere as “being made up of a diversity of parallel sites of discursive practice…. such sites are characterized by the production and circulation of discourses and counter discourses in a process of hegemonic struggle”

(p.245) and located the media as one of these discursive sites engaged in the “hegemonic struggle over educational policy” (p.245). In their examination of the news media coverage of Brown v. Board of Education, Fleming-Rife and Proffitt (2004) positioned journalists as agents of both social control and change.

The prevailing view in communications research today is that the mainstream media reinforce existing social, economic, and political institutions as well as dominant values and normative systems (Demers & Viswanath, 1999). However, these scholars argue that for one to wholly accept this view is to ignore the role the media played in the civil rights movements. They suggest that “neither social control nor social change perspectives alone can accurately describe the complexity of mass media in modern society” (p.5). (p.244).

Finally, Stack (2010) conceived of “spin as symbolic capital” (p.108), which both government agents and journalists were attempting to mobilize through their interactions surrounding education policy and its media coverage. “As part of this dynamic, the deployment of symbolic capital becomes central to constructing what is seen as a logical or common-sense understanding of reality, which can be mobilized in the broader field of power” (Stack, 2010, p.109).

Although three distinct constructions of “the media” were presented throughout the literature, it was clear through the sheer volume and the current theoretical research

grounding the construction, that the preferred definition of “the media” when applied to policy research was that of the media as an autonomous entity within the market system that often promoted common-sense ideological understandings of education through its coverage of education policy in order to promote the current capitalist power structures

(from which it benefits) and generally accepted definitions of social identity that situate the various policy actors within the discourse of the public sphere.

Selection of Education News Stories in Media and Educational Policy Literature

Accepting the definition of the media as an autonomous actor that has “competing agendas and interests with regard to the issues they report” (Pettigrew, 1997, p.402), required that I then considered what issues they did report and what elements of educational news coverage educational researchers have chosen to analyze. While the local and national media consistently and regularly report on “schools,” including publishing the minutes of local board of education meetings, reporting on high school sports, splashing pictures of teachers accused of sexual relationships with students on front pages, and going into media coverage over-drive when a school shooting or other act of school violence occurs, the academic research on media coverage of educational issues has focused mainly on three themes: 1) accountability and the crisis of failing schools; 2) organized labor and teachers’ unions; and 3) the politics of difference. These themes were generated by the researcher after the review of the literature included in this study.

The theme of accountability and the crisis of failing schools was arguably the most present theme explored in the academic literature on media coverage of educational

policy (Fields, 2000; Cochran-Smith and Fries, 2001; Macmillan, 2002; Thomas, 2003,

2004; Blackmore and Thorpe, 2003; Mills, 2004; Blackmore and Thomson, 2004;

Warmington and Murphy, 2004; Ungerleider, 2006; Stack, 2006; Anderson, 2007;

Wallace, 2007; Goldstein, 2010; Cohen, 2010; Brown and Wright, 2011). Throughout the literature, there were numerous examples of how the media processed the information available about educational issues to construct a frame of crisis (Altheide, 1997, and

Altheide & Michalowski, 1999) through which they presented their stories. Thomas

(2004) examined media coverage of a debate over Queensland, Australia’s curriculum revision initiative and found that the shared public discourse at the intersections of the official report of the government review board, government documents relating to the report, and media coverage of the report worked to privilege particular definitions of school failure. “The media’s preferred discourse defined schools as having serious problems because standards of literacy and numeracy were falling, resulting in students leaving school with inadequate skills” (Thomas, 2004, p.239). Similarly, in England,

Warmington and Murphy found that media coverage of the annual release of A-level exam results was overwhelmingly structured around the theme of “falling expectations”

(2004). Despite the fact that the exam data was positive, in terms of the passing rates of students, the story was framed in a majority of the news coverage as the schools lowering their standards and allowing students to choose “soft” subjects (e.g. psychology and media studies) for their exams rather than the traditional “hard” subjects (e.g. math and foreign language) (Warmington and Murphy, 2004, p.293). In a cross-cultural study of both England and Australian media, Blackmore and Thomson (2004), found that media representations of head teachers positioned them in one of two categories: either the

“star” head teacher/savior of a previously failing school who has managed to turn things around or as the reason/scapegoat for the current failure of the school. Macmillan (2002) theorized this theme of failing schools in the reporting of education policy, particularly in the British press, as a way for the media to comment more generally on the social disruption and moral decline of society (p.36).

Recent scholarship exploring U.S. press coverage of educational policy was overwhelmingly focused on the theme of accountability and failing schools. In his 2007 essay on the media’s impact on educational policies and practices, Anderson explained that the notion that American schools are in crisis is not manufactured; rather, the problem lies in how the crisis is framed and defined. Based on his analysis of news coverage, Anderson wrote:

Schools with large percentages of low-income students and students of color are also the most likely to suffer the punishments and humiliations imposed by the reform. Problems such as racism and a lack of living wage jobs are ignored in favor of a color-blind demand for greater self-discipline. Teachers and administrators themselves are singled out as scapegoats for being insufficiently strict both in terms of failing to provide a strict test-driven education and for coddling rather than punishing students (2007, p.111).

He argued that media coverage of current U.S. education reform measures, as encapsulated in NCLB, represented education through a deficit model and promoted a neoliberal view of the education system as having “failed” our economic and corporate interests by being unable to produce students prepared for the new, globalized economy

(Anderson, 2007).

Cohen (2010) analyzed the representations of teachers in the Chicago Tribune for a year. Within the 170 articles she examined, she found that more than three quarters of the coverage was framed around the theme of accountability. In agreement with

Anderson, Cohen argues that “Federal legislation such as the No Child Left Behind

(NCLB) law codifies this crisis message, and places teachers at the center of educational reform by arguing that a lack of qualified teachers and insufficient external oversight of teacher practice…are responsible for the failure to prepare a competitive workforce”

(Cohen, 2010, p.105). Cohen bolstered this argument through her analysis of the social language of accountability that she said was characterized by the use of authoritative voices, statistics, technical language and a positivist, scientific, report-like approach to conveying information (2007, p.110). She analyzed the news reports at the syntactical level, as well as at the meaning/content level, and showed how even the grammatical construction of the sentences conveying information about accountability were constructed in such a way to privilege the federal viewpoint and place the schools at a disadvantage. She cited the journalists’ use of “evaluative verbs, such as ‘fail,’ ‘make the grade,’ ‘miss the mark,’ ‘meet standards,’ and have trouble,’ positions schools as the objects of evaluation rather than as active agents” (Cohen, 2010, p.111). Likewise, through grammatical analysis, the author isolated the discursive position of “the students.” Most often referred to as a monolithic group, “the students” were overwhelming placed through sentence construction as the direct object of the verbs, implying that the students were not actors in the process of accountability, but rather a group that needed to be acted upon (Cohen, 2007, p.111).

Goldstein (2010) explored two of the major themes present in media coverage of educational policy together in her article, Imaging the frame: Media representations of teachers, their unions, NCLB, and education reform: accountability and failing schools, and organized labor and teachers’ unions. In her analysis of media texts concerning

NCLB and teachers’ unions from 2001-2008, Goldstein found that the national mass media coverage of NCLB presented an unfavorable image of teachers and teachers’ unions as powerful entities blocking necessary school reform efforts.

In the case of how the media framed NCLB, the connection is not necessarily a direct one…. media representations of public education, NCLB, unions, and teachers frame the discussion more in terms of what and who impedes school reform, equality, and justice for all public school students, regardless of the validity of the concern or critique raised (Goldstein, 2010, p.25).

Within the same article, Goldstein addressed the second of the major themes found in the academic literature on media and educational policy, organized labor and teachers’ unions. Numerous studies of media coverage of educational policy issues have centered around the conflict between institutional entities (government agencies, school boards, etc.) and teachers’ unions (Greenberg, 2004; Gunster, 2008; Goldstein, 2010;

Tamir and Davidson, 2011). Greenberg examined the media coverage surrounding a

1997 strike of Canadian schoolteachers. He began his examination assuming that Hall’s theory of the primary definer in the social production of news would prove true in this coverage. However, after analyzing over 250 articles, Greenberg found that although the voices of government officials were initially privileged more frequently, in accordance with the primary definer theory, the final findings refute the theory as the government, despite its initial privileged position by the media and, therefore, its ability to set the agenda for discussion concerning the strike, did not ultimately win over the public support concerning the labor dispute. He attributed this to the fact that the media presented a dichotomous image of teachers – negative when associated with organized labor, but positive when associated with education, caring, and the classroom experiences of children (Greenberg, 2004).

Gunster (2008) examined the media coverage surrounding another strike of

Canadian schoolteachers, this time in 2005. In his analysis of a large circulation newspaper, a television news program and a radio talk show, Gunster determined that the newspaper and television news program, both owned by a corporate media conglomerate, represented a traditional reading of organized labor strikes, positing the labor force as deviant and resistant to common-sense ideologies. In contrast, the radio talk show provided a media space for teachers to actively resist this depiction and shape the public discourse concerning the strike (Gunster, 2008).

Goldstein (2010) locates the coverage of teachers’ unions within the general media discourse on NCLB and school reform. In her analysis of two major U.S. media outlets, teachers and their unions were overwhelming represented in a negative light

(Goldstein, 2010). Depicted as the major obstacle standing in the way of the government’s education reform policy meant to ensure equality of education to all students, especially those previously disadvantaged by the educational policy environment, the teachers’ unions were represented as racist, elitist, and unconcerned with the well-being of the students they are charged with teaching (Goldstein, 2010).

Far from being a recent trend in news media coverage, Tamir and Davidson

(2011) examined the 1985 news media coverage of a New Jersey educational policy debate concerning teacher certification routes, teacher minimum salary, and merit-pay proposals for master teachers. In all three of these policy initiatives, the union was a central figure. Through content analysis of the articles, Tamir and Davidson (2011) determined that the union was most often represented as the active agent in the conflict surrounding these policies.

The final theme that appeared when examining educational issues covered by the media in the literature was that of the politics of difference (Teasley, 2004; Mills, 2004;

Fleming-Rife and Proffitt, 2004; Moses, 2007; Jeffries, 2009; Saenz and Moses, 2008,

2010; Oh, 2011). Teasley (2004) analyzed how the discourse of education reform, as represented through policy texts and mass media coverage, worked to disadvantage groups that were already oppressed and disenfranchised within the cultural capital of the educational system in Spain. Similarly, Mills (2004) analyzed how one debate over single-sex schooling in a small Australian local newspaper worked to normalize and reinforce traditional gender narratives within education policy and, in fact, encourage a return to a pre-feminist conceptualization of education by privileging a discourse asserting that “schools are currently failing boys” (Mills, 2004, p.355). Fleming-Rife and

Proffitt (2004) turned their attention to the 1954 media coverage of Brown v. Board of

Education and the associated civil rights issues. Through their analysis, they determined that although the mainstream White press and the African American press framed the stories about desegregation differently during this time due to the inherent racism of the white journalists whose values and beliefs were socially constructed by the culture in which they were raised, the media did eventually break from its traditional role in reifying traditional power structures by working in favor of the Civil Rights Movement and supporting Brown v. Board of Education (Fleming-Rife and Proffitt, 2004) and connected the desegregation policies of Brown v Board of Education with current school reform initiatives, implying that the media should likewise cover those issues in an emancipatory manner. Moses (2007) and Saenz and Moses (2008, 2010) explored how the mainstream media in Michigan covered the 2006 ballot initiative concerning

Affirmative Action. The authors found that, despite the fact that such an important educational policy decision was placed in the hands of the public through a ballot initiative, the mainstream media did not provide the public with substantive coverage or explanation of the issue at hand. They determined that the press did not provide any historical or moral justification for Affirmative Action, and decried the fact that the modern press was, in their opinion, not providing enough information for the public to make informed decisions within a participatory democracy. (Moses, 2007, and Saenz and

Moses, 2008, 2010).

Oh (2010) presented an in-depth reading of Time magazine’s coverage of D.C.

Public School’s Chancellor Michelle Rhee and her school reform initiatives. Oh argued that the magazine employed what he termed “complementary objectivity” (Oh, 2010) to present an image of Rhee that appeared balanced on the surface, but in fact worked to promote her pro-capitalist, pro-market school reforms, while at the same time containing her within the discourse of the model minority and critiquing her based on dominant narratives of race, class and gender (Oh, 2010).

There has been clear interest in particular areas of media coverage of education news. Researchers have clearly been motivated to analyze particular “hot topics” in education by exploring the media coverage of specific educational policy issues. The most common of these is the theme of accountability, failing schools and school reform, followed by organized labor and teachers’ unions, and, finally, the politics of difference.

The attention to these themes of media coverage of education news over other possible themes, including teacher-student sex scandals, school violence, bullying, and school funding issues, was possibly a function of the focused attention researchers have trained

on neo-liberalism, the market, and the reproduction of capitalist hierarchies in media coverage of education policy.

Neo-Liberalism, the Market, and Capitalist Hierarchies in Media

When reviewing the literature on mass media coverage of education from an ideological perspective, the emphasis on neo-liberalism and its impact on media outlets, education policy and the intersection of the two was clear. Most scholarly researchers agreed that media coverage of educational policy issues was most often couched in a neoliberal ideological worldview that was both beneficial to the current state of corporate media, as well as to the current push for education to move to a quasi-market structure predicated on competition and school choice policies (Pettigrew, 1997; Thomas, 1999;

Blackmore and Thorpe, 2003; Mills, 2004; Franklin, 2004; Ungerleider, 2006; Anderson,

2007; Jeffries, 2009; Oh, 2011). In her 1997 analysis of the media coverage of the Grant

Maintained Schools policy in England, Pettigrew noted that peaks of interest in media coverage coincided with key political moments, as the Grant Maintained Schools policy issue was “both a symbol and manifestation of deep seated New Right concerns to promote academic selection and competition and markets and to undermine further the role and influence of LEAs” (Pettigrew, 1997, p.401). Blackmore and Thorpe (2003) noted in their study of Australian education reform that the media was complicit in creating a public-private competitive market for schooling and creating narrowly defined discourses of school choice, in accordance with the dominant government neo-liberal ideology. Mills (2004) noted a similar effect in her analysis of the debate around single- sex schooling in Australia, reporting that the media, by allowing a forum for and

furthering this debate, became the sounding board for a neo-liberal debate concerning public vs. private schooling. Ungerleider’s (2006) analysis of dominant media discourses surrounding Canadian education highlighted the fact that the neoliberal ideology of the government, reinforced by the neoliberal bias of the mainstream, corporate media, created a narrative that presented the school funding crisis as a problem of fiscal irresponsibility by the schools, requiring accountability measures, school choice, and a competitive educational market.

In the United States, Anderson (2007) explored how the neoconservative and neoliberal factions of U.S. politics have mastered news management through their packaging of policy as press releases and their use of think tanks to disseminate educational “research” that promotes their favored policy options. Jeffries (2009) explored discourse in the mass media surrounding undocumented students and access to higher education, arguing that the media portrayed undocumented students through a lens of “meritocracy” which foregrounded neoliberal ideologies of competition and decontextualized the global landscape of immigration. Most recently, Oh (2010) analyzed Time magazine’s coverage of Michelle Rhee and argued that the journalist’s use of “complementary objectivity” (Oh, 2011, p.153) worked to promote Rhee’s pro-market reform programs that favored charter schools, school choice, and merit pay for teachers.

“…In this case, the two major sides presented, pro-Rhee’s reform proposal and anti-Rhee the person, act in concert for a complementary ideology effect: the promotion of favorable ideologies that support dominant White capitalist ideologies while containing threats to the boundaries of White privilege” (Oh, 2010, p.154).

In the recent global body of academic literature examining media coverage of educational policy, there has been growing concern over the neoliberal ideological worldview that appeared to permeate both government interests and the mainstream media. As media became more consolidated by corporate interests and governments openly embraced the notion of education as a contested market between public, private and charter schools openly courting student consumers, questions also began to arise about the hierarchies of power created by these economic conditions and the groups that would be advantaged/disadvantaged by these structures.

Power, Control, and Discursive Positioning

In line with current literature on policy analysis in general, education policy must be considered through a critical lens which questions who benefits from the policy and who will be disadvantaged, disenfranchised, marginalized or oppressed by it. Likewise, researchers studying media coverage of education policy analyzed the news stories in order to determine through the framing, discourse, and content of the news reports: who was situated with the power and control – e.g. who was acting, who was situated as the subject of the policy – e.g. who was acted upon, and who was marginalized by the policy

– e.g. who was not even considered or addressed (Blackmore and Thorpe, 2003; Gerwitz et al., 2004; Thomas, 1999 and 2004; Teasley, 2004; Mills, 2004; Lingard and Rawolle,

2004; Fleming-Rife and Proffitt, 2004; Jerit et al., 2006; Stack, 2006 and 2010; Rawolle,

2010; Tamir and Davidson, 2011; and Oh, 2011). Blackmore and Thorpe (2003) showed through their year-long, qualitative study of media coverage of school reform in Victoria,

Australia, that the neoliberal ideologies that constructed a framework of public-private

competition and school choice shaped teachers’ sense of professional identity and morale in a way that situated them as powerless within the discourse. The authors argued that because media interest and profits originate mainly from their promotions of “conflict, cover-ups, and consumption” (Blackmore and Thorpe, 2003, p.591) that teachers were situated in a particularly negative light within news stories on education. Gerwitz et al.

(2004) showed how ‘spin’ was used by government agencies as a form of disciplinary power that was used to police local education agencies and ensure that they are following the policies as intended, while ignoring the needs and input of the local schools.

Fleming-Rife and Proffitt (2004) illustrated through their study of media coverage of

Brown v. Board of Education how the media worked to both reinforce and challenge dominant narratives of power, oppression, and marginalization. Despite running an overwhelming number of stories reporting the resistance of White leaders to desegregation in the early days of the Brown v. Board of Education coverage:

the Topeka Daily Capital, in the late summer of 1953, in anticipating the decision of the Court, began running stories that suggested compliance; however, there were alternate frames of resistances imbedded within these news articles. That is, each story that discussed compliance also reported resistance (Fleming-Rife and Proffitt, 2004).

Unlike the explicit mention of the dominant/subordinate groups in the coverage of

Brown v. Board of Education, Jerit et al. (2006) implicitly referenced the dominant/subordinate hierarchy created by news coverage of political events. In their exploration of the contribution of media coverage to the information environment, the authors found that media coverage of political issues and events privileged the educated elite. When measuring the value-added growth to the public knowledge that media coverage produced, they found that newspaper coverage of a policy or political event

significantly increased the political knowledge of the well-educated populace, but did nothing to improve the knowledge or understanding of less-educated citizens (Jerit et al.,

2006).

Stack (2010) built on the work of Gerwitz et al. (2004) and concluded through her interviews with journalists and policy-makers that “spin” was a two-way process that required the mobilization of symbolic capital, dependent on context, time and contestations. This symbolic capital was centered around the conscious ability of policy- makers and journalists to present their positions as common-sense understandings. Along the same lines, Rawolle (2010) conceptualized media coverage of educational policy as

“practice chains of production and consumption” (p. 121), which he described as chains of moves that garnered a relative amount of success. The success of journalists’ and policy-makers’ moves was illustrated in the circulation of policy themes and emerging themes contained in products such as articles and media releases. Successful moves resulted in the reproduction of themes; unsuccessful moves resulted in orphaned themes that did not continue to circulate (Rawolle, 2010). Placing these issues of power in a historical context, Tamir and Davidson (2011) applied a current perspective of policy and media studies to the 1985 media coverage of New Jersey educational policy debates. In their exploration of this 20-year-old debate, they concluded that

…the media’s role in education policy contributes to the dominance of the executive branch, potentially distancing the broader public from participation…. the media tends to favor and inflate the symbolic and economic capital held by state officials and economic elites over the power held by cultural elites, particularly those with relatively low cultural and symbolic capital, like teacher educators… (Tamir and Davidson, 2011, p.234, 246).

This critical lens, when applied to media coverage of educational policy, acted to highlight the power relationships implicit within both the policy text itself and the assumptions and biases brought to bear on the policy by the journalists covering the story. This recent scholarship that explored power, control, and discursive positioning within media coverage of educational policy was a culmination of all of the other themes that have been discussed in this review. As the scholarship on media and its coverage of education policy has developed, it has progressed from a pluralist construction of the media, through a propagandist construction of the media, to the current Marxist, postmodernist construction of media as an autonomous actor motivated by its own interests to reinforce or challenge the dominant narratives of political and social control.

This transition was evident in the types of education news stories that researchers have chosen to analyze, as well. Stories framed around the themes of accountability and failing schools, organized labor and teachers’ unions, and Civil Rights/Affirmative

Action were themes that implicitly invoked analysis based on frameworks of pluralism and the public good, neoliberal ideologies, and social and political hierarchies of power.

Yet, as we examined the scholarly research on media coverage of educational policy, there were obvious practical and theoretical gaps.

Gap Analysis

The literature on media and educational policy is a burgeoning field of study.

Emerging slowly through the 1990’s, it is a field of study that has begun to flourish rapidly in the 21st century. As media and communications technologies advance and the global information economy grows, we have become more aware of how those

technologies and their resulting narratives capture, encode and reproduce our identities through discourse, and of how those representations spread rapidly across previously impermeable borders. Yet, little scholarly attention has been paid to date on how media coverage of educational leadership is framed for the public. While scholarly research into the intersections of media coverage and education policy has begun to accumulate in

England, Canada, and Australia over the past decade, it is only in the past few years that a small number of scholars in the United States have begun to focus their scholarly curiosity in this direction. As Cohen (2010) stated, “analysis of media and education in

Anglophone countries primarily has focused on Australia, England, and Canada.

Relatively less research has been published on the context of the USA” (p.106-107). As arguably one of the most mediatized societies in the world, it is essential that American scholars begin to investigate how the media frames its stories on education policy and educational leadership decisions.

As I evaluated the literature that does exist on media and education policy, both nationally and internationally, there were also many topical gaps in the scholarly research. The up-and-coming field of media and education policy studies has been extremely selective in its analysis of education news. The scholarship that has been published to date has focused mainly on the themes of Accountability and Failing

Schools, Organized Labor and Teachers’ Unions, and Civil Rights/Affirmative Action, likely as a function of the neoliberal and/or critical lenses the researchers wished to apply. Even then, these themes, as represented within the media landscape, have yet to be fully explored, especially with in the American context, and there are still a wide

variety of education topics that are routinely covered by the media that have not been analyzed in the academic literature.

Inferences for Forthcoming Study

This study sought to explore of the media coverage of Michelle Rhee and her leadership in DCPS to identify the news frames and discourses utilized by The

Washington Post when conveying Rhee’s leadership decisions and reform agenda to the public. As there has been minimal scholarly research into how media outlets frame educational leaders and their decisions for the public, this study filled an important need in the field of educational research and provided insight for current and future educational leaders regarding public relations and the press.

Chapter 3: Methods

Overview

This study took a critically-oriented discourse analysis approach to the story of

Michelle Rhee in order to better understand how Rhee and her leadership decisions were framed and represented in the press. It was an attempt to “map the discursive field”

(Thomas, 2004) of a particular policy conflict between an educational leader, Rhee, and the community she was attempting to serve. The study considered news articles about

Rhee during the time of her chancellorship in DCPS that appeared in the The Washington

Post. I analyzed these documents using the methodology recommended by Pan and

Kosicki (1993) in order to identify the frames used by the Post in their coverage of Rhee.

A critically-oriented analysis was then applied to the recurring themes and frames that were found within the stories in order to uncover the political perspectives and discourses that these news frames worked to normalize. This chapter begins with an explanation of the epistemological paradigm and theoretical constructs within which the research is grounded, followed by an explanation of research design and the step-by-step process that was used by the researcher in order to select and analyze the texts for the study.

Epistemological Paradigm

When reviewing the current literature on mass media coverage of educational policy from an ideological perspective, the emphasis on neo-liberalism and its impact on media outlets, education policy and the intersection of the two was clear. Most scholarly researchers agreed that media coverage of educational policy issues was most often couched in a neo-liberal ideological worldview that was both beneficial to the current

state of corporate media, as well as to the current push for education to move to a quasi- market structure predicated on competition and school choice policies (Pettigrew, 1997;

Thomas, 1999; Blackmore and Thorpe, 2003; Mills, 2004; Franklin, 2004; Ungerleider,

2006; Anderson, 2007; Jeffries, 2009; Oh, 2011). In the recent global body of academic literature examining media coverage of educational policy, there has been growing concern over the neoliberal ideological worldview that appears to permeate both government interests and the mainstream media. As media became more consolidated by corporate interests and governments openly embraced the notion of education as a contested market between public, private and charter schools openly courting student consumers, questions also began to arise about the hierarchies of power created by these economic conditions and the groups that would be advantaged/disadvantaged by these structures. In line with current literature on policy analysis in general, education policy must be considered through a critical lens which questions who benefits from the policy and who will be disadvantaged, disenfranchised, marginalized or oppressed by it.

Likewise, researchers studying media coverage of education policy analyzed the news stories in order to determine through the framing, discourse, and content of the news reports: who was situated with the power and control – e.g. who was acting, who was situated as the subject of the policy (e.g. who was acted upon), and who was marginalized by the policy (e.g. who was not even considered or addressed) (Blackmore and Thorpe,

2003; Gerwitz et al., 2004; Thomas, 1999 and 2004; Teasley, 2004; Mills, 2004; Lingard and Rawolle, 2004; Fleming-Rife and Proffitt, 2004; Jerit et al., 2006; Stack, 2006 and

2010; Rawolle, 2010; Tamir and Davidson, 2011; and Oh, 2011). This critical lens, when applied to media coverage of educational policy, acted to highlight the power

relationships implicit within both the policy text itself and the assumptions and biases brought to bear on the policy by the journalists covering the story.

Modern American news media organizations were often the tools through which power is exercised and normalized to the general public. Historically, the American media has situated itself as a social institution with a values-neutral, democratic purpose.

Acting as “the fourth estate,” the role of the media has been historically constructed as an institution that exists to ensure that the three official branches of the government are operating fairly and justly with regard to the American people and the principles of democracy on which our country is founded.

The media, as it has been historically constructed in the American collective imagination and memory, was the keeper and disseminator of knowledge. In this role, the media organization acquired significant power as the news organization and those who worked within it had the ability to include or exclude particular discourses, specific voices, and promote the objectification of various social groups. As Foucault wrote about the construction of our modern notions of sexuality:

If sexuality was constituted as an area of investigation, this was only because relations of power had established it as a possible object; and conversely, if power was able to take it as a target, this was because techniques of knowledge and procedures of discourse were capable of investing in it (Foucault, 1978, p.98).

Similarly, when I considered what the media constituted as areas of investigation, i.e. topics worthy of precious space or air time in their media products, when covering issues of education and education policy, I began to see how the media acted to construct the reality of the public discourse surrounding public education in America. Accepting the definition of the media as an autonomous actor that has “competing agendas and interests with regard to the issues they report” (Pettigrew, 1997, p.402), required that I then

consider what issues they did report and what social and cultural frames were utilized in presenting these stories to the public.

Theoretical Framework

This theoretical foundation of this study was based on Van Dijk’s (1998) work that theorized news as discourse. Van Dijk viewed his theory of news as discourse as growing out of the rhetorical discourse analysis tradition in which one could analyze a written or oral discourse by examining its five main dimensions: micro, macro, style, rhetoric, and superstructure (Van Dijk, 1998). However, he saw news as a unique challenge, as “news is not only written but also public discourse” complicated by the fact that “its readers are large groups, sometimes defined by similar political or ideological allegiance, but usually undifferentiated at a more personal level” (Van Dijk, 1988, p.74).

He argued that the five dimensions of discourse have unique characteristics when examined in a news story, therefore marking news reports as their own form of discourse separate from other texts.

News reports do not necessarily prescribe the concrete opinions of readers. Rather, they are the main form of public discourse that provides the general outline of social, political, cultural, and economic models of societal events, as well as the pervasively dominant knowledge and attitude structures that make such models intelligible. The structures of news reports at many levels condition the readers to develop such interpretation frameworks rather than alternative ones, in which other goals, norms, values, and ideologies are used to provide counterinterpretations of news events” (Van Dijk, 1988, p.182).

Building off of Van Dijk’s theories of news as its own separate form of discourse, Pan and Kosicki (1993) presented framing analysis as a particular approach to the study of news discourses. Utilizing the structures of news discourse identified by Van Dijk

(1988), Pan and Kosicki (1993) argued that all elements of news discourse could be categorized into four structural dimensions that could be analyzed together to identify news frames. The four categories recommended for analysis by Pan and Kosicki (1993) were: syntactical structure, script structure, thematic structure, and rhetorical structure.

They defined these structural categories as follows:

 Syntactical structure: “The syntactical structure of news discourse is what Van

Dijk (1988) calls ‘macrosyntax’ (p. 26), which, for most news stories, is

characterized by the inverted pyramid structure and by the rules of source

attributions” (Pan and Kosicki, 1993, p. 59)

 Script structure: “A script refers to an established and stable sequence of activities

and components of an event that have been internalized as a structure mental

representation of the event… A news script has its distinct structure defined by

the rules that may be called story grammars (van Dijk, 1988, p.50)” (Pan and

Kosicki, 1993, p.60).

 Thematic structure: “A thematic structure of a news story…is a multilayer

hierarchy with a theme being the central core connecting various subthemes as the

major nodes that, in turn, are connected to supporting elements” (Pan and

Kosicki, 1993, p.61).

 Rhetorical Structure: “Rhetorical structures of news discourse describe the

stylistic choices made by journalists in relation to their intended effects.

Gamson’s five framing decides (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989) – metaphors,

exemplars, catchphrases, depictions, and visual images – belong to this category”

(Pan and Kosicki, 1993, p. 61).

Pan and Kosicki (1993) then explained that the “frame or theme of a story is the central

idea collating the threads to form a coherent whole… it is constructed through

comprehending and interpreting the structural relations and functions of the various

signifying elements” (p. 63). In order to clarify the relationship of these four structural

dimensions to the idea of the news frame and to the overarching theory of news as

discourse, Pan and Kosicki (1993) provided the following conceptual diagram (p.63):

News Discourse Discourse Policy Semantics Frame Causal Reasoning Options

Discourse StS ScS ThS RhS Devices

Framing Devices Policy Preference Indicators

Responsibility Appealing to Causal Attributions Inferences principles

Conceptually, as shown in the diagram, news discourse consists of three main elements

or discourse semantics: the frame, causal reasoning, and policy options. The frame is

constructed from the discourse devices or categories discussed above: Syntactic (StS),

Script (ScS), Thematic (ThS), and Rhetorical (Rh). Within each of those categories are

discrete framing devices that can be located and identified within the text, for example

headlines or leads within the syntactic and metaphors or depictions within the rhetorical.

Policy options are the potential policy solutions that currently exist within the public

discourse. The news frames and the policy options are linked through causal reasoning

that can be explicit or implicit within the news text and can be found through an analysis of causal attributions, responsibility inferences, and appeals to principles within a news story or series of news reports.

With this conceptual framework in mind, it becomes possible to move “beyond the level of individual news stories to the level of a stream of news discourse concerning a public policy issue. It is even possible to trace and document the evolution of the discourse concerning an issue over a period of time” (Pan and Kosicki, 1993, p.64).

Once the news frames have been identified through examination of the syntactical, script, thematic and rhetorical devices, a critically-oriented discourse analysis approach can be applied to examine how this news discourse contributes to the

“Conversations” (Gee, 2005) surrounding school leadership and school reform. Gee

(2005) explained: “Conversations (with a capital ‘C’) are debates in society or within specific social groups (over focused issues such as smoking, abortion or school reform) that large numbers of people recognize, in terms of both what ‘sides’ there are to take in such debates and what sorts of people tend to be on each side” (Kindle Fire Version,

Location 1124).

Research Design and Processes

This study took a critically-oriented discourse analysis approach to the story of

Michelle Rhee in order to better understand how Rhee and her leadership decisions were framed and represented to the community in Washington, D.C. It was an attempt to “map the discursive field” (Thomas, 2004) of a particular policy conflict between an educational leader, Rhee, the organization she was attempting to lead, and the community

she was attempting to serve. The study considered news articles and editorial copy about

Rhee during the time of her chancellorship in DCPS that appeared in the The Washington

Post. The Washington Post was chosen because it is widely considered to be the newspaper of record for the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. It has the largest circulation and reaches the largest percentage of the local D.C. community. A search of the lexis/nexis archives of The Washington Post between June 12, 2007, and October 31,

2010, returned 1,118 results when the search term “Michelle A. Rhee” was used. I entered the documents into the QDA Miner Lite software and coded them for topic and theme. Once I had coded all 1,118 articles, the articles that focused on Rhee’s relationships with the Washington Teachers’ Union and/or the D.C. Council were isolated for analysis. The articles were then analyzed at the sentence level utilizing Gee’s

(2005) “Politics Building Tool” and “Identity Building Tool.” Gee recommends asking

“how words and grammatical devices are being used to build (construct, assume) what count as social goods and to distribute those to or withhold them from listeners or others.

Ask, as well, how words and grammatical devices are being used to build a viewpoint on how social goods are or should be distributed in society” (Gee, 2005, Kindle Fire

Version, location 3439). Once the articles were critically analyzed for their “politics building” and “identity building” effects, I applied Oh’s (2010) theory of complementary objectivity to attempt to explain how and why the Post writers covered and commented on Rhee the way that they did during her tenure. Ultimately, I used this analysis to make recommendations to current and future educational leaders regarding public relations and the press when discussing issues relating to school leadership and the responsibility for initiating or sustaining school reform efforts.

Research Methods

By recognizing news as a specialized form of discourse (Van Dijk, 1988), researchers were then able to “view news texts as a system of organized signifying elements that both indicate the advocacy of certain ideas and provide devices to encourage certain kinds of audience processing of the texts” (Pan and Kosicki, 1993, p.55-56). One could identify these news frames by deconstructing the article into units of meaning at the sentence level. Each sentence could then be examined to elucidate the discourse devices at work within and across the four structures of news discourse: syntactic, script, thematic, and rhetorical (Pan and Kosicki, 1993). By utilizing this approach to analyzing and coding text at the sentence level, I examined the documents and analyzed them for patterns and themes across the four structures. These patterns and themes constructed what can be referred to as a news frame. The benefit of this type of data analysis was that “these structural dimensions may help us analyze a large number of news stories concerning one event or issue and aggregate observations to a higher level”

(Pan and Kosicki, 1993, p. 69). However, as Pan and Kosicki (1993) noted, stopping one’s research at this level of analysis has significant limitations. “This style of framing analysis does not uncover the meanings of the story to be conveyed to audiences. Rather, it generates a data matrix of signifying elements that might result in different interpretations (Hall, 1980)” (p. 69).

In order to examine these potential differing interpretations, a critically-oriented discourse analysis was conducted. In his book, Discourse analysis: An introduction to theory and method, Gee (2005) recommended twenty-six questions for the researcher to

ask of the discourse or conversation being examined. These twenty-six questions, based on the “seven building tasks of language” (Gee, 2005, Kindle Fire Version, Location 520) and categorized based on the building task to which they relate, were as follows:

Building Significance 1. What are the situated meanings of some of the words and phrases that seem important in the situation? 2. What situated meanings and values seem to be attached to places, times, bodies, people, objects, artifacts, and institutions relevant in this situation? 3. What situated meanings and values are attached to other oral and written texts quoted or alluded to in the situation (intertextuality)? 4. What Discourse models seem to be at play in connecting and integrating these situated meanings to each other? 5. What institutions and/or Discourses are being (re-)produced in this situation and how are they being stabilized or transformed in the act? Building Activities 6. What is the larger or main activity (or set of activities) going on in the situation? 7. What sub-activities compose this activity (or these activities)? 8. What actions compose these sub-activities and activities? Building Identities 9. What identities (roles, positions), with their concomitant personal, social, and cultural knowledge and beliefs (cognition), feelings (affect), and values, seem to be relevant to, taken for granted in, or under construction in the situation? 10. How are these identities stabilized or transformed in the situation? 11. In terms of identities, activities, and relationships, what Discourses are relevant (and irrelevant) in the situation? How are they made relevant (and irrelevant), and in what ways? Building Relationships 12. What sorts of social relationships seem to be relevant to, taken for granted in, or under construction in the situation? 13. How are these social relationships stabilized or transformed in the situation? 14. How are other oral or written texts quoted or alluded to so as to set up certain relationships to other texts, people, or Discourses? 15. In terms of identities, activities, and relationships, what Discourses are relevant (and irrelevant) in the situation? How are they made relevant (and irrelevant), and in what ways? Building Politics

16. What social goods (e.g., status, power, aspects of gender, race, and class, or more narrowly defined social networks and identities) are relevant (and irrelevant), and in what ways? 17. How are these social goods connected to the Discourse models and Discourses operative in the situation? Building Connections 18. What sorts of connections – looking backward and/or forward – are made within and across utterances and large stretches of the interaction? 19. What sorts of connections are made to previous or future interactions, to other people, idea, texts, things, institutions, and Discourses outside the current situation? 20. How is intertextuality (quoting or alluding to other texts) used to create connections among the current situation and other ones or among different Discourses? 21. How do connections of the sort in 18, 19, and 20 help (together with situated meanings and Discourse models) to constitute “coherence” – and what sort of “coherence” – in the situation? Building Significance for Sign Systems and Knowledge 22. What sign systems are relevant (or irrelevant) in the situation (e.g., speech, writing, images, and gestures)? How are they made relevant (and irrelevant), and in what ways? 23. What systems of knowledge and ways of knowing are relevant (or irrelevant) in the situation? How are they made relevant (and irrelevant) and in what ways? 24. What languages in the sense of ‘national’ languages like English, Russian, or Hausa, are relevant (or irrelevant) in the situation? 25. What social languages are relevant (or irrelevant) in the situation? How are they made relevant (and irrelevant), and in what ways? 26. How is quoting or alluding to other oral or written texts (intertextuality) used to engage with the issues covered in questions 22-25? (Gee, 2005, Kindle Fire Version, Location 3113-3169).

These questions comprised a mental guide for the discourse analyst to follow when attempting to make sense of a particular discourse or text, and due to the historically constructed nature of discourse, this analysis often took place at the level of

Conversation, “the public debates that swirl around us in the media, in our reading, and in our interactions with other people, not any one specific discussion among specific

people” (Gee, 2005, Kindle Fire Version, Location 1512). As I have defined news frames as the “theme of a story [as] the central idea collating the threads to form a coherent whole” (Pan and Kosicki, 1993, p.63), these frames or themes, once identified, were analyzed as part of the discourse or conversation surrounding a particular issue. “People today often know these themes and values without knowing the historical events that helped create or sustain them in the past and pass them down to us today… Because people are often unaware of historical clashes among Discourses, it is often easier to study Conversations, rather than Discourses directly…” (Gee, 2005, Kindle Fire Version,

Location 1571). It was the aim of this researcher to utilize the text analysis technique recommended by Pan and Kowicki (1993) to identify central themes, motifs, and frames within the news discourse surrounding Michelle Rhee as Chancellor of DCPS and then utilize the “politics building tool” and “identity building tool” for discourse analysis recommended by Gee (2005) to conduct a critically-oriented discourse analysis of this news discourse in an attempt to understand its contribution to the Conversation (Gee,

2005) about school leadership, organized labor and public school reform in 21st century urban school systems.

Validity

Gee (2005) considered the issue of validity when applied to discourse analysis research. As befits a constructivist epistemology, Gee approached the question of validity by arguing:

Validity is not constituted by arguing that a discourse analysis ‘reflects reality’ in any simple way (Mishler 1990; Carspecken 1996). And this is so for two reasons. First humans construct their realities, though what is ‘out there’ beyond human control places serious constraints on this construction….Second, just as language

is always reflexively related to situations so that both make each other meaningful, so, too, a discourse analysis, being itself composed in language, is reflexively related to the “language-plus-situation” it is about. The analyst interprets his or her data in a certain way and those data so interpreted, in turn, render the analysis meaningful in certain ways and not others” (Gee, 2005, Kindle Fire Version, Location 3181-3191).

In other words, because “validity,” “language,” and “discourse” are all constructs in their own rights, one cannot claim to have validity in an all-or-nothing way. Rather, “validity

[is] something that different analyses can have more or less of…” (Gee, 2005, Kindle

Fire Version, Location 3191). Gee (2005) recommended examining four elements to determine the level of validity of a study: 1) the extent to which the answers to the twenty-six questions converge; 2) the extent to which other analyses or other researchers agree with the analysis; 3) the extent to which it can be applied to, or said to cover, what occurs in related data or situations; and 4) the extent to which it is tied to linguistic details. Gee (2005) also cautioned that:

Validity is social, not individual. A given piece of discourse work will have a major point or theme, or a small set of them. These are the work’s hypotheses. Authors will normally argue for the validity of their analyses by arguing that some aspects of convergence, agreement, coverage, and linguistic details are met in their analysis. But no piece of work can, or should, ask all possible questions, seek all possible sources of agreement, cover all the data conceivably related to the data under analysis, or seek to deal with every possibly relevant linguistic detail (Gee, 2005, Kindle Fire Version, Location 3210-3219).

There are numerous questions that could be asked of the news discourse surrounding

Michelle Rhee as Chancellor of DCPS. However, this analysis sought to answer the questions regarding the portrayal of school leadership and the responsibilities school leaders have in initiating or sustaining public school reform.

Ethical Considerations

This research study was designed as a critically-oriented discourse analysis of news discourse surrounding a specific person, Michelle Rhee, during a specific time period, her tenure as Chancellor of DCPS. The study was designed to contribute to generalizable knowledge about how school leadership and school reform efforts are covered by mainstream news media. Although information about individually identifiable living individuals may be passively gleaned from the documents studied, all information about these individuals is published in a freely available public forum and, therefore, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. This research, therefore, does not involve human subjects and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regulations at 45 CFR part 46 do not apply.

Chapter 4: Findings

This study examined the Washington Post’s coverage of Michelle Rhee during her tenure as Chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools. As the generally accepted paper of record for the Washington D.C. area, examining the body of coverage

(news articles, columns, features, and editorial copy) related to Rhee published in the

Post provided an opportunity to map the evolution of the media discourse in D.C. on school reform and educational leadership. Between June 12, 2007, when Rhee was announced as Chancellor, and October 31, 2010, when Rhee officially left her position, the Post published 1,118 documents that included the term “Michelle A. Rhee” (as determined by a LexisNexis search). As it is the practice of the Post to always refer to a public figure in the initial reference in a particular document by his/her full name, searches of other terms such as “Michelle Rhee” or “Rhee” returned duplicate or unrelated documents. Within the 1,118 results from this search, there were occasionally duplicate documents as the same story might run in more than one edition of the Post, i.e. the City edition and the Suburban edition, or a truncated version of a previous story might appear in a “Week in Review” article or within the “District Briefs” column.

I read and coded these documents at the sentence level for recurring constructs that Post writers repeatedly used within their coverage of Rhee and her leadership of

DCPS. I imported the documents into QDA Miner Lite, a software program that allowed for analysis of coding frequencies to determine the most common topics and themes within the Post’s coverage of and commentary on Rhee and her leadership of DCPS for readers. For ease of reading and to reinforce that the individual articles, columns and editorals were merely pieces of a larger discourse constructed and disseminated by the

Post as a news organization, rather than by individual journalists, I gave the articles numbers based on their chronological publication date (i.e. D1, D2, etc.). In instances where multiple documents related to Rhee were published on the same date, I assigned the numbers based on the order in which the documents appeared in the LexisNexis search results. (See Appendix A for a complete listing of all articles). In this chapter, I have presented a chronological summary of the Post’s coverage of Rhee’s conflicts with the Washington Teachers’ Union and the D.C. Council and applied Gee’s (2005) “politics building tool” and “identity building tool” for critical discourse analysis to uncover how the Post’s coverage and commentary on Rhee was utilized to “build a viewpoint on how social goods are or should be distributed in society” (Gee, 2005, Kindle Fire Version, location 3439).

Numerous themes emerged throughout the coding of the articles. For example, a study could have easily been conducted on the news media coverage of “student achievement” during Rhee’s tenure and how “student achievement” was tied to education reform efforts. Themes of efficiency and accountability could similarly have been examined. However, tracing and analyzing these themes through the coverage, while potentially instructive, would not have told as comprehensive a story about educational leadership as the one that I was able to tell by tracing the theme of “What’s Best for Kids vs. Organized Labor.” This theme was overwhelming throughout the coverage and created a false dichotomy between students’ rights to educational equity and teachers’ rights to labor protections. Once this dichotomy was constructed through the Post’s early coverage of Rhee’s conflict with the Washington Teachers’ Union, it was accepted as

“fact” throughout the rest of the coverage and became a tool used to facilitate the

complementary objectivity that ultimately colored the portrait of Rhee as an educational leader that the Post painted over the course of her tenure. By examining the theme of

“What’s Best for Kids vs. Organized Labor,” I was able to apply the theory of complementary objectivity to my analysis to explain how the Post, consciously or unconsciously, worked to support Rhee’s pro-reform policies, while balancing this with a critique of her communication style and personality. This ultimately led to conclusions about the impact that communication style, media coverage, and public perception can have on educational leadership and education reform movements.

On April 4, 2007, the Washington Post published a front-page story reporting that the D.C. Council had approved legislation the day before, granting the mayor “control over the budget, key administrative functions and the blueprint for modernizing every dilapidated building” in the District of Columbia Public School system. Championed by

Council Chairman, Vincent C. Gray, the legislation was approved by a 9-2 vote. While the Post was prescient enough to describe this legislation as “a dramatic shift in power for the city’s public schools,” little fanfare accompanied the article. On May 22, 2007, the Post reported on an attempt by Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu to block a

Congressional vote approving the legislation, a vote which was necessary due to the fact that the legislation aimed to amend the city’s Home Rule Charter, and on May 23, 2007, printed a follow-up story reporting that the block had been removed and that the legislation had been approved by a Senate vote. This vote effectively left “the mayor one signature away from taking control of the troubled public education system.” On June

11, 2007, the day before the legislation was set to become D.C. Law, the Post published a front-page story chronicling decades of dysfunction in DCPS. Running under the

headline “Worn Down by Waves of Change,” the article reviewed the embattled history of the public school system and the rotating cast of leaders who attempted to take charge and reign in a system in disrepair. Little did they know the tidal wave of change, controversy and coverage that would result from Mayor Adrian Fenty’s announcement of his appointment of the first-ever D.C. School Chancellor the following morning. For the next three years, the Post organization covered the continuing drama that unfolded as various factions battled over the leadership of DCPS. This coverage, when examined in its entirety as a cultural artifact, wove a narrative of policy, power, and public perception that began with Fenty’s appointment of Michelle Rhee on June 12, 2007, and continued even after Fenty’s lost bid for re-election and Rhee’s resignation in late 2010. In this chapter, I aimed to summarize the Post’s coverage of Rhee during her tenure as

Chancellor of DCPS, particularly with regards to the high-profile conflicts Rhee endured with the Washington Teachers’ Union and the D.C. Council, and highlight within that coverage the dominant constructs that were utilized across the Post organization to frame

Rhee and her educational leadership for the public.

On June 12, 2007, Mayor Adrian Fenty officially took control of the District of

Columbia Public School system. Granted this authority by the District of Columbia

Public Education Reform Amendment Act of 2007, Fenty’s first action removed the current Superintendent Clifford B. Janey from his position, reportedly via a late-night phone call, and appointed to the newly created position of Chancellor dark-horse candidate Michelle A. Rhee. Fenty introduced Rhee to the public at a press conference on the morning of June 12, 2007, after introducing her to the D.C. City Council members only moments earlier. Rhee was known to some in D.C. education circles through her

work at The New Teacher Project, which had maintained a contract with DCPS for several years to recruit and train teachers for the struggling urban system. However, to most, she was an unlikely candidate for this position, which effectively placed her in control of the day-to-day operations of a school system with over 50,000 students and upwards of 11,000 employees. Her virtual anonymity and non-traditional path to school system leadership, as well as the lack of public vetting prior to her appointment, meant that Rhee needed to be introduced to the public. Fenty and Rhee spent a significant amount of time in the early days of her Chancellorship on a “press tour” of sorts: visiting schools, meeting with parents and community members, surveying warehouses to count textbooks and inventory supplies, always with reporters in tow.

The Post covered these early days of Rhee’s tenure in a perfunctory manner, as textbook inventories and school building spruce-ups made for feel-good news stories.

However, once Rhee announced her intention to introduce legislation to grant her the authority to reclassify central office employees as “at-will” workers, effectively giving her the power to fire them without cause, the Post began to cover and comment on

Rhee’s reform efforts with regards to her legal authority, the conflict with organized labor, and her personality conflicts with the D.C. Council. The narrative that ultimately emerged was a narrative of pro-market, pro-reform, anti-union sentiment, balanced by an anti-Rhee vehemence that focused on her personality and communication style. This use of complementary objectivity worked to promote Rhee’s positional power through support of her legal authority and pro-market, pro-privatization reforms, while containing

Rhee’s personal power through critiques of her personality and communication style grounded in the dominant cultural narratives of race, class and gender.

On August 29, 2007, a mere two days after receiving plaudits for a successful opening of the system, Rhee announced her first major attempt to shake-up the status quo of DCPS. In its front-page story on August 29, the Post’s headline screamed “Rhee

Seeks Authority to Terminate Employees” and the lead paragraphs informed readers:

Post quoted several Council members as being skeptical of granting this authority to

Rhee:

Council member Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large) said Rhee explained during a recent meeting with him that she wants to bring in new upper-level managers and downsize the central administration by as much as 30-40 percent… “It’s not rocket science to know the central office is disorganized. Everyone knows that,” Brown said. “The question is, to what extent is it disorganized, and what is the solution? Clearly, I need to more specifics.” Another council member who has met with Rhee declined to speak for attribution because the conversation was private. But this person called the potential firings a “TNT issue” that could be met with skepticism by members whose constituents would stand to lose their jobs (D92, para. 6-9).

While no other story appeared in the Post in the following week to further explore this potential power-shift, the Post’s editorial copy on September 8th placed the news

organizations opinion firmly on the side of Rhee’s reforms, beginning the editorial piece by remarking that:

Members of the D.C. Council who are squeamish about making it easier to fire school employees should think about why they shifted control of the schools to the mayor. Tinkering around the edges won’t turn around the dysfunctional system. Dramatic change is needed, and that’s why Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee is right to want to shake up the administration and overhaul personnel rules (D99, para. 1).

While the issue of personnel authority and Rhee’s publicly expressed desire to terminate hundreds of ineffective employees in the DCPS central office percolated in the public consciousness and legislation granting Rhee firing power was drafted for consideration by the council, Rhee and her team introduced to the public the other early hot-button issue of her chancellorship – closing numerous under-enrolled schools as a cost-saving measure to make DCPS more efficient for all students. In a September 28, 2007, article examining the state of DCPS facilities, the Post reported: “City education leaders also said yesterday, for the first time, that they plan to close some schools next year” (D117, para. 2). The article continued, noting that these “remarks were the first public indication that the Fenty administration will pursue the politically sensitive issue of eliminating millions of excess square footage because of declining student enrollment, a position embraced by the former superintendent, the school board and members of Congress”

(D117, para. 10).

In October 2007, public attention remained focused on Rhee’s quest for the authority to fire central office employees, as Fenty presented legislation to the D.C.

Council on October 12 that would eventually become the “Public Education Personnel

Reform Amendment Act of 2008.” In an article in the Metro section, the Post described

this legislation as a request from Fenty to “amend city personnel rules to give Schools

Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee the power to fire hundreds of employees in a planned restructuring of the system’s central administration” (D128, para. 1). The article further explained that “Fenty proposed to reclassify nonunion employees in the central office as

‘at-will’ workers who serve at the discretion of the chancellor, meaning they could be terminated for nondisciplinary reasons” (D128, para. 2).

Coverage of these issues quickly began to be framed under the purportedly competing constructs of “What’s Best for Kids” v. “Protecting Teachers Rights” thanks to a front-page article that ran under the headline “D.C. Schools Chief Wants Power to

Fire Ineffective Teachers” (D129). This was the frame that would dominate the remainder of the coverage of Rhee’s tenure as Chancellor of DCPS. In the lead paragraphs of the article, the Post reported:

As D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty proposed legislation yesterday that would grant schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee the power to drastically revamp the system’s central office, Rhee said she also wants more authority to fire underperforming teachers. It was her first public statement that teachers could be ousted as part of what Fenty (D) called “wholesale changes” to the 49,000-student system (D129, para. 1-2).

The article then detailed both the authority that would be granted to Rhee with the passage of the Public Education Personnel Reform Amendment Act of 2008, as well as

Rhee’s negotiations with the Washington Teachers’ Union to “‘reward and recognize’ high-performing teachers while weeding out instructors who are not serving children well” (D129, para. 9). The Post continued to explore the implications of these legislative and collective bargaining changes, utilizing a quote from Chairman of the D.C. Board,

Vincent Gray, to effectively frame the conversation as a discussion about the seemingly competing interests of “what’s best for kids” and “protecting teacher’s rights.”

Gray also said he wants to know the connection between firing workers and improving students’ education, which he said was the goal of the schools takeover. “We want to be convinced that this is going to do it,” he said (D129, para. 15).

From October 2007 to October 2010, the seemingly competing constructs of

“what’s best for kids” and “protecting the rights of teachers” were utilized to frame the reform efforts and decision-making of Rhee and her team. In response to the October 13 article cited above, the Post immediately reported on a letter from the Vice President of the Washington Teachers’ Union urging the executive board of the union to “fight the

Fenty administration plan to fire school central office employees, saying union members should immediately organize a strategy to oppose the legislation” (D133, para. 1). When asked to comment for the article, Rhee’s spokeswoman was quoted as saying that “the chancellor stood by her remarks last week about rewarding high-performing teachers and removing ineffective educators” (D133, para. 9). Placed as a rebuttal to this idea is a quote from union Vice President Nathan Saunders, “We must enter into formal negotiations now, as required by law, in order to protect our members’ rights” (D133, para. 14). The Post article characterized this conflict as a “potential showdown between organized labor and the Fenty-Rhee team in its high-profile efforts to overhaul the

49,000-student school system, which is plagued by declining enrollment, poor test scores and dilapidated buildings” (D133, para. 4).

In the Post’s November 3, 2007, article detailing the first public hearing on the proposed legislation, these framing constructs became plainly apparent in the quotes chosen by the reporter to represent Rhee’s views in comparison to Saunder’s (and by

proxy the union’s) views. Reporting on Rhee’s testimony to support the passage of the legislation, the Post wrote:

Rhee said she needs the authority to overhaul schools as promised when Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) took the reins of the system in June. She described a highly dysfunctional central office, where phones go unanswered and where employees give parents, teachers, and administrators the runaround. She said such behavior hurts the schools’ educational performance. “We are allowing the race, socioeconomic status and Zip code in which a child is born to dictate his or her academic achievement levels and, therefore, their life chances and life outcomes. That is the greatest social injustice imaginable,” she said. “I think that with this legislation, we can take the first steps to changing these outcomes” (D142, para. 6-7).

While parents who testified were quoted briefly as supporting Rhee, the article quickly shifted to supply the viewpoint of the Washington Teachers’ Union.

Although only nonunion employees would be affected by the legislation, they were not among the two dozen public witnesses who testified yesterday. But the union leaders said they were speaking for them as much as for their members. Nathan A. Saunders, general vice president of the 4,000-member Washington Teachers’ Union, said he did not see anything in the legislation showing that firings at the central office would improve student achievement.

In a November 4, 2007, article covering a summit held by Rhee and Fenty to allow students of DCPS to voice their concerns regarding the system, statements that equated the proposed legislation with doing “what’s best for kids” were directly attributed to

Rhee:

Rhee told students she is battling school employee unions who oppose her quest to win D.C. Council approval to fire hundreds of low-performing workers in the central office. “We have to take the focus off adults and put it on what is in the best interest of kids,” she said. “This is going to be a fight. I need you to be involved in it. I need your voices to be heard” (D143, para. 15)

As tensions remained high during the public comment period on the personnel legislation, Rhee’s team unveiled a plan to close 24 under-enrolled schools throughout the district. Rhee’s plans to close schools and fire employees quickly became conflated

in the public discourse, as can be seen in the headline of the Post article that first announced the potential closures: “Fenty, Rhee Look at Closing 24 Schools, Reducing

Staff” (D159). Rhee’s plans to close schools quickly became framed within the Post’s reporting as doing “what’s best for kids.” After attributing remarks to Fenty describing the new early-childhood, gifted and talented, special education, music and art programs that he and Rhee wanted to implement in the school system, the article quoted Rhee’s justification for the school closures.

To pay for the programs, Rhee said, the school system must pare down its excess space, which stands at about 302 square feet per student, about twice the national average. The proposal calls for decreasing the 15 million square feet of space in the system to 12.8 million. “Currently, we are not affording our students qualify programs they deserve,” Rhee said. “We must provide initiatives and school programs that not only serve kids well but also appeal to parents. With this initiative, we believe we’ve laid out a plan that will achieve the highest level of academic performance for students. In order to do this, we must move toward a more effective use of our resources” (D160, para. 14-15).

As the coverage of the school closures exploded into a political nightmare for Rhee and

Fenty, garnering large amounts of negative coverage, the unions worked to continue to conflate the school closure issue with the proposed personnel legislation. On December

6, 2007, the Post reported on a new radio advertisement being launched by the union to rally opposition to the personnel legislation. The article attributed remarks to the union spokesperson, Dwight Kirk, that acknowledged the intentional attempts of the union to conflate these two issues in the minds of the public.

This quote also illustrated the type of critique of Rhee that begins to dominate the Post’s coverage of her decisions. By stating that Rhee’s decision to close schools had drawn

“the ire of parents, council members and community leaders who say their voices were not heard,” the Post critiqued not Rhee’s action itself (the closing of schools), but the way in which she went about informing the public about her decisions (her communication style). This technique allowed the Post to present seemingly balanced coverage of Rhee’s decisions, without actually presenting a counterargument to Rhee’s reforms. It is not that Rhee shouldn’t close the 23 schools to save money and reform the system, the Post implied; it’s just that she should have consulted the community and D.C.

Council about it first.

Despite the best efforts of the unions and parent advocates to oppose the two legislative issues facing the D.C. Council, the Council voted on December 18, 2007, to grant Rhee authority over personnel decisions and to approve legislation requesting $81 million in supplemental funds to help close the system’s budget deficit and provide the necessary funds to move forward with the proposed school closings. The Post quoted

Rhee regarding her victory:

“Today is a momentous day for District of Columbia public schools,” Rhee said at a news briefing after the vote on the personnel bill. “It marks truly an amazing first step that we are finally going to put the best interest of students above everything else” (D188, para. 3).

The Post again presented the opposing viewpoint of the unions, completing the “what’s best for kids” v. “protecting the rights of teachers” framework:

Opponents of the legislation warned that the council’s action might open a dangerous path in which employees are wrongly fired and used as scapegoats for the ills of urban public education. If the council approves the legislation on final reading Jan. 8, the rights of all city workers, especially those who are no unionized, could be at risk, opponents said. “Have you undermined the merit system for all city departments?” Nathan A. Saunders, general vice president of the Washington Teachers’ Union, asked in an interview. “Whenever someone comes in to take over a department of city agency you know the first thing they

are going to ask for? The same rights given to the chancellor” (D188, para. 11- 13).

In their editorial copy running the same day, the Post unabashedly took a pro-reform stance and reinforced their framing of the issue, stating that:

Some less-than-capable employees may be worried now that Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee will soon have authority to weed out poor performers. That’s okay. District students for too long have been ill-served by a system more interested in job protection than education… The D.C. Council gave initial but overwhelming approval yesterday to new personnel rules aimed at the dysfunctional central administration. Under the legislation, workers who have enjoyed virtual lifetime job security no matter their record will be held accountable… Placing the rights of workers over the interests of children were council members Marion Barry (D- Ward 8), Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) and Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5)… (D189, para. 1-3).

With legislative authority over non-union personnel decisions secured, Rhee turned her attention back to the proposed closing of 23 schools across the district prior to fall 2008. In an attempt to gather public feedback regarding the school closures, Rhee cancelled a planned district-wide public hearing on the closures and instead coordinated

23 separate hearings, one in each of the neighborhoods potentially affected by the closures. This move backfired, eliciting accusations from parents and Council members of attempting to “divide and conquer” the public opposition. While the school closure plan had little to no impact on the teachers’ union, the Post still quoted Nathan Saunders as the opposing viewpoint.

“The improvement of public education in the District has to be respectful of all partners. The fact that it is not will guarantee failure,” Nathan Saunders, vice president of the Washington Teachers’ Union, said in an interview. “One stakeholder cannot force success in this system by themselves,” he added (D217, para. 19-20).

Yet, when the mayoral order to close schools was issued on January 31, the Post quoted Fenty’s justification for the closures, based on the recommendations he received

from Rhee, as the fact that they “made a decision on what’s best for the academic concerns for kids in the system” (D248, para. 13).

While she was granted the authority to reclassify and terminate central office employees in December of 2007, Rhee did not act on that authority until March of 2008.

On March 8, 2008, the Post reported that “Ninety-eight D.C. school system employees were fired yesterday as part of Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee’s effort to establish a

‘culture of accountibility’ by sweeping out unproductive and unneeded workers at the central office” (D275, para.1). With this lead sentence of the front page article, the Post unequivocally promoted a pro-reform mentality. The article continued by detailing the legal authority that was granted to Rhee back in December allowing for this action. The only critique of the terminations came from quotes attributed to the fired workers themselves, who could be viewed as disgruntled, and from D.C. council members regarding how they were informed of the firings. “Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) said he was upset that Rhee told him about the firings after the fact. Rhee and Mayor Adrian M.

Fenty (D) angered some members last year when they failed to brief them about 23 schools scheduled to close before the list appeared in the media” (D275, para. 21). This again illustrated a pattern that would continue in the Post’s coverage of Rhee – a pro-

Rhee-reform stance, balanced by an anti-Rhee-personality discourse. Again, the Post did not present an actual critique of the firings themselves, merely a critique about how Rhee informed stakeholders about her decision.

With the battle over the non-union central office employees and the school closures behind her, Rhee moved on to what many viewed as the final impediment to lasting reform in DCPS, the teachers’ contract. In December of 2007, Rhee quietly began

negotiating with the Washington Teachers’ Union regarding the expired teachers’ contract. The Post cast a light on these negotiations for the first time in its February 22,

2008, editorial copy:

At center stage in D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee’s efforts to reform schools have been high-profile bids to shake up the bureaucracy and close some schools. As important as these efforts are, a more crucial endeavor is unfolding outside the limelight in contract negotiations with the city’s teachers. Rules that put the interests of teachers ahead of the educational needs of children must be changed if Ms. Rhee is to succeed in transforming the system (D258, para. 1).

As the spring of 2008 dawned, Rhee continued to make news for various decisions and appearances, as public figures are wont to do, but there is little to reporting regarding the collective bargaining or any personnel decisions. However, in March 2008,

Rhee finally took action exercising the authority granted to her in January with the passage of the Public Education Personnel Reform Amendment Act, and fired 98 central office employees. Again, this action was framed in the front-page story’s headline as a move toward efficiency and accountability. The article led its coverage with the statement: “Ninety-eight D.C. school system employees were fired yesterday as part of

Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee’s effort to establish a ‘culture of accountability’ by sweeping out unproductive and unneeded workers at the central office” (D275, para. 1).

While the article quoted disgruntled dismissed employees, the legality of the action was inarguable, as the Post noted: “The move came about two months after the D.C. Council gave her unprecedented authority to reclassify about 390 of the more than 700 nonunion central office workers under ‘at-will’ status, which allowed her to fire them without cause” (D275, para. 3).

A follow-up article the following day in the Post’s Metro section reported that

D.C. Council members were questioning the “fairness” of the dismissals and whether

Rhee had properly followed policy and procedure in determining who would be terminated. While the Post article noted that “the legislation gives Rhee the right to dismiss them whether they are good or bad performers” (D276, para. 4), it also stated that

Council Chairman Vincent Gray “said he was concerned about whether Rhee properly used the evaluations to determine who should be terminated” (D276, para. 6). With the firing of the central office employees, Rhee entered into a conflict with Gray that would last until her resignation. Despite having granted Rhee the legal authority to take such personnel action, Gray and other council members began to question Rhee’s positional power. While reporting on these power struggles between Rhee and the council, the Post never waivers from its pro-Rhee-reform stance, effectively promoting her positional power and the legal authority granted to the chancellor’s office. In their editorial copy on

March 13, 2008, the Post wrote:

About 100 employees in the school system’s central office were dismissed, either because they weren’t needed or because they were seen as doing their jobs poorly. The terminations were made possible by new authority given Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee to streamline the bloated and inefficient central administration. Though the loss of jobs is painful for individuals and their families, the move was necessary (D287, para.3).

As negotiations with the Washington Teachers’ Union continued through the spring of 2008, various proposals garnered brief mentions in the Post’s coverage. There were mentions of potential merit-pay agreements and the possibility of an early- retirement offering. The early retirement offering, while agreed upon by Rhee and the union, still garnered criticism from many, including some union leaders, because the buyout was offered not only to those nearing retirement, but also to any teacher currently employed at the schools slated for closure under Rhee’s restructuring plan. The Post

quoted union vice president Saunders, again as the voice of opposition, and supported his viewpoint with quotes from Candi Peterson, a member of the union’s board of trustees.

“No credible school system would encourage young and mid-level teachers to resign,” she said, adding that she demanded to be placed on the agenda of next week’s meeting of the union’s board and delegates so she can ask WTU President George Parker to explain the extent of his own involvement in the place. “Most teachers in the restructured and closed schools are certified… Rhee will probably hire [replacement] teachers who are not certified” (D314, para. 5).

The Post again chose to frame Rhee’s response to the criticism with the “what’s best for kids” rhetoric:

Rhee’s spokeswoman, Mafara Hobson, said in a statement: “While the plan may not completely satisfy adults, the students of the District of Columbia are the motivating factors in this and every decision the Mayor and Chancellor make” (D314, para. 7).

In its accompanying editorial copy, the Post also continued to support Rhee’s “what’s best for kids” message, rather than support the efforts of the teachers’ union.

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee recognizes that there is no easy, magic solution to the challenge of turning around the city’s troubled schools. She does know, though, that the single most significant factor affecting student learning is teacher quality. That’s why she is right to want to shake up and reinvigorate her instructional staff. As many as 700 teachers could receive financial incentives to leave the system under a buyout plan….Nonetheless, it has precipitated the predictable backlash from those teachers and union officials more concerned about their interests than those of students” (D317, para. 1-3).

Shortly thereafter, the Post reported that Rhee had negotiated a “controversial agreement”

(D327, para. 1) with Washington Teachers’ Union President George Parker “giving her the right to reassign all teachers at 23 schools slated to be closed with no guarantee that they would move to the schools where their students would be transferred” (D327, para.

1). This agreement was the first step in giving Rhee control over personnel decisions regarding union members. While the agreement was reached between Rhee and Parker, many union members dissented, arguing that the agreement violated seniority rules in the

teachers’ contract. Nathan Saunders and Candi Peterson were again quoted by the Post as the opposing viewpoints:

Parker “has got to be stopped; he’s giving away the store,” said Nathan Saunders, the union’s general vice president. ‘This will affect the union forever and a day” (D327, para. 10).

Candi Peterson, a trustee in the union, said union leaders learned of the agreement last week – six days after it had been signed. She said officers directed Saunders to send a letter to Rhee demanding that teachers at the closed schools be guaranteed jobs. She said she fears that some teachers who are not hired through the interview process would be let go if not placed sometime in the fall. Older teachers are concerned that “when they go for an interview, they won’t get picked up [because principals] will get two younger teachers for their salaries,” said Peterson (D327, para. 16-17).

In May 2008, Rhee continued to assert her authority over personnel decisions by exercising her ability to remove school administrators at-will. Rhee made headlines again for firing 24 principals, including the principal of her daughter’s elementary school:

“Rhee Dismisses 24 Principals; 13 Firings at Schools Not Meeting ‘No Child Left

Behind’ Rules” (D343, headline) and “Rhee Defends Firing Her Children’s Principal”

(D351, headline). In her defense of her actions, Rhee again employed the “Best for Kids” rhetoric that had become her mantra and the mantra of her defenders:

Rhee said that as a parent “in the school three days a week,” ad with information from her own staff, she had a broad base of opinion to draw on. She said a major concern she had, for example, was that while the “English dominant” students, such as her daughters, were learning Spanish, they were “not truly bilingual in the way we would want.” For that to happen, bilingualism needed to be more deeply embedded into all moments of the school day. “The bottom line here is that in order to take the school to the next level…we need new leadership,” Rhee said (D351, para. 7-8).

Shortly thereafter, Rhee introduced to the public what would become the hallmark, as well as most divisive, reform attempt during her tenure – her proposal for the new

teachers’ contract, moving the “Best for Kids” v. “Rights of Teachers” rhetoric to a fevered, yet sustained pitch for the next two years.

On May 21, 2008, the Post reported that “The Washington Teachers’ Union is discussing a proposed three-year contract from the school system that would eliminate seniority, giving Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee more control in filling vacancies…” (D352, para. 1). In Editorial Copy on May 27, 2008, the Post again took a pro-Rhee stance, echoing her “best for kids” rhetoric in their assessment of Rhee’s first full-year in her post by noting: “Michelle A. Rhee has done more in months to reshape the system than her predecessors did in years. Yet the work has barely begun, because – for children in D.C. classrooms – much is still the sorry same” (D359, para. 1) and “Key here is reaching agreement with the teachers on a contract that places the interests of children first” (D359, para. 4). In another editorial in July, the Post continued to take a stance in support of Rhee’s proposed teacher contract:

District school officials are drafting a bold plan to revolutionize how teachers are paid…. Months of negotiations with the Washington Teachers’ Union have resulted in the broad outlines of a plan that would provide for two pay scales… Instead of facing the loss of promising teachers to better-paying jobs in the suburbs, the city would be able to fashion an exciting new workforce in which positive results – and the teachers who bring them about – are rewarded…The real winners would be the students… (D392, para. 1-3).

As the collective bargaining negotiations over the teacher contract moved into what would become a 2-year stalemate, eventually requiring mediation from an outside party, Rhee continued on her crusade to rid DCPS of ineffective teachers, utilizing whatever authority she had under current D.C. law. On July 4, 2008, the Post reported that Rhee had announced plans to fire 750 educators from the system who had missed a critical certification date. By firing the 750 educators, she said, the school system now is

in compliance with the law [No Child Left Behind]…. “We have thousands of highly qualified, dedicated teachers and paraprofessionals serving DCPS students everyday,”

Rhee said in a statement. “Unfortunately, complying with federal law is not optional and we thank those DCPS employees who have worked diligently to meet the requirements

(D389, para. 4-5).

The following day, the Post devoted an entire article to promoting the “best for kids” reform rhetoric. The article, headlined “Rhee Deploys Army of Believers” (D390, headline), noted that:

Rhee is trying to shape a generation of principals who share the heart of her approach, which means sifting test results to identify student deficits (the “data- driven culture”) and tailoring teaching to met children’s specific needs (“differentiated instruction”). And, like Rhee, they are devoted to the proposition that poor children in bad schools deserve a full and fair chance to learn (D390, para. 9-10).

On July 8, 2008, in a piece of editorial copy, the Post again re-iterated its support of Rhee’s reforms as “what’s best for kids” by writing:

District school officials are drafting a bold plan to revolutionize how teachers are paid… D.C. teachers could become among the highest-paid in the country, but, predictably, opposition is being fomented by those fearful of any change. They should not squander a unique opportunity for teachers and the students they serve” (D392, para. 1).

Even when reporting on DCPS and Rhee in articles not directly focusing on the collective bargaining or personnel decisions, the Post continued to utilize the pro-Rhee-reform, anti-Rhee-personality dichotomy to “balance” their coverage. In a July 10, 2008, article detailing an increase in student achievement, the Post reported:

Since taking over the system in June 2007, Rhee has been criticized for her hard- charging style… “We made every one of those decisions be cause we felt that this is what needed to happen… so achievement can be maximized…” Rhee said at a news conference at Plummer Elementary School in Southeast Washington, where

reading scores jumped 17 percentage points and math by 15… “I wasn’t expecting to see such large gains early on,” Rhee said. “It’s a testament to what kids can do” (D396, para. 7-8).

As Rhee’s collective bargaining with the Washington Teachers’ Union regarding a new contract continued, the Post reported on a controversy arising from whether or not Rhee should be allowed to directly address teachers to detail her pay-for-performance plan. On

July 22, 2008, a Metro section article reported:

Continued tensions with the leadership of the Washington Teachers’ Union over contract talks with the D.C. school system broke into the open yesterday as two members of the group’s executive board protested plans for Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee to speak at a series of membership meetings that begins today (D402, para. 1).

Yet, when the Post chose to quote a union member on her opposition, it was again framed not as an opposition to the plan itself, but an opposition to Rhee’s perceived “coercive” approach to the reform:

Peterson called on teachers to boycott the informational meetings. “Even if [performance pay] is the option the membership should choose, then we have the right to review any tentative proposal without coercion or influence by Chancellor Rhee” (D402, para. 7-8).

Commenting on the tensions in their editorial copy the following day, the Post editors again invoked a “best for kids” v. “teachers’ rights” rhetoric and openly took a pro-Rhee- reform stance:

As the Post’s Bill Turque reported, the union’s general vice president, Nathan A. Saunders, and board member Candi Peterson are urging teachers to boycott the meetings, using overblown rhetoric about the sessions being a tool for destroying the union. In truth, the real danger to the union lies in the reactionary politics of officials who are more concerned with protecting their entrenched interests than in what makes sense for teachers and their students (D404, para.2).

Despite the protests of some union leaders, Rhee addressed teachers to detail her new play for a two-tiered pay system. Reporting on the plan, the Post noted that: “Under the

first tier of the proposal, teachers would receive pay increases totaling 28 percent over the next five years… Teachers choosing the second option would get bigger rewards but assume greater risks.” The plan was presented by the Post as a positive development for teachers. The only dissent noted in the article again came from an anti-Rhee- communication style position, quoting union Vice President Nathan Saunders criticism of her for “unseemly collaboration” (D406, para. 16) with the president of the union. The

Post also noted in the final sentences of the article:

The information packet distributed yesterday included a copy of a little-used 2000 law on the District books that allows principals to diminish the importance of seniority by using other factors, including job evaluations, in deciding whether to retain teachers. What Rhee intended by distributing copies of the law was not clear (D406, para. 22-23).

In a letter to the editor, published August 3, 2008, union board member, Candi Peterson, called out the editorial board of the Post on their support of Rhee’s reforms, writing:

I dismiss the reasoning in this editorial [D404 cited above] as that of the right- wing, rich and powerful, politically connected and corporate leaders who seek to control political thought in Washington. But if I fail to respond to The Post’s anti-union, anti-teacher discourse, the public just might accept your version of reality… It is time for The Post to stop putting political ideology ahead of equitable coverage of the other side of the public education reform story” (D413, para. 1, 3).

Shortly thereafter, the Post published its first fully-critical article focused on Rhee:

“Advocates Seek More Openness from Rhee’s Regime; Critics Cite ‘Top-Down

Approach to Managing’” (D429, headline). It is interesting to note that in less than two months, Rhee had gone from leading “An Army of Believers” (D404, headline) to

“managing” a “regime.” As the Post reacted to the criticism leveled by Peterson in her letter, its reporting took on a more overt criticism of Rhee in an attempt to provide

balance. However, once again this “balance” came through a critique of Rhee’s personality and communication style, rather than a critique of her actual reform agenda:

When Michelle A. Rhee came onto the D.C. school scene last year, many advocates expressed optimism that she would shake up the system. Fourteen months later, they say they feel let down. Parents, educators and other advocates say that more centralized control has led to less candor with the public. There are fewer forums in which to express discontent, they say, and people important in implementing Rhee’s ambitious plans – parents, teachers and students – sometimes feel marginalized (D429, para. 1).

This artificial “balance” of pro-Rhee-reform and anti-Rhee-as-communicator again worked to support and legitimate her positional power, while containing her personal power within the public discourse. In a front page story on August 25, 2008, the Post continued its assault on Rhee’s personality and communication style:

After a tumultuous year of unprecedented change, the fingerprints of Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee will be found all over Washington’s 120 public schools as students return today. The schools will reflect her undaunted approach to reorganization, her sense of urgency and her desire to address students’ emotional as well as educational needs. The direction of the nearly 50,000-student system could be determined less by the problems she inherited after decades of dysfunction than by decisions she made in her first year: closing 23 underenrolled schools; finalizing overhauls at 26 academically ailing schools; and firing 150 people she considered poor performers. Schools chiefs typically spend their first year engendering goodwill to draw on later when they begin making unpopular decisions. Not Rhee. She bypassed the honeymoon period and immediately took on the most divisive issues a schools chief could face (D443, para. 1-4).

The article, headlined “Better or Worse, It’s Rhee’s School System Now,” made clear that the “better” in the headline refered to Rhee’s reforms, while the “worse” referred to

Rhee’s communication style and aggressive personality. The article quoted council chairman Vincent Gray’s criticism of Rhee’s perceived lack of public involvement in her decision-making:

“It serves everyone well if we know where she is going and if [the public] can feel a part of it,” Gray said. “Giving people an opportunity to be involved in the process is healthy. Yes, on the front end, it’s time-consuming and can be

contentious. But it will be contentious on the back end if you don’t” (D443, para. 32).

The rebuttal to this assertion came through a quote attributed to a former D.C. council member:

“I think she’s doing a terrific job,” said former council member Kevin P. Charvous (D-Ward 7), who chaired the council’s education committee from 1996 to 2005 and is Rhee’s confidant. “Many solid accomplished people have taken on the task of making D.C. public schools work for children and have largely failed. I came to believe that change would not happen without radical, aggressive action” (D443, para. 33).

The message was that while Rhee may not be a great communicator, alienating adults such as council members, parents, and community activists, Rhee’s reforms were clearly a positive for DCPS and were in the best interest of kids.

On October 2, 2008, Rhee announced that she would implement plans to remove ineffective teachers from the classroom despite the stalled negotiation talks.

Characterizing Rhee’s action as making “good yesterday on repeated threats to bypass labor contract negotiations” the article detailed how Rhee planned to utilize the District law from 2000 that “gives poorly performing instructors 90 days to improve or face dismissal” (D479, para. 1). The Post then immediately quoted Rhee: “The goal and responsibility and moral imperative of this administration is to make sure that each child gets an excellent education” (D479, para. 2). While Rhee’s announcement of the plan was characterized as “threatening,” the Post immediately countered that impression by reasserting that the reform measures were “what’s best for kids.” Supporting this perspective in their editorial copy, the Post editors wrote: “After negotiating to no avail for more than a year with the Washington Teachers’ Union, D.C. Schools Chancellor

Michelle A. Rhee announced that she – and the students she wants to help – can’t wait

any longer” (D480, para. 2). The message to the reader here was clear. While Rhee may be communicating the reforms in a way that was perceived as threatening or coercive, the real villain in this scenario was the Washington Teachers’ Union who refused to come to an agreement with Rhee that would allow her to do what is best for the students of DCPS.

As Rhee continued to battle the union, tensions with the D.C. Council also heightened. On October 31, 2008, the Post reported that “Rhee Faces Irate Council at

Meeting on Budget.” However, as the article explained, the cause for the council’s ire was not the budget itself, but Rhee’s dealings with the council in regards to the budget.

“Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee was grilled for more than three hours yesterday by D.C.

Council members unhappy with the clarity of her budget documents and her regard for their role in overseeing the District’s school system. The chancellor, who reports directly to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), has not spoken to the council as a group since an April 8 budget hearing, according to the office of council Chairman Vincent C. Gray” (D506, para. 1). The article also noted that “Rhee spent the larger portion of her appearance deflecting at times bitter criticism of her treatment of the council” (D506, para. 15).

In December 2008, Rhee set off a firestorm of controversy and unwittingly elicited commentary on her communication style and public image when she posed on the cover of Time magazine. The Post described her cover photo, detailing that she was

“photographed at the front of a classroom, stern-faced and clutching a broom, symbolizing her promise of sweeping change” (D528, para. 2). The Post summed up the polarized public perception of Rhee with these two paragraphs:

For journalists and pundits who follow education, Rhee’s narrative has elements that are irresistible. A slight, young, Korean American woman with no big-city school experience is plucked from the nonprofit world by a reform-minded mayor in June 2007 to fire bad teachers, face down their union and take on hidebound

bureaucrats, all in the name of turning around a system with a legacy of failure. The stories are not uniformly glowing, but they generally depict Rhee as a gutsy, gritty agent of change drive to turn around the District’s schools (D528, para. 3).

Some parents, teachers, and school activists said the combative, sometimes disdainful tone she has struck in the press has alienated constituencies she needs to mobilize if she hopes to turn the system around: Teachers parents and school principals. Cathy Reilly, head of the Senior High Alliance of Parents, Principals and Educators, called the use of a broom on the Time cover “disrespectful and denigrating” (D528, para. 14).

In the construction of this article, the Post again utilized complementary objectivity to promote Rhee’s reforms as “gutsy, gritty” and the recipe for change in the District, while criticizing Rhee’s personality and communication style. The critique offered in the article of Rhee was not related to her reforms, but rather was a complaint about how she chose to communicate with parents and her decision to allow herself to be photographed for the cover of Time in a classroom holding a broom. When the article finally got around to quoting a member of the D.C. Council, the complaint lodged against Rhee again had no relation to her reform agenda. Rather, the article noted:

D.C. Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) said some of his council colleagues – he would not say which ones – were miffed by Rhee’s failure in the Time piece to give them at least some credit for approving Fenty’s takeover of the school system, which has set the stage for her reform efforts (D528, para. 25).

The article then quickly undercut even this criticism, though, by quoting Wells as saying that he had purchased a copy of the Time magazine and intended to “get it autographed”

(D528, para. 28).

As Rhee entered 2009, there was still significant amount of controversy over her move to place teachers on the 90-day plan for improvement or dismissal. The root of the controversy, according to a January 16, 2009, article was that “The Washington

Teachers’ Union says the District is improperly withholding the names of instructors who

have been given 90 days to improve their performance or face dismissal” (D546, para. 1).

The Post went on to assure readers that Rhee was within her legal authority to place the teachers on the 90-day plan, stating:

The 90-day plan has been on the D.C. books for years but has rarely been used. Rhee began to employ it when talks with the union over her proposed salary package stalled. She offered unprecedented pay increases in exchange for tenured teachers’ willingness to spend a year on probation, giving the District the option of dismissing them (D546, para. 8).

The message to readers was again that Rhee’s reforms were good for the system and on solid legal ground and the villain in the scenario was the union, who balked at Rhee’s generous salary offers in order to protect the rights of ineffective teachers. The Post continued to promote Rhee’s reforms as a positive change for DCPS in their February 1,

2009, front-page article on the Rhee-union standoff. “At stake is not only the fate of

Rhee’s ambitious attempt to transform the District’s failing schools, but also significant early battle in a nationwide campaign by a new generation of urban school reformers.

They want to dramatically elevate the quality of teaching and learning, even if the effort sparks labor tensions with politically influential teachers unions” (D553, para. 2). It was notable that in the Rhee v. the union conflict, the Post positioned as “at-stake” Rhee’s reform agenda and the “quality of teaching and learning,” rather than the rights of teachers to hold on to their seniority and tenure protections. The article reinforced this perception of it being “teaching and learning” at stake by invoking the “best for kids” rhetoric, writing: “Rhee maintains that tenure serves only adult interests, with no educational benefit to the District’s 46,208 students” (D553, para. 21).

As the contract negotiations continued to stall between Rhee and the Washington

Teachers’ Union, despite the intervention of national union president Randi Weingarten,

Rhee began to overhaul the DCPS teacher evaluation system, which was not subject to collective bargaining. While Rhee was under no obligation to include teachers or the union, the Post noted that in an attempt to counteract the criticisms of her communication and decision-making style “Rhee has invited teachers to a series of 20 focus groups over the next several weeks to ask for their input in shaping a new evaluation process” (D594, para. 4).

In mid-April 2009, the negotiations had stalled to a point that a mediator, Kurt

Schmoke, former mayor of Baltimore and then Dean of the Howard University law school, was brought in to attempt to arbitrate the dispute. The Post commented on this development in its editorial copy, suggesting that “this could be a promising development, but only if the mediator sees his role as deciding what best addresses the educational needs of public school students – and not, as is often the case in education policy, coming up with a consensus to mollify adult adversaries at the expense of progress” (D598, para. 1). Meanwhile, Rhee’s relationship with the D.C. Council was rapidly disintegrating as well, as noted in a May 4, 2009, editorial titled “Backward on

School Reform” (D608). The editorial was commenting on legislative moves by the D.C.

Council to attempt to regain some control over the public schools. When commenting on this development, the Post declared that “the council needs to come to its senses and not retreat from a system that offers the children of this city the last best chance for a better education” (D608, para. 1). In these two editorials, the Post was continuing to promote

Rhee’s reform agenda and support her positional power and legal authority to continue to implement her changes. Both the union and the council had become little more than roadblocks, holding Rhee back from providing D.C.’s students with a great education.

The Post again reaffirmed this position in a June 12, 2009, editorial titled “‘So Far…

From Being Done’; Michelle Rhee is putting D.C. schools on track, but the forces of the status quo are fighting back” (D634, headline), lamenting that:

Those forces already are regrouping, seeking to nibble away at the mayoral control that has allowed Mayor Adrian M. Fenty – much to his credit – to give the chancellor the support and resources she needs. Sadly, union officials and the old guard political establishment leading the revanche have found a receptive audience in the D.C. Council, which recently voted to expand the role of the elected school board at the expense of the mayor (D634, para. 5).

Its single criticism of Rhee was again directed at her communication style. In describing

Rhee’s tenure, the Post conceded:

And, yes, there have been missteps, too. The school closings could have been handled more deftly. She miscalculated her ability to convince teachers union officials that it was in their interests – as well as those of students – to get ineffective teachers out of the classroom. At times maybe she’s too brusque. But the brusqueness stems from an impatience with forces more concerned with protecting the status quo than with helping students” (D634, para. 4).

The Post again highlighted the criticisms of Rhee’s communication style and personality in a front-page story on June 14, 2009, marking the beginning of the third, and what would ultimately be the last, year of her tenure. The article, headlined “Two Years of

Hard Lessons for D.C. Schools’ Agent of Change” (D637), outlined what the reporter felt were four lessons learned by Rhee during her first two years: 1) Fame can backfire; 2)

Money doesn’t always talk; 3) Politics matters; and 4) Beware unintended consequences.

All of these lessons had to do with the way that Rhee communicated her reform agenda with stakeholders, detailing Rhee’s missteps with the Time magazine cover and other national media appearances, her miscommunication with the union over the pay-for- performance plan that the union ultimately characterizes as an attempt to instill fear in teachers, her contentious relationship with the D.C. Council, and chairman Gray in

particular, and the fallout from her decision to close schools, which she insisted was what was best for kids, but which ultimately led to inequities in funding across the District. In an interesting aside to this front-page article, the Post published an editorial on June 21,

2009, that detailed some behind-the-scenes tension between Rhee and the Post’s education beat reporter:

Last Sunday’s Post carried an absorbing front-page look at the evolution of reformist Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee as she ends her second year of trying to fix the District’s underperforming school system. It was written by reporter Bill Turque, who covers D.C. schools. But midway through, it noted that Rhee had been interviewed by Post education columnist Jay Matthews, not Turque. That’s the tip-off to a story behind the story. Unhappy with his coverage, Turque said, Rhee has refused to talk with him since last summer. His queries are handed off to press aides, and he is largely relegated to quoting from her public appearances (D643, para 1-4).

The editorial stated that “Rhee’s reaction to The Post’s coverage strikes me as petty and thin-skinned” (D643, para. 15) and asserted that “The Post has the right approach. It should recommit to the same aggressive, accurate and balanced coverage it would afford any public official” (D643, para. 19). Even in proclaiming its commitment to “accurate and balanced coverage” of Rhee, the Post was illustrating its pattern of complementary objectivity, leveling critiques of Rhee’s personality, while mentioning nothing about

Rhee’s reform agenda.

With contract negotiations dragging out behind closed doors, the Post had little to report on with regard to Rhee during the summer of 2009. The focus of much of the summer 2009 coverage was the budget woes impacting the District, which would ultimately play a significant role in Rhee’s final year as Chancellor and lead to the biggest controversy of her career and a D.C. Superior Court case. On August 1, 2009, the

Post reported on the new budget approved by the D.C. Council. Among numerous cuts

and budget adjustments across various D.C. agencies, the article noted that “The council proposed a $30 million reduction in school spending, including a 50 percent reduction in summer school slots next year” (D661, para. 15) and indicated that “Fenty said Friday that Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee has told him that she should ‘be able to make enough adjustments’ to work within the budget approved by the council” (D661, para 17). While this news of cuts to the school budget was buried about half-way down the article, it would become the flashpoint for Rhee’s most significant battle with the Washington

Teachers’ Union.

A September 11, 2009, article indicated that “D.C. Chancellor and the

Washington Teachers’ Union are close to an agreement that would give the District more power to remove ineffective teachers, but both sides say the negotiations could still collapse” (D681, para. 1). Collapse they did on September 16, 2009, when Rhee announced that a $40 million budget deficit would prompt teacher layoffs. Union officials immediately questioned how “unexpected” the budget cuts were and criticized

Rhee’s hiring of 900 teachers over the summer of 2009 with the budget so uncertain.

Further complicating matters and enraging the union was the fact that “District law allows Rhee to make reductions in the teaching force without regard to seniority or other factors” (D685, para. 18). Rhee had effectively side-stepped the union again in removing ineffective teachers from the classroom, despite teachers’ contract protections of seniority and tenure because the cuts were being made as a “reduction in force” due to budgetary constraints. D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray “accused the Fenty administration…of seeking to ‘scapegoat’ the council for impending public school budget cuts announced this week and called the reductions a pretext for firing unionized teachers” (D687, para.

1). Citing other council members, the Post again presented a critique of Rhee’s communication style, rather than a critique of the proposed layoffs themselves:

Council member Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large) accused Rhee of misleading parents into thinking the council did not adequately fund the school system. “We gave them more money than they ever had before, and now they are saying they are $40 million short?” Brown said. “That just doesn’t go together” (D687, para. 6).

In their editorial copy, however, the Post applauded Rhee for taking this action:

Critics of D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee says she is using the city’s budget problems as a way to get rid of teachers she doesn’t want. They’re probably right. But that doesn’t make Ms. Rhee wrong to take action against teachers whose hold on their jobs has little to do with their value to students (D688, para. 1).

Criticizing Rhee only to say that “she needs to do a better job of demonstrating to teachers that the process will be fair” (D688, para. 4).

Confusion continued to reign in the District as the announced cuts were carried out by Rhee and her staff. On October 2, 2009, the Post published another article, headlined “Anger, Confusion Over Teacher Cuts,” which overwhelmingly criticized

Rhee’s lack of transparency regarding the decision, rather than the decision itself. The article quoted a student who felt that the “sudden cuts and lack of transparency surrounding them have violated his right to a free public education” (D696, para. 15) and an educational advocate who said “They knew in July they had to make a cut. The schools would have appreciated knowing as soon as possible…” (D696, para. 17).

Again, the message communicated by the Post was not that the teacher layoffs were bad policy, but that the timing and delivery of the message could have been improved.

Despite these criticisms and resistance from the D.C. Council, 388 employees, including

229 teachers, were issued termination notices from DCPS in a reduction of force. The

Post called it “one of the most turbulent days in its [DCPS] history” (D697, para. 1) and reported on the protests that accompanied the terminations at schools across the District.

Nevertheless, in its editorial copy, the Post opined that “as painful as Friday’s layoffs are,

D.C. Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee was right to shake up her instructional force” (D698, para. 1). The Post then noted that personnel laws prevented Rhee and her staff from disclosing information regarding the terminated teachers, yet offered anecdotes gathered as “information from principals” (D698, para. 4), such as:

…the elementary school teacher who, when asked why she showed a movie to students instead of teaching math, said it was what the students wanted. Or the elementary school teacher who told students they were stupid and useless. Or the art teacher who didn’t really know what she was supposed to teach. Or the special-education teacher who screamed at his colleagues that he didn’t want to be teaching anyway” (D698, para. 4).

The Washington Teachers’ Union immediately filed suit in D.C. Superior Court asking

“that the school system be enjoined from dismissing 266 teachers, school social workers, librarians and counselors who are scheduled to be removed from the payroll Nov. 2”

(D704, para. 3) Union chief Randi Weingarten protested the “lack of candor in handling the layoffs. ‘We’re not getting any real, valid, truthful information from DCPS,’ she said” (D707, para. 6), and local Washington Teachers’ Union president called the layoffs

“malpractice or malice” (D707, para. 11). In an editorial on October 11, the Post attempted to provide readers an “understanding [of] the union attacks on D.C. Chancellor

Michelle Rhee” (D710, headline).

So what is really the cause of the continuing rift between school and union leaders? Is it Ms. Rhee’s blunt style and her budget-mandated reduction in force? Or is it that the union cannot abide, above all in the nation’s capital, a contract under which schoolteachers – like employees throughout the private sector – might have their work judged, and their compensation awarded, in part on how well they do their jobs? We sympathize with the children whose school year has been disrupted and of course with the teachers who have been fired… could it be

that the union couldn’t stomach the notion that factors other than seniority – such as how well students were being served – helped determine which teachers would remain in the classroom? (D710, para. 5-6).

Once again, the rhetorical assumption was that one could be opposed to Rhee’s “blunt style” or could attempt to oppose her positional power (“budget-mandated reduction in force”), but in doing so one was automatically anti-student, favoring the rights of adults over the desire for all students to receive a quality education.

In the wake of the layoffs, Rhee took the communication criticisms to heart and began working to attempt to repair the damage that had been done to her ability to wield personal power in the community. However, in their reporting of her attempts, the Post continued to perpetuate the disapproval of Rhee’s personality and communication techniques.

Rhee invested significant time over the winter trying to improve relations with the District’s 4,000-member teacher corps. Many educators said they were offended by a Time magazine cover photo that showed Rhee holding a broom, an image that confirmed their belief that she held District teachers in low esteem (D724, para. 11).

This paragraph, while seeming to credit Rhee for attempting to “improve relations” with teachers, also reinforced the idea that she personally held a negative view of D.C. teachers. By stating that the Time magazine cover photo “confirmed their belief” rather than that it “seemingly confirmed” or “arguably confirmed” their belief that she looked down upon teachers, the Post made this a common sense assumption about Rhee as a person.

While the Washington Teachers’ Union awaited a D.C. Superior Court ruling on the layoffs, the D.C. Council held hearings to investigate Rhee’s actions. According to the Post, “The hearing laid bare festering tensions between Rhee and D.C. Council

Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D), a possible mayoral candidate next year, who has for months criticized the school leader for a lack of communication and transparency”

(D728, para. 4). In their attempt at balancing Gray’s perspective, the Post quoted council member Jack Evans:

…but even some of Rhee’s most steadfast supporters on the council rebuked her for the bitter state of relations between the school system and elected officials. “We cannot continue to have this kind of craziness,” said Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), who noted encouraging signs of progress in the schools but lamented that “we are sitting in a chamber where tensions couldn’t be higher.” Under Rhee, test scores have risen recently, and enrollment appears to have stabilized after a long decline (D728, para. 6-7).

Again the implicit suggestion in the “balancing” of these two sources was that Rhee, as a person, was someone to be opposed due to her communication style and personality, while Rhee’s reforms, as a policy agenda, were to be supported because they were providing results for kids. A Metro section column on November 1, 2009, that commented on the council hearing again reinforced the anti-Rhee-as-personality rhetoric:

The future of the District’s school system may well be decided by whether Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee’s forceful reform campaign becomes mired in a swamp of her own self-defeating hubris. A lively, dramatic D.C. Council hearing Thursday illustrated again the need for Rhee to temper her autocratic approach, especially by communicating and collaborating better with the body that approves her budget (D732, para. 1).

The columnist even went as far as to critique Rhee’s “best for kids” rhetoric, that even the Post had championed for so long, writing: “She also sounded self-righteous, though, especially in her repeated statements that she acts only in the interests of children. That maddened some council member, who said they, too, care about children first” (D732, para. 13). In another Metro column on November 2, 2009, another columnist commented on this ubiquitous use of “best for kids” in the rhetoric.

I just might scream if I hear one more person invoke what is “best for kids” in the growing conflict between D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee and her critics. Tension is rising over a seemingly ever-larger gap between what Rhee says in public and what she does…(D735, para. 1-2).

The columnist continued to criticize Rhee’s leadership style, noting “Rhee seems to think she can do whatever she wants because she is sure she is on the side of the angels in her reform efforts” (D735, para. 15). She advised Rhee that she would “get a lot further if she made her case to the public, explaining why she was doing what she was doing. She doesn’t have to be nice about it. She just can’t say one thing when something else is true” (D735, para. 19).

On November 24, 2009, the Post reported that the D.C. Superior Court judge had ruled in favor of Rhee (D753), upholding Rhee’s legal authority to terminate employees without regard to seniority or tenure in times of budgetary crisis. In its accompanying editorial copy, the Post called the decision “Ms. Rhee’s court vindication” (D754, headline). What would have been one of her hallmark victories, however, was overshadowed a few weeks later when Rhee was quoted in a national business magazine,

Fast Company, as saying that she “got rid of teachers who had hit children, who had had sex with children, who had missed 78 days of school” (D788, para. 3). The Post’s coverage of the controversy ran under the headline “Rhee says laid-off teachers abused kids; Union calls D.C. schools chief’s claims ‘reckless’ and without basis in fact” (D788, headline). The Post’s editorial page chastised Rhee for her poor judgment in making such remarks:

Clearly, Ms. Rhee should have been more careful with her words to Fast Company. After all, she has repeatedly said that there were effective and promising teachers who got caught up in the budget shortfall, so it is unfortunate her comment about what she calls a minority tends to tar all 266 teachers (D791, para. 3).

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However, the writer then immediately moved to rhetorically support Rhee’s action of laying off teachers, stating: “Nonetheless, it is clear that there were teachers who lost their jobs who had no business being anywhere near children” (D791, para. 3). The editorial closed by noting: “Certainly she owes an apology to the dedicated teachers her words may have inadvertently hurt, but so does the union for is hand in enabling some of these unfit teachers to stay in the classroom” (D791, para. 6). The message conveyed to the reader in the editorial was that Rhee needed to apologize for her remarks, but not her reform, which was justified in order to remove ineffective and unfit teachers from classrooms.

In the winter of 2010, with the primary election for mayor looming on the horizon, much attention began to be paid to approval ratings for Fenty and, by proxy,

Rhee, and speculation around whether Vincent Gray, Fenty and Rhee’s most vocal critic, would mount a campaign in opposition to Fenty’s re-election. On February 1, 2010, the

Post published the first of several polls that found: “D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A.

Rhee’s job approval rating has dropped precipitously over the past two years, alongside

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s, despite sentiment among District residents that conditions in the city’s long-troubled public education system are starting to improve” (D796, para. 1).

The Post writers utilized their pro-Rhee-reform, anti-Rhee-personality construct to explain the poll results:

Her willingness to challenge the power of the politically potent Washington Teachers’ Union – her 2008 proposal would dramatically raise teacher salaries while weakening job-security provisions – has won plaudits nationwide from reform advocates who regard unionized educators as a major obstacle to change. But her stance, coupled with critical public comments about the low qualify of some District educators, has made it difficult for her to negotiate a new contract with the union (D796, para. 14).

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Rhee’s image problems continued to be a theme in the reporting for the rest of the 2010 election cycle. In March, the Post reported that Rhee had hired a former White House communications director to help “polish her image” (D838, headline). The Post cited again the Time magazine cover photo and the comments made to Fast Company magazine about the fired teachers as evidence of Rhee’s failed public relations.

On March 30, 2010, the Post announced that Gray had decided to enter the mayoral race, which immediately raised questions of what would happen to Rhee, and her reforms, were he to win in September.

No where is the mayor’s imprint felt more than in the fledging improvements that Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee has brought about in the city’s troubled public schools. What would happen to Ms. Rhee and her reforms in a Gray administration? Announcing his candidacy, Mr. Gray vowed that “we can do better.” Voters need to know exactly how (D852, para. 4).

Immediately after Gray’s announcement of his candidacy, Rhee became one of the most high-profile and polarizing issues in the campaign. As the Post reported on April 2,

2010, “Gray said he would decide whether to retain Schools Chancellor Michelle A.

Rhee only after he is elected and raised ‘burnout’ and her impending marriage to

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson as issues he would want to discuss with her” (D854, para. 1). The article continued to question whether Rhee would even want to remain in

D.C. once she was married to Johnson, invoking gender stereotypes to insinuate that

Rhee may not continue in the Chancellorship, even if he did not decide to remove her from the position.

On April 7, 2010, the Post reported that Rhee and the Washington Teacher’s

Union had finally reached a deal on the long-expired teachers’ contract. The proposed deal granted Rhee “more latitude in deciding which teachers to retain in the event that

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budget cuts or enrollment declines force the closure of some schools” (D858, para. 7) and included “a voluntary pay-for-performance program that [would] allow teachers to earn annual bonuses for student growth” (D858, para. 7). The agreement also contained significant raises for teachers, including retro-active pay for the 2 years they had been working under an expired contract, the bill for which would have been footed by donations secured by Rhee from private foundations. (D858).

Prior to being ratified by the teachers and the D.C. Council, the agreement had to be determined to be fiscally sound. In hearings meant to assure the D.C. Council that the budget could sustain the cost of the new agreement, Rhee revealed that she had found a

$34 million surplus in the budget that winter that would cover a significant portion of the teacher raises in the new contract. These statements angered the union and placed the hard-fought agreement at risk, as union officials and council members questioned why they were not informed about the budget surplus when it surfaced and why it was not utilized to return some of the laid-off teachers to classrooms. The union accused Rhee of

“unethical behavior…by failing to disclose the discovery” (D867, para. 1). Vincent Gray was quoted as saying that “if he were a laid-off teacher, he’d be livid. ‘I’d be about ready to put my hands around somebody’s throat’” (D867, para. 13). In their editorial copy, the

Post commented on the controversy, affirming Rhee’s positional power by writing: “The layoffs were challenged in court; their legality was upheld. No one questioned their financial foundation” (D868, para. 4). The Washington Teachers’ Union again filed a lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court disputing the firings and claiming that all information was not available when the judge ruled on the case initially (D873). This time the judge

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“granted the union ‘limited discovery’ to explore the financial information that was available to Rhee at the time of the layoffs” (D873, para. 8).

Despite the $34 million surplus, the D.C. Council and the District’s chief financial officer claimed that the contract could not be funded as written, causing Rhee to admit to another communication failure. “Rhee acknowledged it would have been better to seek fiscal certification before announcing the deal” (D897, para. 12). Working together, however, the Council and District officials were able to find a way to fund the contract.

On May 11, 2010, Rhee and Fenty announced that officials had “devised a $38.8 million package of budget cuts and reallocations to close the $10.7 million funding gap in the contract and $28 million in projected overspending in other parts of the school budget”

(D904, para. 1). A good portion of the money, they noted, would come from $16.6 million in private foundation money that had been secured by Rhee as part of the contract negotiations. On the editorial page, the Post stated that the chief financial officer should be “commended for his diligence in figuring out how to accommodate the unusual use of private money” (D905, para. 2). The contract was overwhelmingly ratified by the teachers on June 2, 2010 and approved by the D.C. Council on June 29, 2010.

With the union contract finally agreed upon and ratified, the Post turned their coverage and commentary whole-heartedly to the mayoral primary race. On May 21,

2010, the Post wrote on their editorial page:

Given the mounting evidence of positive movement, we continue to wonder why everyone in this city would not seek to ensure that Ms. Rhee stays in office. But we worry that progress could fall victim to the battle for mayor between Mr. Fenty and Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D911, para. 5).

Fenty himself indicated that Rhee’s chancellorship was at stake if he was not reelected.

In a June 5, 2010, article about the campaign, the Post reported: “Fenty’s new strategy

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was evident when Gray said he had yet to decide, if elected, whether he would retain

Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee. Noting that test scores are rising, Fenty said:

‘This election is the time where we say, do we want to keep the schools moving forward or are we willing to risk it all?” (D924, para. 13). On July 1, 2010, Rhee inserted herself further into the mayoral primary race by affirming rumors that she would not continue on in her position if Fenty were to lose the election. The Post cites Rhee’s “lack of transparency in [her] dealings with parents and other stakeholders on issues such as school closures and budgeting” (D948, para. 16) as reason that Gray would dismiss Rhee if elected. However, the story also noted that: “Should Gray win and decide to sack

Rhee, he risks halting at least some of the momentum Rhee has generated” (D948, para.

20). In essence, a vote for Gray was a vote against Rhee’s personality and leadership style, while a vote for Fenty was a vote for Rhee’s reform agenda and continued progress on school reform.

The campaign rhetoric continued in this fashion for several months, with Rhee even appearing with Fenty at campaign events to solidify the message that a vote for

Fenty was a vote for school reform (D1020). On July 24, 2010, Rhee fired another 241 teachers, the majority for poor performance as rated by the new IMPACT teacher evaluation system developed by Rhee’s team. Rhee lauded the firings as an improvement for students, stating: “Every child in a District of Columbia public school has a right to a highly effective teacher – in every classroom, of every school, of every neighborhood, of every ward, in this City” (D974, para. 2). Gray questioned the terminations, calling the

IMPACT system “controversial” (D974, para. 5). Rhee’s move to fire these teachers

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further damaged her public image. The Post interviewed community members about

Rhee in the context of the mayoral race:

“There’s something about her I don’t like. Can’t put my finger on it,” said Clarise Whitfield, 68, a Ward 7 resident who supports Gray. “She doesn’t know how to express herself with people.” ….Even among some white Democrats who support Fenty, there are doubts about how Rhee treats people. “I have mixed feelings about Michelle Rhee. I don’t necessarily like her style or approach,” said Debbie, a Ward 4 poll respondent and Fenty supporter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because her husband is a political consultant. “I think you have to take bold action. But I don’t know necessarily that insulting people is the way” (D1012, para. 14, 17).

On September 14, 2010, Fenty lost the Democratic primary for mayor to Vincent Gray.

Rhee called the election results “devastating, devastating… Not for me, because I’ll be fine, and not even for Fenty because he’ll be fine, but devastating for the schoolchildren of Washington, D.C.” (D1052, para. 3). On October 13, 2010, Rhee announced her resignation from her position as Chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools, saying that she had made the decision to step down in order to do what was best “for the kids and the community” (D1093, para. 5). As she exited the position, Rhee acknowledged:

“We made a lot of mistakes,” she said Thursday. “I thought, very naively, that if we just put our heads down and we worked hard and produced the results, people would be so happy that they would want to continue the work. We were absolutely incorrect about that” (D1116, para. 14).

As Rhee left, due to her self-admitted inability to leverage her personal power in the D.C. community due to ineffectual communications and public relations, the final Post article of her tenure affirmed her positional power when it reported that “a union attorney told a

D.C. Superior Court judge that it could find no evidence that Schools Chancellor

Michelle A. Rhee contrived a budget crunch to justify the job cuts” (D1118, para. 1).

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Chapter 5: Interpretations, Conclusions and Recommendations

The story of Michelle Rhee’s chancellorship of DCPS was inextricably intertwined with The Washington Post’s coverage of her and her leadership decisions.

One cannot judge the success or failure of Rhee’s tenure, without examining the impact that the Post’s articles and editorials had on the public discourse concerning education reform during that time. Rhee was hired by Mayor Adrian Fenty to be a “change agent,” tasked with turning around decades of mismanagement and systemic failure. When

Fenty hired Rhee, D.C. quickly realized that it was getting a reform-minded educational activist whose resume included a stint with Teach for America, the founding of The New

Teacher Project (an alternative teacher recruiting and training program), and a high- profile conflict in New York City with the teachers’ union. While Rhee may not have had experience running a school district, her agenda was fairly clear from her first days as chancellor: reform in the form of fiscal conservatism, privatization, and the limitation of teachers’ labor rights. Rhee’s mission was immediately supported by The Washington

Post as a news organization, and the Post continued to advocate for her reform agenda throughout her entire tenure. However, as a news organization, the Post was obligated by journalistic ethics to present the appearance of “balanced” and “equitable” coverage of

Rhee’s leadership for the public. The Post managed to create the illusion of “balanced” and “equitable” coverage of Rhee through the use of “complementary objectivity” (Oh,

2010). The use of “complementary objectivity” allowed the Post to continually take a pro-Rhee-reform stance, while pacifying her critics with an anti-Rhee-personality commentary. This chapter explores how the Post used complementary objectivity to invoke for readers three dominant cultural myths in order to promote Rhee’s positional

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power while containing her personal power. The Post relied on the cultural myths of the

“liberal media” and “journalistic objectivity” to promote Rhee’s positional power and legitimize the power of the office of chancellor, as well as promote the neo-liberal ideas contained in Rhee’s reforms. The Post’s coverage also arguably invoked the cultural myth of the “model minority” to contain Rhee’s personal power within dominant cultural narratives of race, class, and gender.

Modern Media Myths

The first two cultural myths called upon by the Post within its use of complementary objectivity work in concert with each other to promote Rhee’s neo-liberal reform agenda. The Post played on the public’s assumption of a “liberal bias” in the media to mask their promotion of pro-capitalist reforms within a pro-social message of

“what’s best for kids.” Simultaneously, the Post relied upon the dominant cultural belief of “journalistic objectivity” to present the opposing message of the labor unions, but without ever actually presenting a pro-labor stance.

Gee (2011) advised “for any communication, ask how words and grammatical devices are being used to build (construct, assume) what count as social goods and to distribute these to or withhold them from listeners or others. Ask, as well, how words and grammatical devices are being used to build a viewpoint on how social goods are or should be distributed in society” (Kindle Fire Version, location 3439). The Post’s coverage of Rhee identified two main “social goods” that are placed in conflict with each other through the Post’s coverage of the dispute with the Washington Teachers’ Union.

Each side in the conflict was defined as working for a particular social good, with social

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goods being defined as “anything that a group of people believes to be a source of power, status, value, or worth” (Gee, 2005, Kindle Fire Version, location 280). The social good championed by Rhee and her supporters was the idea of “what’s best for kids,” which they repeatedly defined as an equitable, excellent education for all students regardless of race or economic background. The social good championed by the Washington

Teachers’ Union was that of “protecting teachers’ rights,” which they defined as protecting the tenure and seniority assurances that the unions fought hard to win in the early days of organized labor in education. The Post positioned these two social goods as opposing forces, creating a false dichotomy and presenting a “zero sum game” for readers. According to the ideology imbedded in the Post’s coverage and commentary of

Rhee, one could not support teachers’ rights while seeking an equitable, excellent education for all students.

Neo-liberalism is a political ideology of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Most notably represented on the international stage by U.S. President Bill Clinton and

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, adherents to neoliberalism “accept the basic soundness of capitalism, believe government has an important role to play in a modern society, and are deeply concerned about equality issues” (Fowler, 2009, p. 125). Rhee’s messages of fiscal efficiency and equitable education for all students, combined with her willingness to seek large donations from private foundations and her desire to remove collective bargaining protections to allow her to create a more flexible, market-driven workforce of teachers, placed her firmly in the neoliberal ideological camp. These messages aligned her ideologically with The Washington Post, which as the flagship publication of a large media corporation, had an interest in promoting a neoliberal

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agenda. In a 2003 article describing the 21st century political economy of journalism,

McChesney argued that despite a concerted right-wing campaign to prove and publicize the “liberal bias” of the media, the majority of journalists employed by large media outlets consciously or unconsciously support neoliberal policies that are in the interest of their corporate owners.

Journalists have long faced pressure to shape stories to suit advertisers and owners, and much of the professional code has attempted to prevent this, or at least to minimize this. But corporate management increasingly grinds away at their news divisions to play ball with the commercial needs of the parent firms. Over time it has been successful, and those who survive in the new world order of corporate journalism tend to internalize the necessary values (McChesney, 2003, p. 310).

Rhee’s pro-capitalist reforms were unabashedly supported by The Washington Post throughout her tenure, couched in the pro-social rhetoric of doing “what’s best for kids.”

Utilizing this pro-social rhetoric of equitable education for all, allowed the Post’s writers to promote reforms that were in the best interests of corporations and capitalist enterprise, while appearing to readers as maintaining the expected “liberal bias” of the media. The

Post purported to support the reforms not because of cost-savings to taxpayers or the flexibility and market-mentality they would insert into the teacher workforce, but because it was interested in the greater “social good” of providing all students a chance to obtain a quality education. This rhetoric worked to downplay the potential economic impacts of

Rhee’s reforms on the District by focusing on the potential social impacts on children and families. In their editorial support of Rhee’s 2008 two-tiered pay proposal, the Post clearly illustrated how this conflict between the social goods of “what’s best for kids” and

“protecting teachers’ rights” was presented as a zero-sum game for readers.

The real winners would be the students. Not only would there be a powerful incentive to make a difference in the classroom, there would be new flexibility in

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how teachers are assigned. No longer would seniority be the sole determinant of which school gets which teacher; there would have to be mutual agreement between teachers and principals. The future of this groundbreaking proposal is uncertain. Local union officials who are receptive to the idea have had to contend with not-so-subtle pressure from national unions worried about an assault on seniority, as well as a backlash from colleagues who are not so reform-minded (D392, para. 3-4).

The message here was that by supporting the reforms, children “win.”

Conversely, by opposing the reforms and placing the “groundbreaking proposal” at risk, teachers might win by rebuffing an “assault on seniority,” but children would ultimately lose. The Post was clearly supporting the pro-capitalist ideas of eliminating tenure and seniority to create a more competitive, results-driven teaching force, but it presupposed this support with the claim that these reforms would make kids “the real winners.” Yet, nowhere in the editorial or reporting on the two-tiered pay-plan did the Post create an explicit link between the personnel reforms and student achievement. It was simply assumed as common sense that competitive pay structures and the loss of job protections would result in harder-working teachers who, for fear of losing their jobs, would immediately raise student achievement in a system that had suffered decades of decline.

Yet, when opponents questioned whether Rhee’s reforms actually produced results for students in the classroom, their opposition was framed as a disgruntled, self- serving critique by union members trying to protect their own interests or politicians attempting to mollify constituents in order to secure votes. To continue to employ

“complementary objectivity,” The Post relied upon the ingrained public belief that journalists are ethically bound by professional standards to present both sides of the story to present the viewpoint of the labor unions without ever actually presenting a pro-labor stance. While the general public typically still believes in the notion of objectivity in the

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media, McChesney illustrated in his 2003 article “The Problem with Journalism” that this belief is unfounded.

Over time it has become clear that there was one problem with the theory of professional journalism, an insurmountable one at that. The claim that it was possible to provide neutral and objective news was suspect, if not entirely bogus. Decision-making is an inescapable part of the journalism process, and some values have to be promoted when deciding why one story rates front-page treatment while another is ignored… journalism cannot actually be neutral or objective, and unless one acknowledges that, it is impossible to detect the values at play that determine what becomes news, and what does not (McChesney, 2003, p. 302).

The Post, however, in trying to legitimize its support of Rhee’s reforms appeared to present the view of the labor unions. By quoting mainly labor union officials, disgruntled employees, and politicians widely viewed as protectors of the status quo to provide the perspective of the labor union, The Post was able to delegitimize their concerns and devalue the social good of “teachers’ rights.” In a September 11, 2009, article that reported on the potentially close agreement between Rhee and the Washington Teachers’

Union on a teachers’ contract, the The Post again placed the social goods of “what’s best for kids” in conflict with “protecting teachers’ rights.”

Tenure protections are likely to remain in place despite Rhee’s outspoken criticism of the provisions as a major obstacle to reform. As recently as July 5, she told an audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival: “Right now, the culture within education and within the teaching ranks is once you have tenure, you have a job for life. I believe that mind-set has to be completely flipped on its head and that we have to move out of the idea that a teaching job is a right…And unless you are doing positive things for kids, you cannot have the privilege of teaching” (D681, para. 9).

The lone source providing the rebuttal to Rhee’s assertions that removing tenure would constitute an action that would be a “positive thin[g] for kids” was the Post’s quoting of

Nathan Saunders, the Vice President of the Washington Teachers Union, who was at the time embroiled in a very public conflict with the union’s president, George Parker.

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The proposals have triggered new tensions within the union’s leadership. Executive Vice President Nathan Saunders, a longtime critic of Parker’s, said the proposals all but eliminate job security for teachers. “This contract looks to be another approach to diminishing teachers’ employment rights” (D681, para. 14- 15).

The message conveyed to readers was that support for Rhee’s contract proposal was a step in the right direction toward providing students in the District with a quality education, “a positive thing for kids.” By quoting Saunders as the counterpoint, the Post reporter immediately delegitimized Saunder’s complaint that the contract was merely a ploy to “dimin[ish] teachers’ employment rights.” By alluding to the public rift between

Saunders and union president Parker, i.e. the “tensions within the union’s leadership,” the

Post cast Saunders as a radical and as a source that could not faithfully speak for the union as a whole. Thus the implication that teachers were fearful of losing their employment rights lost its power, as Saunders appeared to be speaking as simply someone disenchanted with union leadership, rather than as a spokesperson for the union itself.

In its reporting of the landmark teacher layoffs in October 2009, the Post reported that the protests at the schools on the day of the layoffs “highlighted the challenges faced by Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) as they struggle to reform the troubled system in lean economic times” (D697, para. 2). The article described how “229 teachers were placed on paid administrative leave” and would be terminated effective November 2, 2009 (D697, para. 12). The only voices of opposition in the article were “Brittany Lee, 25 a laid-off first-year special-ed teacher” who was interviewed while “loading boxes into her car” (D697, para. 16). Lee was quoted as “question[ing] the Dsitrict’s ability to serve” her students (D697, para. 17).

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The only quote attributed to the Washington Teachers’ Union in the article comes from president George Parker disputing, not whether the teachers laid-off were effective or ineffective, but whether they were “predominantly ‘senior teachers over 50’” (D697, para. 19).

These examples were merely a few of many that illustrated how the Post continued to promote the “best for kids” mentality, while delegitimizing the “teachers’ rights” rhetoric. This substantiated McChesney’s (2003) assertion that

The actual record of the US news media is to pay very little attention to what might be called the political left, and by this we mean not only socialists and radicals but also what would be called mild social democrats by international standards. What attention the left actually gets tends to be unsympathetic, if not explicitly negative (p.320).

By relying on the cultural myth of the “liberal bias” in the media and the public’s assumption of “journalistic objectivity,” The Washington Post was able to promote

Rhee’s pro-capitalist reforms as common sense actions to endorse the social good of

“what’s best for kids” which they viewed as mutually exclusive from “protecting teachers’ rights.” According to the Post’s ideology, one could either be in favor of

“what’s best for kids” or “protecting teachers’ rights,” but not both at the same time.

Promoting the social good of “what’s best for kids” was encouraged as a selfless, idealistic position that favored equality and access to excellent education for children of all racial and economic backgrounds. Promoting the social good of “protecting teachers’ rights” was denigrated in the Post coverage as a selfish, fear-mongering position that favored rewarding ineffective teachers for career longevity at the expense of the children’s learning.

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The Myth of the Model Minority

Along with evaluating language with regard to the social goods that are promoted and legitimized, Gee 2011 also suggested:

For any communication, ask what socially recognizable identity or identities the speaker is trying to enact or get others to recognize. Ask also how the speaker’s language treats other people’s identities, what sorts of identities the speaker recognizes for others in relationship to his or her own. Ask, too, how the speaker is positioning others, what identities the speaker is “inviting” them to take up (Gee, 2011, Kindle Fire Version, location 3148).

While The Washington Post utilized the myths of the liberal media and journalistic objectivity to promote Rhee’s neoliberal reforms and delegitimize the opposition of the Washington Teachers’ Union, the Post did not support Rhee in a wholesale fashion. Rather, the Post’s reporters and editors continued to rely on the aforementioned media myths, while also arguably drawing on the myth of the model minority to critique Rhee’s identity and contain her personal power within the discourse of DCPS reform.

While the Post had a vested interest in promoting Rhee’s pro-market education reform agenda, it also had a vested interest in protecting the cultural status quo with regard to the dominant narratives of race, class, and gender. While the Post worked to promote the reforms and the legitimate power of the office of the chancellor, it simultaneously worked to critique Rhee’s identity by arguably criticizing Rhee’s actions when she violated the stereotype of the “model minority.”

The stereotype of Asian Americans as the “model minority” had roots in the socio-historical context of the Civil Rights Movement. The stereotype, which has been much studied and determined to be a myth of modern culture, “romanticizes Asian

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Americans as hardworking, successful ethnic minorities who fulfill the ‘American

Dream’ by overcoming harsh circumstances while remaining quiet and submissive”

(Chao et al., 2013, p. 85). Some scholarship suggested that the “model minority” stereotype is “a ruling class endeavor to disunite African Americans and Asian

Americans during the Civil Rights Movement and has continues to serve as a convenient tool to manipulate racial perceptions… justifying existing racial hierarchy and holding individuals against the model minority standard” (Chao et al., 2013, p. 86). However, some parts of the model minority myth seem to have found support in the scholarship, particularly in regard to the way Asian Americans communicate. A 2008 study of the communication styles of Asian American college students compared to the communication styles of European American college students found:

As hypothesized, Asian American participants reported higher use of the indirect style and lower use of the open style than the European American students. Insofar as Asian Americans value the goals of the group over individual ones, they may not be as direct and open with their individual wishes and demands. Mediational analysis suggested that emotional self-control explains why Asian Americans may rate the indirect style higher and the open style lower than their European American counterparts. Individuals who adhere to the Asian value of emotional self-control may restrain from directly expressing negative emotions toward one another. By responding ambiguously to conflict or not openly expressing negative feelings, they are able to save the face of thos involved in a conflict situation, including himself or herself. European American values was also found to explain why European Americans report lower use of the indirect style than the Asian American students. European American values emphasize the importance of individual expression and assertiveness, which may influence European American students to express their opinions in a straightforward manner. Adherence to the Asian cultural value of humility was associated with lower use of the contentious and dramatic styles… Students who value humility may be less likely to communicate in a contentious way becaue they may not feel a need to impose their individual needs upon others, thus, finding less reason to be disagreeable. (Park & Kim, 2008, p. 54).

The myth of the model minority arguably worked against Rhee in D.C. in two ways. Her seeming adherence to the myth through her markers of class, economic success, and her

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image of being relentlessly hardworking promoted an image in the majority African

American community that scholars assert has been utilized for years to oppress and marginalize poor African Americans. The image of the hardworking, high-achieving,

Asian American has been held up to the African American community as an example of what a minority group can achieve, if only it would assimilate to the cultural values of the dominant class and invest personal capital in the market system to achieve financial success. This arguably positioned Rhee’s identity as directly counter to the identities of the majority African American teachers’ union, whose members she repeatedly referred to as “ineffective” and regularly insinuated were lazy. The Post frequently utilized this model minority construct in its reporting of Rhee. In the early days of Rhee’s chancellorship, much was made of the fact that Rhee was “Korean American in a predominantly African American school system” (D25, para. 7). The Post frequently marked Rhee’s identity as “foreign,” through the use of quotes from various sources commenting on her position as an “outsider” to the system and her “Asian American” racial background as being unable to understand the needs of a majority “African

American” system. In the first lengthy feature the Post ran on Rhee, they included a section in the article subtitled “Formative Year in Seoul” (D25, para. 21). The Post cemented her identity for the public as rooted in Asian culture, explaining:

When Rhee was in sixth grade, her parents put her on a plane to their native Seoul, whre she spent nearly a year with her aunt exploring her heritage. “I think before going, I did not really have a strong sense of, like, Korean identity,” she said. “I think learning how to read and write [in Korean] and connecting with all my relatives for the period of time was incredibly valuable for me” (D25, para. 24).

The Post also noted on July 3, 2007, that in hiring Rhee

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Fenty ultimately decided that the right person was Rhee, a Korean American who is poised to become the city’s first non-black schools chief in nearly 40 years. Yesterday, parents and educators praised Rhee during her confirmation hearing, but her appointment surprised many residents. Since taking office six months ago, Fenty (D) has replaced African Americans with non-black people in four of the city’s highest-profile jobs: city administrator, police chief, fire chief and schools chief (D28, para. 3-4).

The Post reporting arguably further promoted the model minority myth as a sense of contention between Rhee and the majority African American District by quoting a resident who indicated that Rhee’s appointment would instill a sense of shame in the

African American population:

Nicoleau said that whether parents, teachers and administrators in a school system whose student body is 84 percent African American will respond to Rhee is a real question. “It’s an issue of visibility and trust in a city where race matters,” said Nicoleau, who recently left her job at the Public Education Network. “Race matters in this case for another reason. There’s an element of shame in this system because it is [predominantly] black and has the money it needs but still can’t produce results. People hold private shame because they have not been able to self-govern. They may not want her to succeed as an Asian American” (D28, para. 31-32).

This quote, given legitimization by the Post through its inclusion in the article, was virtually a retelling of the Model Minority myth: African American residents and officials in D.C. should be ashamed of their inability to assimilate to dominant cultural norms and access the political and human capital necessary to run a successful school system. In contrast, the Asian American Rhee, anointed by Fenty as a “change agent,” would ostensibly be able to turn around the failing system through hard work, diligence, and adherence to the dominant socioeconomic principles of neoliberalism and free-market capitalism.

These early articles repeatedly marked Rhee’s Asian American identity as “other” and outside of the norm of the District’s political and social culture. Once marked as

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“other,” the Post arguably continued to promote stereotypes of the model minority myth, particularly Rhee’s economic status and her penchant for long hours and hard work.

The newspaper repeatedly marked her identity as economically advantaged, detailing her youth growing up in a “privileged family in suburban Toledo” (D25, para.

22), her education at an “elite private school for seventh grade through high school”

(D25, para. 25), and her Ivy League education at Cornell University and Harvard

University. As Rhee became settled in the D.C. area, the Post delighted on reporting on her search for an expensive Northwest D.C. home to purchase and her choice of a wealthy, bi-lingual public school in her Northwest neighborhood for her two daughters to attend. It also ran numerous stories noting the fact that Rhee would be “the highest-paid school head in [the] D.C. Area” (D31, headline), comparing her salary to those of the superintendents in wealthy surrounding districts such as Montgomery County, Maryland, and Fairfax, Virginia. Lastly, Rhee’s personal friendship and ultimate engagement to

“former NBA star Kevin Johnson” (D26, para. 8) marked her as part of an elite group of the upper-class with access to celebrities and famous athletes.

The coverage of Rhee was also frequently dominated by references to her work ethic. While being vetted by the D.C. Council prior to her confirmation as chancellor, a great deal of emphasis was placed on Rhee’s work ethic, and its ability to counteract her lack of experience running a school system. Rhee would succeed, said supporters, because “Rhee is a hands-on executive who works round-the-clock” (D26, para. 8).

Indeed, in its reporting on her confirmation, the Post wrote:

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As schools prepared to open in August 2007, the Post reported that “Fenty praised Rhee for ‘working tirelessly’ to prepare the 55,000-student school system for a smooth opening” (D70, para. 16). Rhee was also characterized as a technophile, who utilized e- mail and her Blackberry phones as a way to quickly communicate: “When she receives an e-mail, she said, she responds personally” (D102, para. 10). “Michelle A. Rhee estimates she has received 12,000 e-mails since becoming chancellor of the D.C. public schools three months ago – and says she has responded to every one. That kind of personal engagement pleases her boss, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty…” (D102, para. 1-2). All of these descriptions, taken together, marked Rhee’s identity as one that fits squarely within the confines of the model minority. However, as Rhee’s chancellorship continued, her defiance of cultural expectations regarding communication style would allow for a critique of Rhee’s personality, which both chastised her for arguably violating the model minority stereotype and acted as the Post’s counterbalance to their promotion of Rhee’s reform agenda.

As noted in the discussion of Park & Kim’s 2008 research above, there was a stereotypical expectation that Asian Americans communicate in ways that are passive, submissive to authority, indirect, and aim to avoid conflict. Rhee’s communication style in DCPS was the polar opposite, more characteristic of the communication style that Park

& Kim (2008) attributed to European Americans: dramatic, direct, and assertive with a willingness to voice individual opinion. As Rhee arguably violated these communicative conventions, the resistance to Rhee as a person mounted in the Post’s coverage of her as

DCPS chancellor. Phelan & Rudman (2010) refer to this phenomena as “backlash in racial stereotype maintenance” (p. 265). They explain that “when group members deviate

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from stereotypical expectations, they risk negative reactions from perceivers…deviating from racial stereotypes may result in backlash… backlash not only is harmful to targets who violate expectancies but also functions as a mechanism to maintain racial stereotypes in the culture at large” (Phelan & Rudman, 2010, p. 265).

Rhee’s communication style was seen as disrespectful of authority, particularly with regard to the D.C. Council. “Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee was grilled for more than three hours yesterday by D.C. Council members unhappy with the clarity of her budget documents and her regard for their role in overseeing the District’s school system”

(D506, para. 1), the Post reported on October 31, 2008. “Rhee spent the larger portion of her appearance deflecting at times bitter criticism of her treatment of the council” (D506, para. 15). In their December 8, 2008, article on Rhee after her appearance on the cover of Time magazine, the Post noted that “some parents, teachers, and school activists said the combative, sometimes disdainful tone she has struck in the press has alienated constituencies she needs to mobilize if she hopes to turn the system around” (D528, para.

14). In February 2009, the Post indicated that Rhee’s series of meetings with teachers regarding the teachers’ contract negotiations was a positive attempt to “temper her take- no-prisoners image” (D560, para. 10). In a 2009 front-page article discussing “lessons to be learned” from Rhee’s first two years as chancellor, the number one lesson was that

“fame can backfire” (D637, para. 23). This “lesson” for Rhee to learn from arguably contained Rhee explicitly within the model minority stereotype:

The world of education policy is not a wellspring of rock stars. But Rhee’s unconventional career path, blunt style and willingness to challenge the entrenched power of the teachers union made her one. National news outlets, from the Atlantic Monthly to PBS’s NewsHour, lined up to tell the compelling narrative: the slight young daughter of Korean immigrants poised to do battle with bad teachers and a fossilized bureaucracy. But her rising celebrity alienated key

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constituencies at home. Teachers seethed as she told anecdotes painting them as incompetent, lazy or hostile to change (D637, para. 24-25).

The assumptions of this description of Rhee’s story perfectly encapsulated the challenges

Rhee faced due to the plausible racial stereotyping employed to contain her. Rhee’s story was judged compelling and newsworthy due to the fact that her status as a “model minority” was on show. It was only because she was the “slight young daughter of

Korean immigrants,” the article arguably implied, that she received such prolific news coverage. However, her violation of certain expectations of the model minority stereotype, were shown to be her downfall. She had “alienated” many in the District, the article claimed, by communicating in a way that was direct, assertive, and blunt. The article also criticized another perceived violation of the model minority stereotype in

“Lesson 3: Politics Matter.” In this section of the article, Rhee was criticized for not deferring or acting submissively toward the D.C. Council, regardless of the fact that the

Council maintained no legislative or oversight authority over Rhee due to the 2007 legislation that granted Fenty mayoral control. According to the article, “council members chafed at the lack of regard she displayed” (D637, para. 42) toward them. She was criticized for “anger[ing] council members with her aggressive campaign” to restore budget funds (D637, para. 46). Thus chastised for disregarding and disrespecting the

(non-existent) authority of the largely male, majority African American council, the article reported that Rhee had been put in her rightful submissive place noting that she

“now sits at hearings for hours at a time waiting to speak, per the council tradition that has members of the public appear first” (D637, para. 49).

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The criticisms of Rhee’s blunt communication style were overtly gendered, as well as arguably racialized via the model minority mythology. Rhee was criticized for failing to “charm people, even when they can help her” (D715, para. 3). After the infamous Time magazine cover photo where she appeared in black wielding a broom, she elicited numerous comparisons to the “wicked witch of the west” from the Wizard of Oz.

In a March 16, 2010, article she was cast as a heartless villain for her attempt to remove a beloved principal from a District middle school. “Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee has been called many things since she took over the District’s public schools in 2007. But it was likely a first when a middle school student on Monday compared Rhee to Harry Potter villain Dolores Umbridge, a cruel teacher at fictional Hogwarts Academy” (D832, para.

1). The article continued, quoting another student as stating that Rhee was “breaking the heart and soul of the school” (D832, para. 9). In an April 2, 2010, article questioning whether Vincent Gray would retain Rhee as chancellor should he defeat Fenty in the

September mayoral primary race, the Post quoted Gray’s concerns with Rhee as such:

D.C. Council chairman and newly announced mayoral candidate Vincent C. Gray said he would decide whether to retain Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee only after he is elected and raised “burnout” and her impending marriage to Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson as issues he would want to discuss with her. Rhee was appointed in 2007 by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, who will face Gray in the September primary, and has said she is fully prepared for a commuter marriage with Johnson. The couple is scheduled to wed in September. But Gray, in an interview Wednesday following a community forum organized by critics of Rhee wondered whether she would want to continue. “She’s apparently getting married later this year,” Gray said. “Her spouse obviously can’t move here. So the question that would be germane to me is, does she want to commute 3,000 miles in order to be with her spouse? (D854, para. 1-3).

As the election grew closer, Rhee was accused of “political games” that increased the racialized tensions already heightened by the election. Proving The Post’s earlier prophecy true, when polling was conducted of D.C. residents regarding Rhee’s impact on

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the mayoral primary race, the results were overwhelmingly divided along racial lines, with African American voters viewing her as a reason to vote for Gray, rather than Fenty.

Traditional stereotypes of Asians as con artists were arguably employed in the article’s description of Rhee’s effect on the campaign:

Being too clever by half – that’s at the crux of Rhee’s unpopularity among many black voters. A recent Washington Post poll found that 54 percent of blacks said they would not vote for Fenty in the coming Democratic primary because he put her in the job. “There’s something about her I don’t like. Can’t put my finger on it,” said Claris Whitfield, 68, a resident of predominantly black Ward 7. That’s the way people talk when they suspect you of being a con artist. Turn the school budget into a shell game, fire teachers with the spin of a roulette while, say things that don’t quite ring true (D1024, para. 3-5).

According to this article, it was arguably Rhee’s intelligence – a stereotypical marker of the model minority – that gave voters pause. She was perceived as “too intelligent,” so intelligent that she would in effect use her intelligence to con or swindle the public. By violating the communication style and gender expectations of an Asian American female,

Rhee had effectively gone from being a “model minority” to potentially being a “yellow peril.” This final move by Post writers to arguably stereotype Rhee as a symbol of

“yellow peril” due to her communication style and personality shortcomings completed the necessary containment of Rhee in order to limit her personal power within D.C., while still supporting her neoliberal agenda.

Asian Americans have been historically and racially triangulated as “aliens” or “outsiders” with regard to White Americans but as “superior” in relation to African Americans. The former can be considered to be corresponding to the yellow peril stereotype that describes Asian Americans as “foreigner foreigners” who divert from U.S. dominant cultural norms, are economic competitors, and thereby undermine the White nation” (Kawai, 2005, p. 110).

Rhee’s containment within racial and gendered stereotypes was arguably complete, implying to readers that while Rhee as a person could not be trusted to continue her

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leadership due to her lack of adherence to model minority stereotypes that effectively branded her a “yellow peril” and a threat to white, dominant patriarchal norms. Her only assimilation to dominant white culture’s expectations were through her neoliberal, pro- market, anti-labor reforms.

Complementary Ideology

The Post’s use of complementary objectivity to simultaneously promote a pro-

Rhee-reform stance, while arguably containing Rhee the person through dominant cultural narratives of race, class, and gender, worked to present a discourse of school reform that privileged the perceived anti-racist social good of “what’s best for all kids,” while containing any personal power Rhee may have gained through her reforms by delegitimizing her identity by arguably invoking the “model minority” and “yellow peril” stereotypes. The Post undoubtedly benefited from promoting the legitimate authority of the centralized power of the chancellor position within DCPS, as it provided the Post with a go-to source for legitimate information regarding schools and educational policy and promoted pro-market ideologies that aligned with the Post’s own corporate beliefs and practices. However, as a dominant cultural force in the D.C. area, the Post also operated to maintain the cultural status quo, and therefore could not allow Rhee as a person to present a potential threat to the White patriarchal order that existed. Prior to

Rhee, the majority African American school system had endured decades of failure, propagating cultural myths of the inability to African Americans to govern and manage themselves and promoting beliefs that the academic achievement gap was grounded in racial realities. The promotion of these beliefs allowed for multiple disputes over

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whether the District should be allowed control of its own agencies and had prompted

Congress to take over the failing school system to save it from itself as recently as a decade before Rhee’s entry into District politics. While the Post agreed with and benefitted from Rhee’s pro-market reform agenda, the success story of a “slight young daughter of Korean American immigrants” rescuing the school system from abject failure and returning the District, the nation’s capital, to prominence in the education policy debate, was arguably a threat to the dominant white patriarchal cultural norms that the

Post needed to protect. In order to promote the legitimate authority of the position of chancellor, the Post overtly supported Rhee’s positional power and her leadership decisions regarding the reform of personnel laws in the District by couching them in the pro-social rhetoric of “what’s best for kids.” Simultaneously, in order to contain the potential threat of Rhee as a person gaining too much power in District politics and educational policy circles, the Post balanced their pro-Rhee reform message with an anti-

Rhee-the-person critique. While appearing balanced throughout their reporting, the Post did not ever actually promote a pro-labor stance, nor did it promote Rhee as a person in any way that could be inferred to be likeable or desirable. In the end, it was not what

Rhee did that the Post, and ultimately the public, had a problem with; it was the way she did it by arguably defying cultural stereotypes and violating expectations of race, class and gender. When the Post announced Kaya Henderson, Rhee’s deputy chancellor, as the one who would replace Rhee after her resignation, they perfectly summed up their three years of reporting on Rhee’s chancellorship. The Post was delighted with the choice of Henderson because they got “Rhee without Rhee” (D1099, para. 7). In other words, they perceived Henderson to be someone who would continue to promote Rhee’s

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agenda, since she had been Rhee’s deputy and chief negotiator in the contract talks with the unions, but without the “threat” that Rhee posed as an arguably racially marked

“other” within D.C. politics. Exactly what The Washington Post had been asking for all along.

Recommendations for Further Research

The story of The Washington Post’s coverage of educational reform did not end with Michelle Rhee’s resignation. This project chose to concentrate on the Post’s use of complementary objectivity to promote a pro-Rhee-reform while containing the personal power of Rhee the person. Based on the Post’s assertion when announcing Henderson as

Rhee’s successor that the District was getting “Rhee without Rhee,” it would be a useful undertaking to examine the coverage that the Post produced of Henderson, an African

American woman with a pro-reformist agenda taking the helm of DCPS. This project also did not consider the plethora of other media coverage that Rhee garnered during her tenure as DCPS Chancellor. Another worthwhile project would be to examine whether the complementary objectivity identified by Oh (2010) in his analysis of the Time magazine story and illustrated throughout the Post’s three years of coverage of Rhee was a national phenomena. On a larger scale, an investigation of how national media outlets have covered the wave of pro-market, neoliberal school reform efforts in Rhee’s wake, would be an informative study to determine whether media outlets in general have taken the pro-reform stance unequivocally promoted by the Post in this study.

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Conclusions

This study should also serve as an indication to educational leaders that communication style matters in attempts to move educational reform forward within the public discourse. Rhee’s reforms were never questioned by the Post. Most of the coverage that focused on her actual policies and reform initiatives was positive, and the battles Rhee won in DCPS have had far reaching implications in education policy circles.

Without Rhee, Vergara v. California, a court case currently moving through the legal system in California and attempting to prove that teacher tenure protections effectively violate the civil rights of minority and low socio-economic-status students, would not exist. Without Rhee, teacher evaluation systems across the country that seek to tie teacher evaluation to student achievement and measure teacher effectiveness based on value-added growth may not exist. Rhee’s reform initiatives forever changed the conversation surrounding organized labor in the field of education. Unfortunately,

Rhee’s communication style and her inability to control her public image in a way that worked for her were leading factors in Rhee’s arguably forced resignation from the position of Chancellor before her reforms were even truly realized. It is imperative that educational leaders be cognizant of the impact their communication style can have on public image and the resulting public discourse surrounding education. One cannot control media coverage; however, an essential part of effective leadership is knowing how to communicate effectively so that one has the best chance of the message being received despite most media outlet’s natural tendency to frame the message within dominant cultural narratives for the public.

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Appendix A – Researcher Identity Memo

What prior experiences have you had that are relevant to your topic or setting?

This dissertation most likely does not look like a dissertation that typically results from a graduate program in Educational Leadership. This is because I am not your typical Ed.D. student, with a traditional career trajectory in the field of education. From the time I was in middle school, I knew that I wanted to be a journalist. I loved writing and was fascinated by current events. In high school, I started a newspaper when I realized my school did not have one. I was accepted into the University of Maryland’s College of

Journalism and obtained my Bachelor of Arts in Broadcast Journalism, working for several years in the Washington, D.C., media world – first as a researcher and producer for a PBS weekly newsmagazine show and then with the non-profit Project for

Excellence in Journalism. When I returned to the University of Maryland for my

Master’s degree in American Studies, I was excited about the possibilities of studying and researching modern news media, a world that I loved and felt devoted to. What I found in my American Studies seminars, however, were books, articles, professors, and even other students who challenged everything I thought I knew about the media, the world, and myself. I was presented with cultural theory, post-modernism, and critiques of media and culture through the lenses of race, class and gender. After much external debate and struggle with my professors and classmates and an equally intense internal conflict, I had to admit to myself that there was no such thing as “objectivity,” a difficult admission for someone who had held the quest for “objectivity” and the ideals of journalistic ethics in such high regard for so long. My Master’s degree in American

Studies fundamentally changed the way that I saw the world around me and, in particular,

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the media world of which I had once been a part. In 2003, as I worked to complete my

Master’s degree, I began teaching middle school English in the small, suburban community in which I was raised. I completely fell in love with teaching and decided to devote myself to the pursuit of a career in education. However, I have never lost my interest in journalism, media, and the ways in which media can be used to represent our culture and influence public discourse on important national policies and events. I entered the Ed.D. program planning to study how media covers education policy and school reform movements and the impact this coverage can have on public discourse surrounding education. During my first semester leadership course, I wrote a paper on

Michelle Rhee’s decision to pose for the cover of Time magazine. I was fascinated by the story of Rhee and her impact on the District of Columbia Public Schools, but also by how and why Rhee garnered such intense media coverage as an educational leader. This dissertation grew out of that fascination. As the culminating work of my educational career, I feel that this project brings together all the threads of my former and current academic selves -- the journalist, the media critic, and the educational leader -- to produce a document that is truly a unique reflection of who I am as a researcher and writer.

What assumptions about your topic or setting have resulted from these experiences?

The assumptions I bring to this topic grow out of my experiences studying as a journalist and as a media studies scholar. I was drawn to the world of journalism because I felt that it was a noble cause. I very much believed in the “Fourth Estate” and the idea that a free press is one of the key elements of our successful democratic society. I also believed that objectivity was an attainable state of being for a journalist and that news could be

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reported factually and without bias. However, my experiences in my American Studies courses opened my eyes to the idea that all media artifacts are created out of a particular cultural context by a particular person and therefore will always be a reflection of that culture and that person’s place within the culture. While journalists might strive mightily for objectivity, it is truly an unattainable state because one can never divorce oneself from their own essential understandings of the world. I also came to see journalism as an increasingly corporate, capitalist endeavor. As media companies increasingly merged and multi-national corporations began to create an oligarchy of control over information presented in traditional news media outlets, I began to see the “journalist” as simply a role to be played in the larger cultural narrative of freedom, democracy and access to information played out on a national stage. While I feel that individual journalists by and large still hold journalistic ethics in high regard and strive for a state of objectivity, I also feel that the corporatization of media outlets and the increasing vertical integration of media companies, designed to maximize profits through control of images, ideas, and information across media pipelines and outlets, has impacted the way that particular national events or policies are (or are not) covered. While much of it may be unintentional on the part of the journalist herself, I feel that the stories that get published or receive airtime are most often those that rely on or play to dominant cultural narratives of race, class, and gender in order to appeal to the broadest audience possible without conflicting with the way most Americans generally see and understand their lives and their place in the world.

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What goals have emerged from these, or have otherwise become important for your research?

Based on these experiences and assumptions, I feel that a critical discourse analysis of media coverage is an essential component of understanding the public discourse surrounding education and school reform in the 21st century. By examining the news stories that covered a particular policy decision or a particular educational leader, one can begin to uncover the dominant cultural narratives upon which our public understandings of education and educational leadership are based. Gaining this understanding, can then help educators and educational leaders critically read future media coverage and interact with media outlets in a more discerning way in order to get their message(s) to the public.

How have these experiences, assumptions and goals shaped your decision to choose this topic, and the way you are approaching this project?

As stated above, I feel that this project would not exist if it were not for my previous experiences, assumptions and goals. I feel that this is a project that exists because of who

I am, where I have come from as a researcher and scholar, and the importance I place on cultural narratives surrounding public education and the ways that media coverage tends to support, perpetuate, and reinvent those narratives to the public. As educational leaders, I feel it is essential to be aware of these cultural narratives surrounding education and the role that media plays in disseminating them, both consciously and unconsciously, in order to be able to effectively communicate his/her desired message(s) through the media pipeline.

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What potential advantages do you think the goals, beliefs, and experience that you described have for your study?

I think the advantage of these goals, beliefs and experiences are that I am able to look at the project from the viewpoint of a journalist, a media critic, and an educator. Although it is uncomfortable now to try to put myself back in the shoes of a journalist, I can still conjure up that mindset and the priorities and assumptions that came with it. Likewise, as a media critic, I am able to approach the news article or broadcast from a completely different perspective and question how and why it was written or produced the way it was. What choices were made? What was included or excluded? What does this say about our culture and our cultural assumptions? Finally, as an educator and aspiring educational leader, I am able to think critically about the impact that media coverage may have on one’s ability to deliver a message of education policy or school reform to the masses.

What potential disadvantages do you think these may create for you, and how might you deal with these?

The disadvantages I think this may create for me are that I can tend to put myself too much into any one of those roles. During this project, I feel that I tended more toward the role of the media critic, as my objective was to complete a critical discourse analysis of the media coverage of Michelle Rhee. However, the young journalist that firmly believed in the ideal of objectivity is still somewhere deep inside searching for evidence of that objectivity in the texts and feeling a bit dejected when the media critic ultimately triumphs in finding biases that were consciously or unconsciously able to permeate the

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coverage. At times, my critique of the media may be a bit harsher than what another media critic may write because that young, idealistic girl inside still wants to be validated for her earlier beliefs in objectivity and journalistic ethics and finds herself all the more upset when the illusion is again shattered through a critical examination of the texts.

While I attempted to temper this internal conflict in my research and writing, I cannot promise that glimpses of the young, idealistic journalist and the hypersensitive media critic do not rear their ugly heads at some points throughout this dissertation. Again, this project exists only because of who I am and where I come from. There is bound to be a piece of me left behind on the pages. It is my hope that the pieces of me on these pages are productive ones that can work to tie together the threads of journalism, media criticism, and educational leadership that I feel need to be tied in order for us to better understand 21st century public discourse on education and school reform.

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Appendix B: Lexis Nexis Search Results

Document Date Published Headline # D1 6/12/2007 Fenty to Oust Janey Today; Head of Nonprofit That Trains Teachers Would Run Schools D2 6/13/2007 Picks to Lead D.C. Schools Have Ties to The System D3 6/13/2007 More Criticism Over Fenty’s Secrecy; Rhee’s Selection as Schools Chief, a Shock to Many, Draws Scrutiny D4 6/13/2007 Janey Leaves With Plans Unfinished; After Less Than 3 Years on the Job, Schools Chief Is Negotiating for a Buyout D5 6/14/2007 Activist Charged in Clash With Aide D6 6/14/2007 Fenty Picks Veteran of Public Projects to Upgrade Schools; Lew Oversees Stadium Work D7 6/14/2007 For Class of ’07, Trials and Triumphs; Students’ Struggles Point to Challenges Awaiting Chancellor Nominee D8 6/15/2007 Advocacy Group To Conduct Audit D9 6/15/2007 Judging Ms. Rhee; How Mr. Fenty picked his school chief matters less than whether she can do the job D10 6/16/2007 Chancellor Search Legality Challenged; Council Chairman Wants Mayor to Tell of Selection Process D11 6/17/2007 Schools Chief Makes Mark; Acting Chancellor Halts Hiring of D.C. Principals D12 6/17/2007 Week in Review: June 10-16 D13 6/21/2007 ‘Scare Tactics’ From Fenty’s Team D14 6/21/2007 Mayor Nominates 6 Department Heads; Fenty’s Selections Include Chief of Troubled Regulatory Agency D15 6/23/2007 Homegrown Talent for the Schools D16 6/23/2007 New Schools Chief Builds Team; Hires Marked by Youth, Experience Working at Nonprofits D17 6/24/2007 Undebatably, A Useful Tool for D.C. Schools D18 6/24/2007 Wariness Greets Schools Advisers; D.C. Staff, Activists Point to Past Firms’ Pricey, Poor Results D19 6/25/2007 Agents of Change D20 6/27/2007 Deputy Mayor Robbed at Gunpoint D21 6/27/2007 Council Mostly Applauds Nominee; School Pick Draws Fire Over Fenty D22 6/28/2007 Fenty Nominee Questioned on Plagiarism; No Details Offered To Council on Report’s Creation D23 6/23/2007 Council Wants Rhee to Back Up Resume D24 7/1/2007 Summer Break, But Plenty of Work; Fenty Aims to Repair Crumbling Facilities

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D25 7/2/2007 Fenty’s Agent of Change; Today, Michelle Rhee Must Convince the D.C. Council That She Has What It Takes to Turn Around One of the Nation’s Most Troubled School Systems D26 7/3/2007 Rhee Gets Plaudits Before Council; Nominee Praised For Work With Underprivileged D27 7/3/2007 An Even-Bigger Schools Bureaucracy? D28 7/3/2007 Color of Cabinet Has Fenty on the Defensive; Some Residents Give Latitude, but Others Say Lack of Blacks Doesn’t Reflect City D29 7/4/2007 It Takes a City; Improving D.C. schools will be Michelle Rhee’s job but everyone’s responsibility D30 7/4/2007 Rhee’s Determination Will Be Tested D31 7/4/2007 Rhee to Be Highest-Paid School Head in D.C. Area; Contract Provides $41,250 Signing Bonus D32 7/5/2007 In Ward 4, Election Buzz Is Politics As Usual D33 7/8/2007 Week in Review; July 1-7 D34 7/10/2007 On the Same Team?; D.C. school reform is too important to play games with D35 7/10/2007 Gray Won’t Allow Reinoso Vote Today; Council Chairman Says He Has Qualms About Deputy Mayor’s Leadership Skills D36 7/10/2007 Deasy Gets Raise After Evaluation By Board; Schools Chief’s Leadership Praised D37 7/11/2007 United Council Approves Rhee as D.C. Schools Chief D38 7/12/2007 The Accidental Omission D39 7/12/2007 Salary Proposal Irks Council Members; Plans for 2 School Officials Exceed Cap D40 7/14/2007 Limelight Has eluded Fired D.C. Schools Chief D41 7/15/2007 Week In Review; July 8-14 D42 7/15/2007 Week In Review; July 8-14 D43 7/15/2007 Week In Review; July 8-14 D44 7/16/2007 The Wrong Direction on School Pay D45 7/17/2007 Educational Entitlement; Whose interest is being taken care of with D.C. school salaries? D46 7/19/2007 For Janey, Event Means ‘Validation’ of Legacy D47 7/19/2007 Ward 1 Election: Divided as Usual D48 7/19/2007 Groups Conduct Studies of D.C. School System D49 7/20/2007 Admirers Bid Janey Public Farwell D50 7/22/2007 Week in Review; July 15-21 D51 7/24/2007 Principal’s Joining Transition Team Irks Parents D52 7/24/2007 District Briefing D53 7/26/2007 Rhee Vows to Alter Governance Culture; Focus on Student Achievement Stressed D54 7/26/2007 Brown Checks Out Competitors for 2008 D55 7/29/2007 Principal Selection Process Questioned; D.C. Parents

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Push for Big Role, With Mixed Success, as Chancellor Fills Posts D56 7/29/2007 School Leadership Vacancies Filled D57 7/31/2007 Clouds Gather Over D.C. Schools; Problems with Books, Air Conditioning Cited as Opening Nears D58 8/1/2007 District Briefing D59 8/2/2007 Evans Follows Fenty Model D60 8/3/2007 District Briefing D61 8/4/2007 Rhee Blasts Textbook Process for Letting Supplies Languish; School Starts in Weeks, but Materials Sit in D.C. Warehouse D62 8/8/2007 Many Textbooks Left Behind; A D.C. school story you’ve heard before D63 8/9/2007 Chancellor Says Majority of Students Will Have Books D64 8/9/2007 Hear the Latest About the Federal City Council D65 8/10/2007 District’s Ex-Charter Schools Chief Admits Fraud D66 8/15/2007 Grants Given for Nonexistent Students D67 8/16/2007 Schools Chancellor Will Dismiss DCIAA Supervisor, Sources Say D68 8/18/2007 Modest Gains in D.C. Schools; Passing Rates in Math, Reading Still Less Than 40% D69 8/18/2007 Education Election is Under Political Radar; Write-In Candidate Takes On Sole Person on Ballot D70 8/21/2007 Rhee Races to Deliver Most Books By Monday D71 8/22/2007 A School Scam; The theft of $800,000 is a hard lesson for the District D72 8/22/2007 D.C. Blitzes School Records Mess D73 8/23/2007 New Principals Step Up to the Task; 20 Schools Face Transition With Interim Leaders D74 8/23/2007 Parents Brace for Schools Overhaul; ‘Wait and See’ Is A Common Outlook D75 8/23/2007 D.C. Teens Speak Out About State of Schools D76 8/23/2007 A Note From the District’s New Schools Chancellor D77 8/23/2007 What City Can Expect from Rhee; Chancellor Outlines Vision for Schools D78 8/23/2007 Charter Board Prepares for Increased Oversight; System Structure Places Members in Expanded Role D79 8/23/2007 D.C. Schools Face the New and Familiar; Mission Guides Planned; Closings Are Put on Hold D80 8/23/2007 School Notes D81 8/23/2007 Biddle Promises Hands-On Strategy; Board Member’s Role Has Changed D82 8/23/2007 New Law, New Roles For School Officials; Shift in Duties Gives Gist Oversight D83 8/23/2007 Taking the Schools for a Spin D84 8/23/2007 School Notes

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D85 8/24/2007 Bring On the Enthusiasm; 3,000 Educators Gather Before Start of D.C. School Year D86 8/24/2007 Not on the Same Page Over Textbook Needs; D.C. Mayor and Schools Chief See Shortage; Many Principals Don’t D87 8/25/2007 It’s Back to School for Council Members, Too D88 8/26/2007 Week In Review; Aug. 19-25 D89 8/26/2007 Building Spruce-Up a Lesson in Teamwork; Over 1,600 Residents Weed, Paint, Unpack D90 8/28/2007 At Bruce-Monroe in NW, Heralds of Transformation D91 8/28/2007 Opening With Optimism; Some Schools Enjoy Fresh Paint; Others Suffer Schedule Mix-Ups, Disrepair D92 8/29/2007 Rhee Seeks Authority to Terminate Employees; Planned Legislation is Aimed at Reorganizing the D.C. School System’s Central Command D93 8/30/2007 Bunker Hill Principal Canvasses For Students D94 8/30/2007 For Some Students, SAT Can Open College Doors D95 9/1/2007 Stolen Car Jumps Curb Near School in NW, Injures 3 D96 9/2/2007 Week in Review; Aug. 26-Sept. 1 D97 9/4/2007 Putting Bureaucrats First D98 9/7/2007 D.C. Schools Might Snare Tax Windfall; Fenty Wants to Fund Construction, Buyouts D99 9/8/2007 Pink Slips; Real change is needed at the District’s central school office D100 9/8/2007 8 D.C. Catholic Schools Eyed for Charters; Turning Over Operation to Secular Entity Proposed to Avert Closure D101 9/9/2007 Pink Slips; Real change is needed at the District’s central school office D102 9/9/2007 No Job Too Small for Fenty-Rhee Team; Hands-On Schools Approach Excites Some, Worries Others D103 9/10/2007 Leaving No Child Behind D104 9/10/2007 Center Focuses on Teachers, Not Test Scores; D.C. Group’s Mission Is to Reinvigorate, Retain Educators D105 9/12/2007 Rhee Starts Off Right D106 9/13/2007 Lights, Camera, Council D107 9/14/2007 Eastern High’s Missing Scores Scrutinized D108 9/18/2007 City Reaches Undisclosed Financial Settlement With Janey D109 9/18/2007 D.C. Payday Lenders Unbowed Ahead of Vote D110 9/20/2007 30 Schools Can Be Overhauled After Not Gaining on Tests D111 9/21/2007 Janey to Get $275,000 As Part of Settlement D112 9/22/207 District Briefing D113 9/23/2007 High Schools Greet 1,200 Fresh Faces; Ninth- Graders Shifted in as District Eliminates Junior High

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D114 9/26/2007 Chemical Sends D.C. Students To Hospital; Irritant Similar to Pepper Spray D115 9/27/2007 School Notes D116 9/27/2007 Chairman Backs Reinoso for Schools Post D117 9/28/2007 Lew Seeks Control Over Mainenance; Chief of Upgrades Cites ‘Gridlock’ D118 10/1/2007 Superintendents Suggest Fixes For ‘No Child’; Some Support National Testing Standards D119 10/1/2007 123 School Employees Are Moving to Agency with State-Level Role D120 10/2/2007 Builders Are Fired By D.C. Schools; Offical Pledges To End Delays, Cost Overruns D121 10/4/2007 Fenty Unveils Plan for Schools; Mayor Says Extra $81 Million Needed To Fix the System D122 10/5/2007 Missing Girls, 9, Found in Pr. George’s; Two Apparently Took Bus From School, Gave False Names D123 10/5/2007 DCIAA Athletes Given Fifth Year to Complete Eligibility D124 10/6/2007 Bottom Line Is Safety, Police Say; Cost of Massive Search for Two D.C. Girls Is Unclear D125 10/6/2007 D.C. Eligibility Rule Gets Mixed Reviews D126 10/7/2007 Week in Review; Sept. 30-Oct. 6 D127 10/7/2007 To Save the Next DeOnte Rawlings D128 10/12/2007 Fenty Asks That Rhee Be Given Power to Fire Workers D129 10/13/2007 D.C. Schools Chief Wants Power to Fire Ineffective Teachers D130 10/14/2007 First Step for D.C. Schools; The central office must be overhauled D131 10/14/2007 Week in Review; Oct. 7-13 D132 10/17/2007 District Briefing D133 10/18/2007 Teachers’ Union Is Urged to Fight Plan; No. 2 Official Fears Precedent of Move at Central Office D134 10/19/2007 City Title Games in Doubt Because of DCIAA Provision D135 10/19/2007 Schools Try to Allay Fears About Staph; Reports of Student Infections Rise to 31 D136 10/21/2007 Redskins Over .500, but Face a Must-Win Situation D137 10/25/2007 Seeking Transparency From Rhee’s Office D138 10/26/2007 School Activist’s Next Assignment; Board Member Picked for Ombudsman, Praised for Commitment D139 10/31/2007 Members Vote to Oppose Central Office Bill D140 10/31/2007 District Briefing D141 11/3/2007 D.C. Eligibility Rule to Be Clarified; Students Must Complete High School Play in Four Consecutive Years

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D142 11/3/2007 Unions Speak Against D.C. Schools Bill; Proposed Firing Authority Worries Leaders D143 11/4/2007 Officials Listen to Students’ Concerns; At Summit, Children Suggest Fixes for Schools D144 11/7/2007 Left Out; Improving D.C. Schools is one key to relieving unemployment and poverty D145 11/7/2007 District Briefing D146 11/10/2007 Ineligible Player Costs Ballou Its Spot in Semis D147 11/11/2007 The Right Way to Oust the Wrong Teachers; ‘Peer Review’ Addresses the Trouble with Tenure D148 11/14/2007 Nonprofits Might Manage Low Performers D149 11/15/2007 D.C. Has Say in School Plan; Rhee May Offer Charter Operator Management D150 11/16/2007 Teachers and Parents List Needs at Hearing D151 11/16/2007 Put It on the Students’ Tab; In D.C. schools, misused funds and missing accountability D152 11/18/2007 D.C. Schools Facing ‘Restructuring’ D153 11/18/2007 Doubts About Over Privatization; As Rhee Seeks Schools Solution, Experts Cite Data on Limited Benefits D154 11/18/2007 Week in Review; Nov.11-17 D155 11/20/2007 District Briefing D156 11/20/2007 What $81 Million Could Do; City Officials Break Down How System Would Use Requested Funds D157 11/22/2007 Three Eliminated in Fight for Poplar Point Bid D158 11/22/2007 Some Took Exception to an Exemption; Woodson’s Stover Was Granted Eligibility, Sparking Controversy D159 11/28/2007 Fenty, Rhee Look at Closing 24 Schools, Reducing Staff D160 11/29/2007 Short Notice on Plan to Close Schools Angers Council D161 11/29/2007 Principals Approve of Building Repairs D162 11/29/2007 D.C School Closings; Mayor Fenty makes some hard by necessary calls D163 11/30/2007 Rhee Is Questioned About Higher Deficit Projection D164 12/2/2007 Let the Chancellor Lead; D.C. Council members should judge Michelle Rhee by results in the classroom D165 12/2/2007 Some Ward 5 Residents Concerned By Closures; With 7 Schools Slated to Shut, Area Loses More Than Others D166 12/2/2007 Week in Review; Nov.25-Dec.1 D167 12/3/2007 Fenty’s Mode on Schools Is Breeding Alienation D168 12/4/2007 Angry Parents Question School Closings; D.C. Officials Are Jeered as They Explain Their Plan at a Meeting in Ward 5 D169 12/4/2007 What Matters Most in the D.C. Schools Plan

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D170 12/6/2007 Unions Launch Ad to Fight School Plan D171 12/6/2007 Mayor, Council Battle Over Wizards Tickets D172 12/8/2007 Group Protests Proposed Firings, Closings; Parents and Teachers Rally at Wilson Building D173 12/8/2007 When Schools Close, Doors Open to Opportunities for Revitalization D174 12/11/2007 Pleas Are Aired at First Meeting on Closures; Chancellor Says She Will Preserve Successful Programs D175 12/11/2007 District Briefing D176 12/11/2007 Bill Would Put More Children in Pre-Kindergarten D177 12/12/2007 Schools Lag Amid Gains on D.C. HIV Report Card D178 12/12/2007 Budget, Council Snag School Plans; Fenty, Rhee Delay Adding Classes; Legislation Could Hinder Closings D179 12/13/2007 AP and IB Exam-Taking Nearly Doubles in Two Years; D.C. Ranking Rises on Challenge Index D180 12/13/2007 Deputy Mayor’s Staffing Takes a Hit D181 12/14/2007 A Delay That Hurts D.C. Students D182 12/16/2007 Week in Review; Dec. 9-15 D183 12/16/2007 Taking the Test; Michelle Rhee Strives to Shake Up the D.C. Schools, One Person and One Day at a Time D184 12/17/2007 Support Your Local Schools; The D.C. Council should give the Chancellor the tools she needs D185 12/17/2007 Standing Up Among the Issues, Egos; Gray Is Adapting to Assertive Role D186 12/18/2007 Rhee’s Plans Are Likely to Pass, Lawmakers Say; Parents, Unions Oppose Firings, Closings D187 12/19/2007 3 D.C. Schools’ Gain in Test Scores Mean Cash for Teachers and Staff D188 12/19/2007 D.C. Bill on School Firings Advances D189 12/19/2007 Shirkers Beware; A housecleaning is coming to the D.C. schools central office D190 12/20/2007 Showtime for Friends of Fenty; Mayoral Aides, Family Members Gain Access to City’s Skybox D191 12/21/2007 A $2.9 Million Payout, With a Few Shortcuts D192 12/23/2007 Lessons in Reality; Young idealists arrive to teach at Washington’s Coolidge High, and they learn how frustrating efforts at reform can be D193 12/23/2007 Week in Review; Dec.16-22 D194 12/24/2007 Fenty Friend and Counsel Walks Hard, Steps on Toes D195 12/25/2007 A Hidden Premium in School Chief Pay; With Candidates Few and Demands Many, Perks Swell D196 12/26/2007 D.C. Missteps Aside, This Program Works D197 12/28/2007 Hearings on School Closures Multiply; D.C. Plans to Hold 23 Simultaneously

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D198 12/30/2007 D.C. Mulls A Return to Pre-K-8 Schools; Proposal Worries Parents, Teachers D199 12/30/2007 Like, Where’s the Grammar? D200 12/30/2007 Week in Reviw; Dec. 23-29 D201 12/31/2007 A Year of Fussing and Feuding – in Other Words, Politics D202 1/1/2008 Why Closing Schools Might Not Make Sense D203 1/5/2008 Get Smart About School Repairs D204 1/6/2008 The District D205 1/6/2008 Success of Closings Plan Hangs on Rhee’s Resolve D206 1/6/2008 Teams Will Visit Failing Schools to Help Tailor Restructuring Plan D207 1/8/2008 Boycott Set for Hearings on School Closings D208 1/9/2008 Bill on School Firings Passes D209 1/11/2008 More Autonomy Sought in Plan to Overhaul Failing D.C. Schools D210 1/13/2008 Week in Review; Jan. 6-12 D211 1/13/2008 Fenty’s First Year Gets High Marks, But Divide Persists D212 1/13/2008 Letting Everyone Be Heard; Time for some grown=up behavior toward D.C. school closings D213 1/13/2008 Schools Targeted for Closure D214 1/13/2008 The 23 D.C. Schools at Risk in Rhee’s Plan D215 1/15/2008 Hearing on School Closings is Long and Emotional D216 1/15/2008 Preschool for All?; The D.C. Council considers an expansion of pre-K classes D217 1/17/2008 As Parents Fight School Closings, D.C. Chancellor Says Input Matters D218 1/17/2008 HIV-AIDS Curriculum To Expand in the Fall; ‘We’re in a Crisis,’ Rhee’s Assistant Says D219 1/17/2008 Rhee, Council Members to Discuss School Closings Tonight D220 1/17/2008 For Dellinger, Just Another Day at the Office D221 1/18/2008 Many Parents at Assemblies Oppose Plan; City Officials Criticized for Holding Hearings Despite Bad Weather D222 1/19/2008 Weekend Test Prep Program Is Planned for D.C. Schools D223 1/20/2008 Fenty Seeks to Inspire But Instead Infuriates D224 1/20/2008 Week in Review; Jan.13-19 D225 1/21/2008 Top Issue for D.C. Schools? Parents.; So Say Residents, Who Cite Apathy D226 1/21/2008 Rethinking Principal Priorities of Training D227 1/23/2008 District Briefing D228 1/24/2008 Rhee Sees ‘Tide Turning’ for Schools; Chancellor Defends Progress on Painful Path to Change

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D229 1/24/2008 Home Sales D230 1/26/2008 Mr. Fenty’s First Year; Kudos for getting control of the schools. Now the real work begins. D231 1/27/2008 Mr. Fenty’s First Year; Kudos for getting control of the schools. Now the real work begins. D232 1/29/2008 Bad Parents Don’t Make Bad Schools D233 1/30/2008 Rhee to Seek $17 Million More for Schools in the Next Budget D234 1/30/2008 Housing Downturn Squeezing Schools D235 1/31/2008 Schools Chiefs Get Average of $351,730 After Perks D236 1/31/2008 Washington Area Superintendents’ Actual Compensation D237 1/31/2008 Per-Pupil Funding Increase Sought; Fenty to Request About $53 Million D238 2/1/2008 100 March Against Plan to Close Schools; Two on Council Demand More Public Input D239 2/1/2008 Shuttered Schools Can Have New Life D240 2/2/2008 Math Quiz D241 2/2/2008 D.C. School Closings List is Revised D242 2/2/2008 Bush Proposes Giving D.C. $32 Million More to Boost School Reform D243 2/3/2008 A Boost for D.C. Schools; President Bush’s new budget would fund badly needed reforms D244 2/4/2008 Finding Time for Success; Test Pressures Spur Some Schools to Stretch Out Calendar D245 2/7/2008 Home is Still Away from Home; New Report Scolds D.C. for Inaction at Cardozo, Which Lacks a Usable Gym D246 2/7/2008 Education Notes D247 2/7/2008 Gray Recruits Well-Versed Spokeswoman D248 2/10/2008 Some Worry Latest Shuffle Might Put Programs at Risk D249 2/11/2008 Selection Methods Vary Across Nation D250 2/14/2008 Education Notes D251 2/15/2008 District Briefing D252 2/15/2008 Rhee Hopes Tastier Food Can Beef Up Finances D253 2/16/2008 Under Pressure, City Shows Spending Plans D254 2/17/2008 Week in Review; Feb.10-16 D255 2/18/2008 Rhee Weighs Ideas to Fix 27 Schools D256 2/19/2008 Rhee Wants School to Serve as ‘Differentiated Learning’ Lab D257 2/20/2008 Scanty Showing at Fenty’s Hearing on School Budget D258 2/22/2008 A Contract for Change; Reform of D.C. schools hinges on new teacher rules D259 2/22/2008 Eligibility Issue Causes Semis to be Postponed D260 2/23/2008 Rhee Has Ambitious Plans But Still No School Budget

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D261 2/23/2008 Doom and Gloom Don’t Add Up to Much D262 2/26/2008 Outside Help for Schools Possible; D.C. Contracts Private Groups to Aid Ailing Sites D263 2/27/2008 District Briefing D264 2/28/2008 Judge Denies Advocates’ Request Rhee to Release Spending Plan D265 2/28/2008 Parents Protest Plan for School Closures D266 2/29/2008 Closings, Consolidation Will Cost $110 Million; Schools Receiving Students Require Repairs D267 3/1/2008 Plan Aired to Root Out D.C. Students’ Problems D268 3/1/2008 Fenty Faulted for Moving Ahead on Buyouts D269 3/2/2008 Week in Review; Feb.24-Mar.1 D270 3/4/2008 District Briefing D271 3/4/2008 D.C.’s Charter Schools on the Outside Wanting In D272 3/4/2008 DCIAA’s Chin to Retire Immediately D273 3/5/2008 Pilot Plan for Incentive Pay Unveiled D274 3/5/2008 Big Crowd Comes Out to Watch Games D275 3/8/2008 D.C. Schools Chief Fires 98 Workers; Largest System Dismissal in a Decade is Part of Pledge to Improve Efficiency D276 3/9/2008 Firings Will Hurt D.C. Schools, Workers Say; Council Members Question Dismissals D277 3/11/2008 Rhee Still Delaying Release of Names; Gray Making Formal Request for List of 98 Dismissed Workers D278 3/11/2008 Benched; Athletes at D.C. charter schools should be allowed to compete in city championships D279 3/11/2008 Rhee Hesitates on Requests for List of Fired Workers D280 3/12/2008 Firings Cut Payroll by $6 Million; Council Members Urge Rhee to Disclose More Details D281 3/12/2008 Firings Cut Payroll by $6 Million; Council Members Urge Rhee to Disclose More Details D282 3/13/2008 Man Shot, Killed Outside Elementary School D283 3/13/2008 Student Gets On-the-Job Training in Firing; Dismissal of 98 School System Central Office Workers Halts Senior’s Internship D284 3/13/2008 Overdue Dismissals; Mayor Fenty is right to hold D.C. workers accountable D285 3/13/2008 Will D.C.’s Chavous Effect Hit New York? D286 3/13/2008 Man Shot, Killed Outside Elementary School D287 3/13/2008 Overdue Dismissals; Mayor Fenty is right to hold D.C. workers accountable D288 3/13/2008 Student Gets On-the-Job Training in Firing; Dismissal of 98 School System Central Office Workers Halts Senior’s Internship D289 3/13/2008 Will D.C.’s Chavous Effect Hit New York? D290 3/14/2008 Study Notes Economic Ills of Low Graduation Rates

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D291 3/15/2008 Fenty Lauds School System Changes; Education Accountability Remains ‘Top Priority’ for Administration D292 3/15/2008 Federal Official Praises Progress, Urges More Long- Term Planning D293 3/16/2008 Principal Recruitment Another Move in Reform; D.C. Chancellor, Mayor Use Ads in Search for School Leaders D294 3/18/2008 Rhee’s ’09 Budget Adds $44 Million D295 3/18/2008 Rhee’s ’09 Budget Adds $44 Million D296 3/19/2008 District Briefing D297 3/21/2008 Security at Wilson High to be Tightened; Rhee Addresses School Violence After 13 Arrests D298 3/21/2008 School Budget Reflects Transfer of Some High-Cost Programs D299 3/21/2008 School Budget Reflects Transfer of Some High-Cost Programs D300 3/21/2008 Security at Wilson High to be Tightened; Rhee Addresses School Violence D301 3/27/2008 Teachers Expect Early-Retirement Offers; Schools Could Lose Hundreds of Experienced Employees, Union President Says D302 3/27/2008 Teachers Expect Early-Retirement Offers; Schools Could Lose Hundreds of Experienced Employees, Union President Says D303 3/30/2008 Week in Review; March 23-29 D304 4/1/2008 Students Walk Out to Protest Security Policy D305 4/1/2008 Students Walk Out to Protest Security Policy D306 4/8/2008 More Flaws Cited in D.C. Audit for 2007 D307 4/9/2008 Plan to Cut Hearings on School Budget Irks Activists D308 4/10/2008 Cooper Follows Orange to Pepco D309 4/11/2008 District Teachers Offered Buyout; As Many as 700 Could Accept Incentives to Leave D310 4/12/2008 District Briefing D311 4/13/2008 Debating Value of Fenty’s Visibility D312 4/13/2008 Week in Review; April 6-12 D313 4/14/2008 Schools Get a Lesson in Lunch Line Economics; Food Costs Unravel Nutrition Initiatives D314 4/15/2008 Teacher Buyout Questions Raised; Some Leaders in Union Want Offer Rejected D315 4/17/2008 Rhee Eyes 6 Firms to Help Run Campuses; 10 D.C. High Schools Slated for Restructuring D316 4/18/2008 Troubled D.C. Schools May Get Outside Help D317 4/18/2008 Buyout in D.C.; The chancellor’s plan to reinvigorate the teaching staff is commendable – and is meeting resistance

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D318 4/19/2008 Corrections D319 4/19/2008 District Briefing D320 4/20/2008 Week in Review; April 13-19 D321 4/22/2008 Eastern High PTA Seeks Staff Shake-Up D322 4/23/2008 Rhee Says Schools Overhaul May Take Years D323 4/24/2008 Near-Adults Don’t Belong in Ninth Grade D324 4/24/2008 Extras D325 4/25/2008 Study Highlights Changes in D.C. School Enrollment; Clearer Picture of Race, Poverty in System D326 4/29/2008 Vouching for Vouchers; The educational interests of 1,900 D.C. children are riding on Adrian Fenty’s trip to the Hill tomorrow D327 4/29/2008 Rhee Gets Say Over Teacher Transfers; Some Denounce Agreement With Union President D328 4/30/2008 District Briefing D329 4/30/2008 Fenty Warns Against Plan to Transfer School Funds D330 5/1/2008 DCIAA Changes Rule About Five Years’ Eligibility D331 5/1/2008 Panel Rejects Plan to Reopen Road in Rock Creek Park D332 5/1/2008 Brown Back in Politics, Yet Again D333 5/2/2008 Council to Consider Plan to Aid Businesses D334 5/4/2008 Armed With Paint and Plants, Volunteers Blitz D.C. Schools D335 5/5/2008 Turmoil Racks Teachers Union; National Group Intervenes Amid Officers’ Battle, Recall Drive D336 5/6/2008 Rhee Moves to Dismiss Up to 30 Principals D337 5/7/2008 Rhee’s Need to Hurry Runs Into Parents’ Fear of Change D338 5/7/2008 Budget Shortfall Grows As U.S. Economy Slows D339 5/9/2008 Rhee Fires Her Children’s Principal; Bilingual School Known for High Achievement D340 5/10/2008 A Southeast Spot Blossoming With Charm D341 5/11/2008 At D.C.’s Phelps High, A Return to the Future D342 5/15/2008 A Good Principal is Fired D343 5/16/2008 Rhee Dismisses 24 Principals; 13 Firings at Schools Not Meeting ‘No Child Left Behind’ Rules D344 5/16/2008 The Restructuring Strategy D345 5/16/2008 Chancellor Outlines Plan for Overhaul; Most Facilities Face Staffing Changes D346 5/17/2008 Unkept Promises in D.C.; Why can’t the city improve care for those with disabilities? D347 5/18/2008 Week in Review; May 11-17 D348 5/18/2008 Unkept Promises in D.C.; Why can’t the city improve care for those with disabilities? D349 5/18/2008 The Missing Piece of Education Reform D350 5/20/2008 Reports Recount Student Disdain; Outside Evaluators

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Visited Struggling D.C. Schools D351 5/20/2008 Rhee Defends Firing Her Children’s Principal D352 5/21/2008 Teacher Contract Would End Seniority; Union is Reviewing Proposal from Rhee D353 5/21/2008 Meet the New School Board; The D.C. Council shouldn’t be stepping between Chancellor Michelle Rhee and tough decisions on closings D354 5/24/2008 District Briefs D355 5/24/2008 Deputy Mayor Chided by Council; Delay in Creating and Choices for Evaluation Team Draw Complaints D356 5/25/2008 Schools Spiff-Up is Hard Sell for Fenty; Private Sector Less Eager to Contribute D357 5/26/2008 Rhee Says Budget Formula Change Will Bring Art, Music to Schools D358 5/26/2008 Rhee Says Budget Formula Change Will Bring Art, Music to Schools D359 5/27/2008 Midterm Grade; Mayor Fenty has made good on a promise of dramatic action, but D.C. schools still have a long way to go D360 5/28/2008 State Superintendent Finds Limits to Power; Some on D.C. School Board Push to Broaden Office’s Authority to Scrutinize Rhee D361 5/29/2008 Give Principals Power to Improve Schools D362 5/31/2008 District Briefing D363 6/1/2008 Conflicting Feelings as Elementary School Marks Its End D364 6/5/2008 Who Will Build Soccer Stadium? Game On! D365 6/6/2008 District Briefing D366 6/10/2008 Training Program Cut Off After Irregularities Found D367 6/11/2008 A Landmark’s Looming Demise; NE High School Has Been a Symbol of Pride and, Increasingly, Despair D368 6/12/2008 At Benning Elementary, School’s Out Forever D369 6/12/2008 District Briefing D370 6/12/2008 1,900 Scholarships; Del. Norton moves to take a valued educational option from the poor D371 6/12/2008 ‘Standing Up for the Children’; New Group Pushes Education Reform as Campaign Issue D372 6/13/2008 Leaders Chart Progress, Academic Goals; In Her Second Year, Rhee Plans to Focus on Boosting Student Achievement D373 6/14/2008 District Briefing D374 6/19/2008 Rhee Says She’ll Stay Seven More Years D375 6/19/2008 22 Assistant Principals Are Latest to be Fired D376 6/21/2008 2 Closed Schools Go to Charters; Five Will Be Leased to City Agencies, Fenty’s Office Says D377 6/25/2008 Teacher Bonuses Get Unions’ Blessing; Pr. George’s

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Offers Rewards of Up to $10,000 Linked to Test Scores, Evaluations D378 6/26/2008 Education Notes D379 6/26/2008 Council Questions Repair Contracts; High Construction Fees Prompt Concerns D380 6/27/2008 Grants Will Aid Groups Working for Education Reform D381 6/30/2008 D.C. Still in Search of Charter School Funds D382 6/30/2008 Regional Briefing D383 7/1/2008 School Officials Urge Approval of Funds for Building Repairs D384 7/2/2008 D.C. Council, School Leaders Differ on Funds D385 7/3/2008 Rhee Targets Teachers’ Seniority, Tenure Rules D386 7/3/2008 Lack of Funds is Cited for Halting Renovations D387 7/4/2008 Tardy Again; Thanks to the D.C. Council, many city schools probably will not be ready when students return D388 7/4/2008 Gandhi Works on Image Control; D.C. Fiscal Chief Tries to Mitigate Damage from Tax Scam D389 7/4/2008 Rhee to Fire 250 Teachers Who Missed Certification Date D390 7/5/2008 Rhee Deploys ‘Army of Believers’; Stakes High for D.C. Schools Chief’s 45 Handpicked Principals D391 7/6/2008 Week in Review; June 29-July 5 D392 7/8/2008 Reform With Rewards; The District proposed a bold new way to pay teachers D393 7/9/2008 Earning $100,000 – Without Losing Tenure D394 7/10/2008 If the News Is Bad, It Must Be Friday D395 7/10/2008 Better Scores; Who gets credit for improvement in D.C. public school test results? D396 7/10/2008 D.C. Students See Big Academic Gains; Test Scores Increase, but Percentage Reaching Proficiency Remains Low D397 7/11/2008 Some D.C. Principals Credit Rhee for Big Gains in Test Scores D398 7/12/2008 District Briefing D399 7/16/2008 D.C. Gun Ban Is Out, But Regulations Stay; Council Also Approves School Funds Transfer D400 7/17/2008 In Closed Schools, History Lessons; Archivist Combs Through Basements D401 7/19/2008 Union Chief Sets Meetings, Says Talks at ‘Very Critical Stage’ D402 7/22/2008 Plans for Rhee to Discuss Pay Proposal Criticized D403 7/22/2008 Doubts Linger on Pre-K-8 Strategy; Schools Chancellor Pushes Program as Part of D.C. Reform D404 7/23/2008 Teachable Moment; Some union officials don’t want

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their members to hear out Ms. Rhee D405 7/23/2008 Arts Plan Could Cause Funding Gap, Study Says; D.C. Schools Chancellor Pushes Rigid Financing D406 7/24/2008 Pay-Hike Plan for Teachers in D.C. Entails Probation D407 7/27/2008 Tenure in D.C. Schools: What’s It Really Worth? D408 7/27/2008 Week in Review; July 20-26 D409 7/29/2008 Student Achievement in the Arts D410 7/31/2008 D.C. Delegates to Take Voting Rights to the Party D411 8/3/2008 In Need of Repair; A power struggle between the mayor and the Council can only hurt the District’s schools D412 8/3/2008 Rhee Details Prescription for Ailing Schools to Donors D413 8/3/2008 D.C. Teachers Can Make Their Own Decisions D414 8/6/2008 Teacher Lobbying Raises Union’s Ire; Educators Hired to Sway Colleagues to Back Rhee’s Salary, Bonus Plan D415 8/7/2008 Ex-Grambling Official to Lead D.C. Athletics D416 8/8/2008 Teachers Union Leader Pessimistic on Contract D417 8/14/2008 Pay Dispute Continues as Classes Near; D.C. Teachers Split Along Age Lines D418 8/15/2008 District Briefing D419 8/18/2008 D.C. School Choice Program Offers Few Options D420 8/19/2008 District Briefing D421 8/20/2008 D.C. School Renovations Won’t Finish on Time D422 8/21/2008 D.C. Council Chief Criticizes Quality of Some School Repairs D423 8/21/2008 In Second Year, Rhee Is Facing Major Tests; Chancellor is National Figure D424 8/21/2008 Fenty Takes Hands-On Role as Opening Nears; Successful School Year Crucial to His Policies D425 8/21/2008 A Note from the District’s Schools Chancellor D426 8/21/2008 Students Reflect on a New School Year D427 8/21/2008 D.C. Athletic Director Eager for a Challenge D428 8/21/2008 D.C. School Board to Become an ‘Independent Voice’ Again; Return to Elected Members to Follow Year of Big Changes D429 8/21/2008 Advocates Seek More Openness From Rhee’s Regime; Critics Cite ‘Top-Down Approach to Managing’ D430 8/21/2008 D.C. School Officials D431 8/21/2008 Plugged In Nationally, Tuned Out of the District D432 8/21/2008 For 46 New Principals, Schools Present a Serious Ultimatum: Succeed or Leave D433 8/21/2008 From Obsolete to State of the Art; ‘Honoring the Past and Celebrating the Future’ in the Restoration of 3 Schools

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D434 8/21/2008 Renovated School Has the Same Old Name, to the Chagrin of Many D435 8/22/2008 D.C. Tries Cash as a Motivator in School D436 8/22/2008 Overseer of School Revamp Fires Back D437 8/22/2008 District Briefing D438 8/23/2008 Festivities, Anxiety Mark Kickoff Event; Teachers Torn as Rhee Tries to Allay Fears About Pay Plan D439 8/23/2008 Convention, Ties to Obama Could Benefit Mayor, D.C. D440 8/24/2008 Week in Review; Aug.17-23 D441 8/25/2008 For Readers, A Conversation About Education D442 8/25/2008 Opening Day in the D.C. Classroom D443 8/25/2008 Better or Worse, It’s Rhee’s School System Now; Her First Year Has Left a Big Impact D444 8/25/2008 New Column, Old Columnist D445 8/26/2008 More Pay For Good Teachers; Why do the unions oppose it? D446 8/26/2008 For D.C. Schools, A Pretty Good Day 1 D447 8/27/2008 Bribery or Motivation? D448 8/28/2008 President of Remade Board of Education Won’t Run Again D449 8/28/2008 Thomas Lets Mom Be Witness to History D450 8/29/2008 14 Schools Named to D.C. Program to Motivate Students with Cash D451 8/30/2008 D.C. Board President To Stay in Education D452 8/30/2008 Restoring Schools to the Havens They Should Be D453 9/1/2008 Extra School Funds Sought; Special Ed Key in Fenty Request for $15 Million D454 9/2/2008 Money for Middle-Schoolers D455 9/3/2008 Special Education Still Lags in District D456 9/4/2008 Judge Says District Has Failed to Meet Service Deadlines D457 9/7/2008 Can’t Anybody Here Run a School? D458 9/8/2008 Rhee’s ‘Plan B’ Targets Teacher Quality; Strategy Might Include New Evaluation Process, Linking Licenses to Classroom Performance D459 9/11/2008 Fenty Offers $1.3B Plan to Update Schools D460 9/12/2008 No Alarm Bells; For once, a mostly smooth opening for D.C. schools D461 9/13/2008 District Briefing D462 9/14/2008 Special Ed Chief Takes Leave of Absence D463 9/20/2008 D.C. School Rolls Decline, Preliminary Tally Shows D464 9/23/2008 Md. Attorney General’s Office Investigating Dunbar- Fort Hill Incident D465 9/24/2008 Teacher’s Union Chief Cites Mistrust; Rhee’s Proposal Still Faces Hurdles

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D466 9/25/2008 District Briefing D467 9/26/2008 Council Members Unhappy with School Modernization Plan; Absence of Rhee and Deputy Mayor Draws Criticism D468 9/27/2008 How a Football Game Became a Racial Scrimmage D469 9/27/2008 Corrections D470 9/28/2008 Football Game Turned Into Racial Scrimmage D471 9/29/2008 For Kids’ Sake, Power to Fire Teachers Crucial D472 9/29/2008 D.C. List Shows 90 Teacher Vacancies; Rhee’s Office Puts Number at 42, Says Shifts Will Be Made D473 9/30/2008 Students’ Incentive Bank Opens D474 10/1/2008 For Pr. George’s Schools, a Scene They Know Well D475 10/1/2008 Teachers’ Chief Is in the Hot Seat; D.C. Union President Faces Pressure on 3 Sides in Pay Talks D476 10/2/2008 In Most School Districts, the Doctor Is in Charge, but Some Question Degree D477 10/2/2008 McKinley Tech’s Game at Fort Hill Postponed D478 10/2/2008 Teacher Institute Contract Work Might Be Illegal, Audit Finds D479 10/3/2008 Rhee Bypasses Talks, Imposes Dismissal Plan; Some Teachers Will Go on 90-Day Review D480 10/3/2008 D.C. Teachers Left Behind D481 10/3/2008 Firing Teachers: Readers vs. Me D482 10/5/2008 Week In Review; Sept.28-Oct.4 D483 10/6/2008 Merit Pay Could Ruin Teacher Teamwork D484 10/8/2008 For Students With Special Needs, a Vow of Assistance D485 10/9/2008 Abrupt End of Eastern’s Season Affects Other Teams D486 10/10/2008 Real Leadership for District Schools D487 10/11/2008 Pay Package in Limbo; A smart proposal flummoxes the D.C. teachers union D488 10/12/2008 Pay Package in Limbo; A smart proposal flummoxes the D.C. teachers union D489 10/13/2008 Deasy’s Departure Hints of Friction With Board D490 10/16/2008 Rhee Fires Shepherd Principal, Raising Questions About Vetting D491 10/16/2008 Arts in Brief D492 10/16/2008 Candidates Touch on D.C. Schools; Rhee’s Reforms Raise Questions of Vouchers vs. Charters D493 10/17/2008 Few Details From Rhee In Principal’s Firing D494 10/17/2008 Team Staffs Meet with U.S. Mediator D495 10/17/2008 Debate Brings National Attention to D.C.’s School Reform Efforts D496 10/18/2008 Delighted – or Deflated – by Dollars; D.C. Students Get First Reward Checks, but Some Come Up Short D497 10/19/2008 Week in Review; Oct.12-18 D498 10/21/2008 Staff No-Shows Decried as Rhee Aide Testifies

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D499 10/25/2008 Long Battle Expected on Plan to Fire Teachers; D.C. Union Being Aided by National Organization D500 10/25/2008 District Briefing D501 10/26/2008 Long Battle Expected on Plan to Fire Teachers; D.C. Union Being Aided By National Organization D502 10/27/2008 Baptism by Fire Vulcanized Rhee, ‘Brat Pack’ Peers D503 10/28/2008 District Briefing D504 10/30/2008 Setting Examples in the Schools D505 10/30/2008 Land Lines Are Unplugged in the Call to Save Money D506 10/31/2008 Rhee Faces Irate Council At Meeting on Budget D507 10/31/2008 Bucking a Tide in D.C.; Council Candidate Patrick Mara Offers Vision and Energy D508 11/6/2008 Like Wall Street Bonuses but for Doing Well D509 11/7/2008 Tuesday’s Election (cont’d) D510 11/9/2008 Overhauling D.C. School Overcome by Violence D511 11/10/2008 A Crucial Decision for the Obamas: Public or Private? D512 11/11/2008 District Briefing D513 11/11/2008 D.C. Fires Principal After Surge of Violence D514 11/13/2008 Some Chilly Reactions as Budget is Frozen D515 11/16/2008 Fenty, Rhee Look for Ways Around Union; Proposals Would Set Stage for School System Rebuild D516 11/18/2008 Union Chiefs And Rhee Will Meet; Talks Will Involve D.C., National Teachers’ Groups D517 11/19/2008 Rhee Proposes Parent Academy, Better Security D518 11/20/2008 5 Hurt in High School Melee D519 11/21/2008 Rhee Seeks New Way to Avert Violence D520 11/23/2008 Michelle Rhee: Better to Be a Marathoner D521 11/23/2008 The Unmet Promise of Teacher Merit Pay D522 11/26/2008 Heedless ‘Reform’ in D.C. Schools D523 11/27/2008 Public, Private Schools Discuss True City Titles D524 12/1/2008 New D.C. Principal, Hand-Picked Team Make Early Gains D525 12/4/2008 Bill Gates Urges Obama to Increase Spending D526 12/6/2008 The Right Moves; The District is improving how it deals with offending youth D527 12/7/2008 The Right Moves; The District is improving how it deals with offending youth D528 12/8/2008 Up Close, Rhee’s Image Less Clear; Schools Chief’s Media Stardom Hasn’t Dispelled the Misgivings in D.C. D529 12/12/2008 Obituaries D530 12/13/2008 D.C. Files Suit Over Special-Ed Case It Calls Frivolous D531 12/13/2008 ‘Up Close,’ and Big Fans of Rhee D532 12/15/2008 A Union of Interests; The national teachers chief and

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the D.C. chancellor should find a way to work together D533 12/15/2008 Charter Schools Make Gains on Tests; Headway by Poor Children Linked to Rigorous Methods, Ample Funds D534 12/20/2008 They’re Academic; The success of the District’s charter schools depends on their independence D535 12/21/2008 They’re Academic; The success of the District’s charter schools depends on their independence D536 12/23/2008 D.C. Solicits Development for 11 Former School Sites D537 1/5/2009 Rhee Plans Shake-Up of Teaching Staff, Training; Career Development Would Change for Those Who Remain D538 1/6/2009 Council Pushes for School Progress Study; Gray Emphasizes a Publicly Financed and Independent Evaluation D539 1/6/2008 Schools on the Block; But why are charters largely shut out of the bidding? D540 1/7/2009 Micromanaging Ms. Rhee; Is the D.C. Council re- creating the school board it so recently, and rightly, abolished? D541 1/7/2009 District Briefing D542 1/8/2009 D.C. Reduces Number of Unqualified Teachers; City Still Trails Neighboring Jurisdictions D543 1/8/2009 Gray Looks Ahead to New Year for Council D544 1/8/2009 District Briefing D545 1/13/2009 District Briefing D546 1/16/2009 Union Seeks List of Targeted Teachers; Group Says City is Withholding Names of Instructors Given 90 Days to Improve D547 1/16/2009 D.C. Vote on Obama’s Agenda, but Low D548 1/17/2009 H.D. Woodson Star is Back in Uniform D549 1/22/2009 Extras D550 1/25/2009 Discipline Code Under Review as Suspensions Lose Impact D551 1/28/2009 The Value of National Board Teachers D552 1/31/2009 Everyone Talks About the Weather… D553 2/1/2009 Education Heavyweights Prepare for D.C. Contract Fight; Teachers Union Head, Schools Chancellor Face Off on Tenure Protection, Reforms D554 2/3/2009 A Veto to Uphold; The D.C. Council can stand up for school reform D555 2/3/2009 District Briefing D556 2/5/2009 Corrections D557 2/7/2009 District Proposes Closing 3 Schools; Officials Target Elementaries in Wards 5 and 8

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D558 2/9/2009 Test Scores Provide Valuable Measure of Success in D.C. D559 2/10/2009 Where’s the School Reform?; D.C. deserves better than the teachers union’s counteroffer D560 2/10/2009 Rhee Says Economy Forces D.C. to Cut Wage Proposal D561 2/12/2009 Barry Cites Health Woes D562 2/12/2009 It’s Official: Hylton Takes Over as Police Chief D563 2/13/2009 Reforming D.C.’s Public Schools D564 2/14/2009 Billions Slated for Area Schools, Transportation D565 2/18/2009 Helping Schools Help Homeless Students D566 2/19/2009 Are Older Teachers Too Jaded to Be Effective? D567 2/20/2009 D.C. Area Schools Chiefs’ Perk That Refreshes: Travel D568 2/22/2009 Takeover Idea Out of Consideration, Rhee Says; ‘State of Emergency’ Move Would Have Bypassed Bargaining D569 2/23/2009 Creative Leaders’ Will to Succeed is Key to KIPP D570 2/25/2009 Union Chief Weighs In On Rhee’s Comments; ‘Clarification’ Seen as ‘Apology’ D571 2/26/2009 Extras D572 2/26/2009 Poetry Meets Performance in Spoken-Word Competition D573 2/26/2009 Activist Grills Fenty on Public Schools D574 3/2/2009 ‘Potential’ Disruption?: Ending D.C. school vouchers would dash the best hopes of hundreds of children D575 3/3/2009 D.C. Schools Open to Mixed Reviews D576 3/3/2009 Rhee Says Consultant’s Report Shows Pay Plan is Sustainable D577 3/5/2009 Nickles’s Office Hires Wife of Fenty Aide D578 3/11/2009 Obama Says Public Schools Must Improve D579 3/12/2009 Teachers to Face Individual, School Evaluations of Student Success D580 3/12/2009 Mayor’s Trip to Dubai Raises More Questions D581 3/13/2009 Disorder in a Merged D.C. School; Teachers Alleging Attacks by Youths Find Themselves Scrutinized D582 3/14/2009 Rhee Says Fixes Likely Too Much Too Soon; D.C. Chancellor Writes to Teachers D583 3/22/2009 Cash Incentives Create Competition D584 3/23/2009 Saying ‘When’ on D.C. School Voucher Program D585 3/26/2009 Fenty’s Budget May Further Sour Relations With Unions D586 3/28/2009 Space Issues; Charter schools are not the enemy D587 3/28/2009 Study Questions Disparities in Funding Among Some Schools D588 3/29/2009 Space Issues; Charter schools are not the enemy

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D589 3/30/2009 Some Happy D.C. 8th Graders Moving Up Without Moving On D590 4/1/2009 Making the Grade at Shaw; A new principal, a new approach and some determined eighth-graders show what D.C. school reform can do D591 4/2/2009 Some Words from the Fenty-Rhee Mutual Admiration Society D592 4/2/2009 Ex-Bush Offical Named to Replace Gist, Who Plans to Head R.I. Schools D593 4/4/2009 Corrections D594 4/7/2009 Rhee Works on Overhaul of Teacher Evaluations D595 4/9/2009 Ad Campaign Touts Positive News About D.C. Schools D596 4/9/2009 Rhee Puts Schools on a Tight Allowance D597 4/15/2009 Howard Law Dean to Mediate Schools Beef D598 4/15/2009 What’s Being Negotiated; In D.C. teacher talks, it’s students’ futures, and that’s where a mediator should focus D599 4/18/2009 D.C. Schools Gearing Up for Standardized Tests D600 4/21/2009 A Cooperative Approach to Teacher Talks D601 4/21/2009 Leadership Shifts at Parks and Recreation; Fenty’s Decision to Dismiss Gay Director Draws Criticism and Questions D602 4/23/2009 6 Wednesday Closings Proposed to Spread Out Teacher Training D603 4/27/2009 For New Teachers, Early Support Can Sustain Careers; Programs Aim to Stem Attrition, Improve Abilities in Classroom D604 4/27/2009 Poor Neighborhoods, Untested Teachers; Many of D.C. Region’s Low-Income Areas in a Cycle of Inexperience D605 4/27/2009 Concern and Suspicion Surround Woodson High’s Construction Delays D606 4/30/2009 Contentious Teachers Union Official is Sent Back to School D607 5/4/2009 Rare Alliance May Signal Ebb in Union’s Charter Opposition D608 5/4/2009 Backward on School Reform; The D.C. Council wants to score points, and never mind the city’s children D609 5/5/2009 Stalled Talks in D.C. Fuel Dissent Within Teachers Union D610 5/8/2009 Fairness for D.C. Charters; Why should who runs a public school affect how well the city treats its students? D611 5/8/2009 District Briefing D612 5/10/2009 Performance Pay Being Considered for Pr. William

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Teachers D613 5/10/2009 Performance Pay Considered for County Teachers; 2010-11 School Year Eyed for Trial Runs D614 5/12/2009 Staff Shakeup Is Ordered at Six Schools; Teachers, Some Administrators Must Reapply for Jobs Under ‘No Child’ Mandate D615 5/13/2009 Revised Budget Adopted in D.C.; Council Alters Fenty’s Proposal for Closing Gap D616 5/14/2009 Diverse Set of Educators Is Honored By the Post D617 5/14/2009 Public Employee Board Standoff Enters Head- Scratching Phase D618 5/14/2009 With Critics Quiet, Hearing Praises D.C. School Voucher Program D619 5/20/2009 ‘Back on Track’?; The D.C. Council’s strange idea of school progress D620 5/21/2009 At St. Mary’s Graduation, Cardozo Educators Are Honored for Their Work With College D621 5/25/2009 As Seniors Graduate, Debate Continues on Exit Exams D622 5/25/2009 Michelle A. Rhee D623 5/25/2009 D.C. School Population Disputed; Council Holds Back Funds, Claiming Rhee Is Inflating Numbers D624 5/25/2009 Reform, Through the Eyes of New York’s Chancellor D625 5/28/2009 For Parks Nominee, Focus Is On Fitness D626 5/29/2009 Stop Alienating D.C.’s Teachers D627 5/31/2009 Textbook for Failure; A New York putsch could one day hurt D.C. schoolchildren D628 6/1/2009 Charter Schools Provide Good Model on Teacher Pay D629 6/3/2009 Paper or Plastic? D.C. Council Votes for 5-Cent Tax on Both D630 6/4/2009 In Politics, Fact, Fancy Can Blur in Keystroke; Bogus Claim Linking Jail, School Raised Election After Election D631 6/9/2009 D.C. Graduation Rates Down; New Study Also Finds Md., Va. Numbers Stalled Since Mid-‘90s D632 6/10/2009 Schools Stalemate; The public deserves a look at what is holding up education reform in the District D633 6/11/2009 Art and Soul Auction Tomorrow to Aid Children’s Center D634 6/12/2009 ‘So Far…From Being Done’; Michelle Rhee is putting D.C. schools on track, but the forces of the status quo are fighting back D635 6/14/2009 Close to Home D636 6/14/2009 Michelle A. Rhee D637 6/14/2009 Two Years of Hard Lessons for D.C. Schools’ Agent of Change

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D638 6/15/2009 Grading Column’s Freshman Year D639 6/15/2009 Jill Biden D640 6/18/2009 Showing Youths a New World; City Year Program Mentors Aim to Change Lives, One Student at a Time D641 6/19/2009 About 250 Teachers Are Given Pink Slips; Union Will Appeal Some of Rhee’s Firings D642 6/19/2009 Meddling at Moore; The D.C. Council shouldn’t play at running schools D643 6/21/2009 Rhee’s Silent Treatment D644 6/21/2009 An Opportunity that Works for D.C. Schoolchildren D645 6/25/2009 Council Agrees to Delay Planning Board Departure D646 6/25/2009 GOP Aims to Disrupt Mendelson’s Reelection Bid D647 6/29/2009 Throwing a Lifeline to Struggling Teachers; Montgomery Program Embraces Peer Review D648 7/2/2009 L.A. Group in Talks to Run D.C. High School D649 7/2/2009 Correction D650 7/9/2009 Plan Targets Use of Private Cars by Social Workers D651 7/10/2009 A Plea to Mr. Duncan; There are 261 D.C. children who could still be rescued D652 7/14/2009 D.C.’s Hopeful Report Card; ‘A’ for achievement, but still a long way to go D653 7/14/2009 D.C. Schools Show Progress on Tests; But Fewer Meet Goal Under U.S. Law D654 7/20/2009 Education Chicanery in the District D655 7/21/2009 Latest Fenty Budget Cuts Funds for Schools Evaluation D656 7/24/2009 GAO Sees Progress, Problems After D.C. Schools Takeover D657 7/29/2009 13 Schools In District to Offer Specialty Programs D658 7/30/2009 Ex-Girlfriend in Barry Case Seeks Lawyer D659 7/21/2009 Tough Cuts in the District; The D.C. Council is facing up to hard times – but students shouldn’t be paying the price D660 7/31/2009 Business is Brisk for Teacher Training Alternatives D661 8/1/2009 D.C. Council Approves Tax Hikes, Spending Cuts D662 8/2/2009 A D.C. Schools Awakening; Hired Agents for ChangeFace Daunting Tasks in Turning Around Coolidge, Dunbar Highs D663 8/3/2009 Children First; A D.C. Scholarship program has bipartisan backing D664 8/9/2009 The Five Years Aren’t Up; Mayor Fenty should reject the D.C. Council’s effort to undermine bold education reform D665 8/15/2009 D.C. Student Scores Show Fluctuations D666 8/23/2009 Rhee’s 200-Page ‘Framework’ Spells Out Teaching Guidelines

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D667 8/24/2009 37,000 to Start D.C. Public School Year, Well Below Budgeted Figure; Rhee, City Had Agreed to Plan on Almost 45,000 students D668 8/24/2009 Flu Strategists See Schools on Front Line D669 8/25/2009 A Fresh Start; Students Roll into Renovated Area Schools; Work Continues at Some D670 8/26/2009 D.C.’s Other School Reformers; Charter schools continue to bloom as an alternative D671 8/27/2009 Regional Briefing D672 8/29/2009 Fenty Sons’ Enrollment Allowable, Rhee Says D673 9/1/2009 Regional Briefing D674 9/2/2009 A School for the Fentys; There’s an innocent explanation for where they ended up D675 9/3/2009 Mayor Fenty Regrets He’s Unable to Meet Today D676 9/4/2009 26-School D.C. Cheating Probe ‘Inconclusive’ D677 9/4/2009 Some Schools Will Block or Delay Obama’s Pep Talk for Students D678 9/6/2009 Close to Home D679 9/7/2009 Request for Review of D.C. Tests Languished D680 9/10/2009 Enrollment in D.C. Schools Is Close to Target D681 9/11/2009 Rhee, Union May Be Close to Deal; Chancellor Might Drop New Pay Idea to Get Other Teacher-Removal Powers D682 9/16/2009 Threatening School Reform; Which D.C. Council members want to go back to the bad old days? D683 9/17/2009 The Wrong Answer on School Reform D684 9/17/2009 D.C. Rec Centers to Host Play Days; Students Welcomed as Teachers Train D685 9/17/2009 D.C. Schools Face Bigger Classes, Layoffs Due to $40 Million Gap; Rhee Says Principals, Parent Groups Will Decide What to Cut at Each Site D686 9/17/2009 Hundreds of Voucher Pupils Unaccounted For, Senator Says D687 9/18/2009 Gray Claims Fenty Just Wants to Fire Unionized Teachers; Mayor Accused of Deflecting Responsibility D688 9/23/2009 Ms. Rhee’s Belt-Tightening; How D.C. budget cuts can eliminate ineffective teachers D689 9/23/2009 6 Schools Had Most Changed Answers D690 9/24/2009 School Cuts Appear to Be Well Underway D691 9/25/2009 Corrections D692 9/28/2009 Measuring Progress at Shaw with More than Numbers D693 9/29/2009 Maligning D.C. Teachers D694 9/29/2009 Parents Decry Move Against Private School D695 10/1/2009 New D.C. Teacher Ratings Stress Better Test Scores D696 10/2/2009 Anger, Confusion Over Teacher Cuts; Critics Say the Financial Math and Timing of the Layoffs Fail to Add

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Up D697 10/3/2009 More Than 220 D.C. Teachers Lose Jobs; Layoffs Come Amid Scramble to Staff Security Checkpoints D698 10/4/2009 Dismissals for D.C. Schools; Ms. Rhee’s systemwide layoffs, while painful, are a step toward improving the city’s classrooms D699 10/4/2009 Open to Vouchers?; Sen. Durbin is asking tough questions that could lead to reauthorization D700 10/6/2009 Bad Timing on School Cuts D701 10/6/2009 Students Protest Teacher Layoffs; D.C. Council Members Offer Support D702 10/6/2009 A D.C. Council Embarrassment; And guess who’s at the center of the action D703 10/8/2009 Council Resolution Would Support Student Protesters D704 10/8/2009 Union Contests Layoffs of Teachers in Court D705 10/8/2009 ‘Feels Like My Heart Has Been Broken’; New and Veteran Teachers in D.C. Stunned by Their Dismissal, as Well as Handling of It D706 10/8/2009 Firings Teach Students the Wrong Lesson D707 10/9/2009 Protesters Decry Layoffs in D.C. Schools; AFL-CIO Chief Vows Support, Calling Rhee’s Move ‘Union- Busting’ D708 10/9/2009 D.C. Can’t Fire Its Way to Better Schools D709 10/10/2009 Too Easy on Rhee D710 10/11/2009 School Friction; Understanding the union attacks on D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee D711 10/12/2009 D.C. Teacher Honored in February, Sacked in October D712 10/14/2009 For McKinley Students, a Lesson in Disappointment; Staff Layoffs Moved Them to Get Involved, but D.C. Politics Soured the Experience, Seniors Say D713 10/15/2009 Big Gains for District on National Math Test D714 10/15/2009 D.C.’s Progress Report; A promising sign for Mayor Fenty and Ms. Rhee’s efforts at school reform D715 10/15/2009 Schools Pay When Rhee Snubs Donors D716 10/16/2009 Corrections D717 10/16/2009 Charter School Enrollment in the District is Up Again D718 10/17/2009 Unions Want Probe of Layoffs by Rhee D719 10/18/2009 The Pain and the Gain for D.C. Schools D720 10/18/2009 Anger Over Layoffs Vented in 18-Hour Hearing D721 10/21/2009 D.C. Teacher Contract Talks Still Stuck; Fallout from layoffs is cited, with no bargaining sessions set D722 10/26/2009 Major Changes at 2 Troubled D.C. Schools D723 10/26/2009 Putting Children First; D.C. officials must get beyond partisan interests to focus on education D724 10/28/2009 Rhee has asked how to regain teachers’ trust,

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principals say D725 10/29/2009 Making every child count; D.C. schools go all out for enrollment at audit, in hopes long decline may end D726 10/29/2009 At hearing, teachers assail Rhee over layoffs D727 10/30/2009 A lack of trust within D.C. schools D728 10/30/2009 D.C. Council, Rhee tensions grow over budget cuts D729 10/31/2009 Terms of 4 UDC trustees to expire D730 11/1/2009 Education reform long troubled in District; Personalities, politics thorny New tumult reflected in pace of Rhee’s changes D731 11/1/2009 Style that propelled Fenty now stokes tensions with council D732 11/1/2009 Rhee’s pride could trip up admirable effort D733 11/1/2009 Local digest D734 11/1/2009 Ms. Rhee on trial; The D.C. Council seems to worry about everyone but students D735 11/2/2009 The Answer Sheet D736 11/2/2009 Rating D.C. teachers no easy task D737 11/4/2009 The sin of earning a living D738 11/5/2009 Gray looking for a fall guy on budget woes D739 11/6/2009 Ms. Rhee wants competent teachers – of any age D740 11/8/2009 Rhee and the D.C. Council: Hard lessons on how to get along D741 11/8/2009 Addition through subtraction at one D.C. elementary school D742 11/9/2009 Ratings have little to do with teaching D743 11/10/2009 Bad teachers in D.C., Md. are shielded, report says; Survey data point to restrictive policies that thwart innovation D744 11/10/2009 Less than ‘courage’ in New Haven D745 11/13/2009 Not eager to march to Rhee’s drum; Parents and staff fret over D.C. schools chief’s plan for Hardy Middle D746 11/14/2009 Corrections D747 11/17/2009 At Hardy Middle School, a principal worth keeping D748 11/19/2009 D.C. group takes on food and stereotypes D749 11/21/2009 Why my kids won’t go to Hardy D750 11/22/2009 Save the vouchers; A worthy D.C. program deserves Congress’s support D751 11/23/2009 It’s time to evaluate the evaluation D752 11/23/2009 Poll: Gray would beat Fenty in a tight 2010 race D753 11/24/2009 D.C. teachers union loses court challenge to layoffs D754 11/25/2009 Ms. Rhee’s court vindication; A judge’s ruling on layoffs puts some phony criticism to rest D755 11/25/2009 Court defends Rhee’s layoffs; Age was motive, union claimed Budget cut necessitated action eventually, judge says

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D756 11/29/2009 D.C. mayor’s blunt style an asset, liability D757 11/30/2009 Five strikes against me in 2009 758 12/4/2009 Finding frustration instead of a home D759 12/5/2009 Local digest D760 12/6/2009 Replacing principal at Hardy is decried; D.C. chancellor accused of trying to squeeze out minority students D761 12/6/2009 Testing success creates own challenge D762 12/6/2009 The man who can save D.C.’s Opportunity Scholarships D763 12/9/2009 Google, Washington Post and N.Y.Times create news tool D764 12/9/2009 District leaps forward in math D765 12/10/2009 Small fires, false alarms disrupt classes; D.C. firefighters called to Ballou High 40 times since school year began D766 12/10/2009 Doing the math in D.C.; Michelle Rhee’s reforms are adding up to real results D767 12/13/2009 Behind D.C. schools’ math gains, an obstacle D768 12/13/2009 There’s just one way to hold Fenty accountable D769 12/14/2009 Red flags regarding Michelle Rhee D770 12/14/2009 Retreating from a transit pact D771 12/15/2009 D.C. gave $500,000 in bonuses despite law D772 12/25/2009 Schools facing budget battles D773 12/28/2009 Stronger measures applied to struggling schools D774 1/2/2010 Rhee pledges to ease the hurt; $22 million in budget cuts Chancellor to protect teachers, class supplies D775 1/3/2012 Rhee vows to shield D.C. teachers, classes D776 1/4/2010 No room for vagueness in announcement D777 1/5/2010 Corrections D778 1/6/2010 Cuts in the classroom D779 1/7/2010 Quick Fix D780 1/8/2010 Austerity casts pall over schools in Fairfax D781 1/9/2010 Graduation rates improve in District D782 1/10/2010 To build a better robot; Washington area students enter competition to boost science and technology D783 1/11/2010 A prestige too costly?; D.C. teachers who have won national certification have seen benefits, but Rhee says annual $600,000 annual expense comes up short against other development techniques D784 1/14/2010 Pushing out poor teachers; Can a union leader match her welcome words with action? D785 1/17/2010 Ellington arts school might be moved out of Ward 2 D786 1/17/2010 Shot at new school fund already fueling changes D787 1/22/2010 Ellington staying put for now, Rhee says D788 1/23/2010 Rhee says laid-off teachers abused kids; Union calls

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D.C. schools chief’s claims ‘reckless’ and without basis in fact D789 1/23/2010 Growing numb to D.C.’s toll D790 1/25/2010 Gray: Rhee needs to name names in D.C. teacher abuse allegations D791 1/26/2010 Unfit teachers?; Michelle Rhee – and some of her critics – owe answers D792 1/26/2010 Rhee silent on abuse claims; Gray begins probe on accusations, Schools chief has said some teachers had sex with children D793 1/27/2010 Rhee hedges remarks on cut teachers; Under fire, chancellor says only ‘small minority’ of cases involved misconduct D794 1/30/2010 Ms. Rhee’s ‘appalling’ decision D795 1/31/2010 Close to Home D796 2/1/2010 Rhee’s approval rating in deep slide; Dramatic shift among blacks, Poll finds growing belief schools are improving D797 2/2/2010 The Fenty paradox; District residents are happier with their city than with the man who’s running it D798 2/2/2010 Rhee’s bottom line: Not poll, but D.C. residents’ satisfaction; Chancellor, Fenty aide encouraged by higher ratings on city services D799 2/2/2010 Obama budget allots millions to D.C. area D800 2/6/2010 What polls say about the District – and The Post D801 2/7/2010 After a blog rewrite, a call for online transparency D802 2/8/2010 Va. Gets a slow start for Race to the Top funds D803 2/8/2010 D.C. Schools Insider: Why the change of heart on closing Monday? D804 2/9/2010 District reported 220 allegations of abuse by teachers; Incidents were sent to police, Papers offer no details on disciplinary actions D805 2/9/2010 Snowed under D806 2/9/2010 Students’ backpacks will just collect dust D807 2/9/2010 Post Partisan D808 2/13/2010 Fenty decision to open offices chills ties with unions D809 2/13/2010 Snow days; Area schools should make up lost classroom time D810 2/13/2010 Open for argument: School closings for snow D811 2/14/2010 Snow days; Area schools should make up lost classroom time D812 2/15/2010 Teachers hold keys to school improvement D813 2/15/2010 Brigadier general has new mission; Retired from military, Tata is top gun for D.C. public schools D814 2/20/2010 D.C. teacher’s alleged sex act revealed; Rhee says he is accused of impregnating an 18-year-old special-

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needs student D815 2/20/2010 O’Malley joins fight for school funding D816 2/22/2010 Report: 12 D.C. teachers fired for abuse since ‘07 D817 2/23/2010 Rhee reports to council on teacher misconduct; Incidents since 2007 have resulted in firings, suspensions D818 3/1/2010 A spotlight can help end child sexual abuse D819 3/4/2010 Principal switch may backfire, Rhee told D820 3/4/2010 Deal possible over proposed R.I. teacher firings D821 3/5/2010 District schools still in aid race D822 3/8/2010 Race to the Top; Select education dollars should only go to the best of the best D823 3/8/2010 Schoolchildren without choice D824 3/8/2010 Successes adding up for D.C. in math D825 3/9/2010 A boundary for teachers; The District needs to close a legal gap on sexual misconduct D826 3/10/2010 Voucher games D827 3/11/2010 ‘Diva’ has a new job description: Head coach, high school football D828 3/12/2010 Ward 6 parents seek new options for middle school D829 3/12/2010 Record number in D.C. took part in schools lottery D830 3/12/2010 Honors D831 3/15/2010 D.C. law would outlaw sex between teachers, students D832 3/16/2010 Schools chancellor catches flak for unpopular moves; Student likens Rhee to Harry Potter villain at D.C. Council session D833 3/16/2010 Local digest D834 3/16/2010 The right to choose; What foes of D.C.’s school voucher program overlook D835 3/17/2010 Senate limits vouchers for D.C. D836 3/18/2010 GOP targets 4 seats on D.C. Council D837 3/19/2010 D.C. Schools Insider: Rhee turns to White House veteran Anita Dunn D838 3/20/2010 Rhee hires media adviser to help polish her image D839 3/22/2010 D.C. budget could keep 3 schools shut longer D840 3/23/2010 D.C. Council questions Rhee on plan to reassign Hardy principal D841 3/23/2010 Cowardice on Vouchers D842 3/24/2010 Nonprofit center would boost preschool services D843 3/25/2010 A deal for D.C. students; Keep politics away from the teachers’ contract D844 3/25/2010 D.C. a bright spot in U.S. reading data D845 3/25/2010 Duncan had VIP list of requests at Chicago schools D846 3/26/2010 Unkept promises on a D.C. elementary school D847 3/26/2010 New contract for D.C. teachers may be near; Deal might include 20% raise; negotiations started in late

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2007 D848 3/28/2010 High marks all around; Michelle Rhee deserves some of the credit for better D.C. test scores D849 3/29/2010 A big test for troubled D.C. schools D850 3/30/2010 Gray jump-starts D.C. mayor’s race D851 3/30/2010 Del., Tenn. Win education awards; District is last of 16 finalists in competition stressing innovation D852 3/31/2010 Another choice for the District; Finally, it’s a Gray- Fenty mayoral race D853 3/31/2010 D.C. Schools Insider: A cut is a cut, no matter how it’s sliced D854 4/2/2010 District’s schools chancellor is on candidate’s radar; Mayoral hopeful Gray taking a wait-and-see approach with Rhee D855 4/3/2010 D.C. schools face funding squeeze D856 4/3/2010 In Race to the Top, it helps to wear the union label D857 4/5/2010 The chancellor’s personal life D858 4/7/2010 District, teachers reach a deal; Private funds key, contract awaits approval from union, council D859 4/8/2010 Fenty, teachers union promote deal D860 4/8/2010 A pact for reform; How a new contract for teachers gives D.C. schools a chance to get better D861 4/9/2010 In deal with teachers, an unflappable mediator D862 4/10/2010 Students respond to cash awards D863 4/11/2010 D.C. mayor launches re-election bid D864 4/11/2010 D.C. students respond to cash awards D865 4/12/201 The Answer Sheet D866 4/14/2010 Rhee: ‘Conspiracy theorists’ have it wrong D867 4/14/2010 Rhee’s surplus revelation draws ire; Legitimacy of layoffs questioned, Teachers unions charge that 2009 budget crisis was contrived D868 4/15/2010 A surplus of indignation; The right questions to ask about the D.C. schools budget and a landmark deal with teachers D869 4/15/2010 Rhee’s disclosure roils D.C. races; Surplus found after layoffs, Gray, others on council seek to reinstate teachers D870 4/15/2010 What’s lacking in Washington? Education bloggers D871 4/16/2010 Betts set a standard for learning that will live on D872 4/16/2010 Schools surplus doesn’t exist, official says D873 4/17/2010 Teachers in D.C. go back to court; Layoffs fought in light of surplus, Rhee cited budget pressures in cutting 266 educators D874 4/17/2010 A D.C. education hero’s startling end D875 4/18/2010 Slain principal’s SUV recovered D876 4/18/2010 Post Partisan

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D877 4/18/2010 For the students: The District’s budget muddle shouldn’t undo a landmark deal D878 4/18/2010 Teachers in D.C. go back to court D879 4/19/2010 The Answer Sheet D880 4/19/2010 D.C. area schools vie for Race to Top funds D881 4/20/2010 ‘It’s not the same’ without principal D882 4/20/2010 District teacher abducted in city D883 4/21/2010 Principal touched twice by violence D884 4/21/2010 Montgomery spells out teacher expectations on student performance D885 4/23/2010 Audit shows Fenty, Rhee among parking scofflaws D886 4/23/2010 Hear Poetry Out Loud D887 4/24/2010 Judge questions D.C. teacher layoffs; Union is authorized to explore financial data; lawsuit is upheld D888 4/24/2010 Fenty, Rhee offices rack up traffic fines D889 4/25/2010 A $34 million crisis of confidence in D.C. D890 4/25/2010 Judge questions the District’s teacher layoffs D891 4/28/2010 If Rhee leaves, donors could pull funds; Condition complicates proposed D.C. teachers’ contract, mayor’s race D892 4/29/2010 Teacher contract totters in D.C. D893 4/30/2010 Progress on funding for teacher contract D894 4/30/2010 School funders on solid ground D895 4/30/2010 Stuck with the tab?; A little compromise could give the District a landmark deal to aid teachers and students D896 4/30/2010 In the name of education D897 5/1/2010 D.C. lacks funding for teacher pay raises D898 5/2/2010 Ms. Rhee makes the honor roll; There’s no doubt about what she’s done for D.C. schools. So why would anyone want her to go? D899 5/2/2010 D.C. lacks funds for teacher pay raises in proposed contract D900 5/4/2010 Two teens charged in death of D.C. principal D901 5/9/2010 Rhee to hire 13 senior managers D902 5/9/2010 Many reasons not to keep Ms. Rhee D903 5/10/2010 ‘He was the best’; Students, teachers and parents work to continue success of D.C. principal D904 5/11/2010 District to fund teachers contract D905 5/12/2010 Finally, a passing grade; After years of talks, D.C. teachers get to vote on a contract D906 5/13/2010 The wrong debate about Ms. Rhee D907 5/16/2010 Dangerous charity: Private funds for public schools D908 5/17/2010 A welcome U-turn D909 5/20/2010 D.C. charters see bad math in union pact D910 5/21/2010 D.C. leads urban school systems in reading gains D911 5/21/2010 The Michelle Rhee difference; It’s no accident that

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D.C. test scores are getting better D912 5/22/2010 Choices for chairman; The D.C. Council leader also will be key to the city’s future D913 5/23/2010 Choices for chairman; The D.C. Council leader also will be key to the city’s future D914 5/26/2010 Shadow of politics hangs over budget D915 5/28/2010 D.C. special-ed official issues apology D916 6/1/2010 Teachers likely to ratify contract D917 6/2/2010 Md., D.C. continue their Race to the Top D918 6/3/2010 Departure point in D.C.; Michelle Rhee and public schoolteachers take a bold step for students D919 6/3/2010 For an encore, Rhee and union could cooperate D920 6/3/2010 Md., D.C. set to join education standards D921 6/3/2010 District teachers approve contract; Agreement expands Rhee’s power to fire and bases pay on results, not seniority D922 6/4/2010 D.C. teachers’ deal has a familiar ring D923 6/5/2010 Real Estate Week D924 6/5/2010 A feistier Fenty unveils new tactic: attacking Gray D925 6/6/2010 Spreading D.C.’s money around D926 6/6/2010 Close to Home D927 6/6/2010 District’s ‘Dr. No’: Is he also Mr. Yes? D928 6/7/2010 D.C. contract will let creative, renegade teachers soar D929 6/8/2010 School daze; Michelle Rhee faces an inexplicable inquisition for raising funds for District students D930 6/8/2010 D.C. to probe Rhee ties to funding deal D931 6/10/2010 Virginia stays on the sidelines in Race to the Top D932 6/10/2010 Investigating D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee D933 6/11/2010 Rising hope at Anacostia High D934 6/11/2010 The value of endurance in the classroom D935 6/11/2010 Boos and finger-wagging; Accusations over record, transparency fly at Fenty, Gray forum D936 6/12/2010 First lady to Anacostia grads: ‘You can achieve’ D937 6/13/2010 For D.C. teachers, crucial support is still lacking D938 6/14/2010 Chorus of boos keeps ringing in Fenty’s ears D939 6/15/2010 An uphill road to college D940 6/15/2010 6 D.C. schools to undergo ‘No Child’ overhauls D941 6/17/2010 Md. wants schools to obtain ‘world-class’ status D942 6/20/2010 Close to Home D943 6/25/2010 Hollywood puts a spin on Rhee’s rocky tenure D944 6/28/2010 More tests on the way for D.C. students D945 6/29/2010 Fenty a no-show at schools debate; Even becomes forum for Gray, chief rival in D.C. mayor’s race D946 6/30/2010 D.C. teachers’ contract passes its final hurdle D947 6/30/2010 Fenty takes credit for schools’ progress D948 7/1/2010 Rhee suggests tenure is linked to Fenty’s

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D949 7/2/2010 Rhee: Gray’s ‘disdain’ for reform efforts no secret D950 7/2/2010 Incumbency advantage vs. being a blank slate D951 7/2/2010 Gray outlines his agenda for education in the District D952 7/2/2010 Fenty outlines plans to cut costs of District’s special- ed program D953 7/5/2010 Rhee should take herself out of mayor’s race D954 7/6/2010 A study in improvement D955 7/6/2010 Michelle Rhee’s role; The D.C. mayoral race is about the schools chancellor, even if she believes it isn’t D956 7/6/2010 Sousa Middle’s march of progress D957 7/8/2010 Contradictions in style helping to shape D.C. mayoral race D958 7/8/2010 D.C. testing could cover all grades; Rhee faces criticism for plan to expand assessment exams D959 7/9/2010 Alarm sounded over D.C. truants D960 7/9/2010 A report card for Michelle Rhee D961 7/11/2010 Mr. Gray on education D962 7/12/2010 In Ward 4, turning around on Fenty D963 7/13/2010 Test scores drop at D.C. elementary schools D964 7/14/2010 Conversations D965 7/14/2010 A mixed bag for D.C. schools D966 7/14/2010 Ups, downs in D.C. schools D967 7/15/2010 D.C.’s standardized test trap D968 7/15/2010 Figuring out the score in D.C. D969 7/18/2010 District police chief transcends race, gender in serving the city D970 7/22/2010 D.C. board of education adopts national standards for schools D971 7/23/2010 Highlights D972 7/23/2010 Gray, Fenty scramble for ethical high ground D973 7/24/2010 By the numbers D974 7/24/2010 Rhee dismisses 241 teachers in the District; Union vows challenge, Firings are result of new evaluations D975 7/25/2010 Fenty, Gray fire up the rhetoric D976 7/25/2010 The D.C. teacher firings; Children have a right to a good education D977 7/25/2010 Rhee lowers the boom on 241 D.C. teachers D978 7/27/2010 Mr. Gray’s ‘autonomy’; Would he meddle in D.C. schools as mayor? D979 7/28/2010 The impact of the D.C. teacher firings D980 7/29/2010 Metro simply has to get serious about safety D981 7/30/2010 Teacher firings will test Gray D982 8/1/2010 A vote for Adrian Fenty D983 8/5/2010 Union faults Rhee’s math in teacher firings D984 8/5/2010 Fenty defends home turf in straw poll in Ward 4 D985 8/7/2010 Reading, math scores at 2 KIPP schools fall

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D986 8/9/2010 For D.C. Council chairman; Vincent Orange is the best qualified candidate to face the city’s challenges D987 8/10/2010 Why is Ms. Rhee holding back? D988 8/12/2010 A day for introductions and high expectations; 400 new D.C. teachers prepare for the start of school D989 8/14/2010 Digest D990 8/14/2010 Why the emphasis on KIPP? D991 8/15/2010 Close to Home D992 8/16/2010 Bloomberg to endorse Fenty Tuesday D993 8/18/2010 Fenty mentor Bloomberg endorses his campaign D994 8/19/2010 Schools rule for Fenty’s campaign D995 8/20/2010 With grit and diplomacy, Gray pushes through agenda D996 8/23/2010 Rhee’s note to principals: ‘Go hard, or go home’ D997 8/23/2010 Primary could determine fate of D.C. schools, for better or worse D998 8/23/2010 For Teach for America, 4,500 tests D999 8/24/2010 Back to the books; The smooth opening of D.C. schools says a lot about improvements under Mayor Fenty D1000 8/24/2010 A nearly glitch-free return to school D1001 8/25/2010 Mendelson’s network 12 years in the making D1002 8/25/2010 D.C., Md. efforts to revamp schools snag $325 million D1003 8/26/2010 Field for new Montgomery schools chief is wide open D1004 8/26/2010 A Rhee-scheduled wedding affair D1005 8/27/2010 Race to the Top; It wasn’t perfect, but it pushed school reform in the right direction D1006 8/27/2010 Progress stalls in closing gaps in D.C. schools D1007 8/28/2010 Highlights D1008 8/29/2010 Fenty lags in D.C. race with Gray D1009 8/29/2010 Guests to be interviewed Sunday on major television talk shows D1010 8/30/2010 After ’06 landslide, an apparent reversal D1011 8/31/2010 A lesson about data points D1012 9/1/2010 Rhee helps, hinders Fenty’s reelection bid D1013 9/1/2010 Voter mood has Fenty quickly shifting gears on strategy D1014 9/2/2010 Readers discuss Fenty, Gray – and Rhee D1015 9/2/2010 D.C. Council endorsements D1016 9/2/2010 ‘People have waited a long time for this day’; Students, alumni celebrate modernized Eastern High D1017 9/2/2010 As Gray seeks to seize chance, Fenty pleads for another one D1018 9/3/2010 Gray wins endorsement in key ward D1019 9/3/2010 Famous in the halls of Janney Elementary D1020 9/4/2010 Rhee to hit the trail with Fenty campaign D1021 9/5/2010 Thousands in District stream to polls early

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D1022 9/5/2010 Shifting fortunes D1023 9/6/2010 D.C. teacher’s transfer seems like revenge D1024 9/6/2010 Rhee’s political games are turning off black voters D1025 9/7/2010 Life after Rhee: How D.C. schools might look D1026 9/8/2010 Should she stay or should she go? D1027 9/9/2010 Pregnant student sues teacher D0128 9/9/2010 Vincent C. Gray D1029 9/9/2010 In D.C., a hard-fought fight at the top D1030 9/9/2010 How to clean up D.C. schools D1031 9/10/2010 Education awards announced D1032 9/10/2010 Kinder, gentler school reform? D1033 9/10/2010 Student says teacher fathered her child D1034 9/10/2010 ‘Sexist’ questions about Rhee’s future? D1036 9/10/2010 Fenty’s toughest hurdle? D.C.’s 2-party system D1037 9/10/2010 Nickles thrives in role as protector and enforcer D1038 9/11/2010 Time for Rhee to go D1039 9/12/2010 D.C. schools unveil bonus plan D1040 9/12/2010 Perserving D.C.’s hard-won gains; Why oust the architect of progress? D1041 9/12/2010 In final voting days, D.C. mayoral rivals press for turnout D1042 9/12/2010 Likeability gap seems to hold Fenty back D1043 9/13/2010 Teacher asks; Rhee acts D1044 9/13/2010 D.C. candidates’ divergent paths converge at festival D1045 9/14/2010 D.C. Schools Insider: Gray on keeping Rhee: ‘We’ll see’ D1046 9/15/2010 The case for keeping Michelle Rhee D1047 9/15/2010 Gray wins Democratic nomination for D.C. mayor D1048 9/15/2010 Fenty lags in D.C. race with Gray D1049 9/15/2010 Education D1050 9/15/2010 As Gray seeks to seize chance, Fenty pleads for another one D1051 9/15/2010 Guests to be interviewed Sunday on major television talk shows D1052 9/16/2010 D.C. Schools Insider: Election result ‘devastating’ Rhee says D1053 9/16/2010 How can D.C. schools improve? Look next door. D1054 9/16/2010 Rhee feeling regret over Fenty loss, won’t commit to staying D1055 9/16/2010 Just hours after win, Gray faces big challeges D1056 9/16/2010 Fenty set path, oblivious to terrain D1057 9/17/2010 Rhee is likely to head for the door D1058 9/18/2010 What Mr. Fenty and Ms. Rhee did right D1059 9/18/2010 Trying to grasp a 9/11-to-race-to-Rhee link D1060 9/19/2010 Fenty lost black vote, then his job D1061 9/20/2010 Gray should keep Bedford team in place

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D1062 9/20/2010 The Answer Sheet D1063 9/21/2010 The Gray-Rhee summit; What’s best for schoolchildren should be their priority D1064 9/22/2010 D.C. state education chief’s resignation stuns board D1065 9/22/2010 Study undercuts teacher bonuses D1066 9/23/2010 D.C. Wire: Rhee looks shaken after meeting D1067 9/23/2010 What would D.C. schools be like without Michelle Rhee? D1068 9/23/2010 Gray, Rhee meet to discuss her future D1069 9/24/2010 Best in class; The District’s top teachers finally get their due D1070 9/24/2010 Going head-to-head again D1071 9/25/2010 Corrections D1072 9/26/2010 Guests to be interviewed Sunday on major television talk shows D1073 9/28/2010 Federal audit faults D.C.’s head start D1074 9/28/2010 Obama says D.C. schools not on par with Sidwell D1075 9/30/2010 Michelle Rhee deserves a fair grade for her reforms D1076 9/30/2010 D.C. schools may face new shortfall D1077 10/1/2010 Public schools fit for the Obamas D1078 10/2/2010 Report card; Is there racism in Washington’s school reform? D1079 10/3/2010 Report card; Is there racism in Washington’s school reform? D1080 10/3/2010 Guests to be interviewed Sunday on major television talk shows D1081 10/5/2010 Gray: ‘Onus is on me’ to assure D.C.’s wary voters D1082 10/5/2010 D.C. school enrollment appears to have risen D1083 10/6/2010 Gray opens city tour among friends D1084 10/6/2010 Rhee: Enrollment gain reflects residents’ confidence D1085 10/7/2010 In Baltimore, proof that school reform can be collaborative and effective D1086 10/8/2010 Gray courts Fenty country in Upper Northwest D1087 10/9/2010 Most popular subject: Rhee’s next position D1088 10/11/2010 D.C.’s Election Day D1089 10/13/2010 Michelle Rhee resigns as D.C. schools chief D1090 10/13/2010 The public school manifesto D1091 10/13/2010 Key issues to watch D1092 10/13/2010 Unfinished business D1093 10/13/2010 Rhee to resign as schools chancellor D1094 10/14/2010 School reform’s second act; Chancellor Rhee started the improvements, but there’s much more work to be done D1095 10/14/2010 Gray vows to continue reforms in D.C. schools D0196 10/14/2010 School reform can survive Rhee D1097 10/14/2010 Realizing ‘the ability to change children’s lives’

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D1098 10/15/2010 Grading Rhee in a user poll D1099 10/15/2010 Rhee’s deputy is ready to carry on D1100 10/16/2010 How to upgrade D.C. schools D1101 10/16/2010 Obama considers leaving government jobs unfilled D1102 10/17/2010 For many readers, local coverage is lacking D1103 10/17/2010 Our pundit finalists D1104 10/18/2010 An education setback in Charm City; Baltimore teachers fail to heed D.C.’s example of a good contract D1105 10/18/2010 District, Md. officials seize on absenteeism D1106 10/19/2010 Three who personify civility D1107 10/22/2010 For D.C. Council; Our choices for the District’s lawmakers D1108 10/22/2010 NYC delays release of ratings on teachers D1109 10/24/2010 Teachers in D.C. hold key election D1110 10/24/2010 Another important election D1111 10/25/2010 The Post backed the wrong horse D1112 10/25/2010 Upcounty voters feel pinched and perplexed D1113 10/25/2010 For D.C. State Board of Education; Our choices for the school standard setters in the District D1114 10/27/2010 Gray tries to allay concerns on schools D1115 10/28/2010 D.C. teachers union president faces election runoff D1116 10/29/2010 Rhee assertive right to the end D1117 10/29/2010 GOP hitching ride on Fenty’s coattails D1118 10/30/2010 D.C. teachers hit dead end in court challenge to layoffs

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