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No School Left Behind

Our September issue came out just as kids headed back to classes, so it's not surprising that our article on Michelle Rhee's campaign to fix Washington, D.C.'s public-school system provoked a lot of heated comment (" The Iron Chancellor "). Readers from D.C. were especially fired up -- "I am so glad that principal at Dunbar was fired!" gloated one, while another lamented the ouster of a biology teacher -- but voices from across the country also chimed in. One young Minnesota woman wrote that she'd been frustrated since middle school by "knitters" who kept their teaching jobs through seniority. Meanwhile, negotiations over the groundbreaking teachers contract outlined in the article have stalled. No one who read senior editor Jeff Chu's story will be surprised that Rhee says she has a plan B.

Tough Lessons

Jeff Chu aptly observes that "perhaps only an outsider -- and someone who may be just a little bit crazy -- could set in motion the fundamental change needed to transform a creaking bureaucracy." The qualities that Chu describes in Rhee are the very characteristics we see in so many education entrepreneurs who are making a difference for thousands of public-school students. Some of those entrepreneurs are creating outstanding new charter-school systems; others have pioneered new ways of recruiting and training excellent people to teach and lead in our nation's schools. Like Rhee, they are sometimes viewed as "a little bit crazy" -- but which is crazier: believing you can change a massive, dysfunctional system, or believing that doing the same thing again will yield a different result?

Julie Petersen
San Francisco, California

No school should be spending nearly $17,000 per student a year and getting the second-worst standardized test scores in the nation. Can entrepreneurialism shine a light in the darkest of bureaucratic corners? For the benefit of our kids and the competitive future of America, it better!

Scott Gibson
Santa Rosa, California

I was a teacher at a closing D.C. school that held 500-plus students and taught barely 150. People were taking extra-long lunch breaks, aides and parents "hanging out." It was a trip! I am praying for an agreement on this contract so we can make people work hard for their jobs and the children and communities of D.C.

Zakia Haight
Washington, D.C.

I am a lifetime D.C. resident, product of the D.C. public-school system, and current parent of two DCPS students. The writer referred to Chancellor Rhee as "an unlikely crusader," but that is precisely what D.C. has needed for a very long time. Although there were shining jewels in remote corners of our schools, the system as a whole was a failure to our children. The only way to fix an environment this badly damaged is with swift, decisive, radical change. There are those who find Rhee to be rude, divisive, and cold. Those are usually the ones she is trying to get out of our system, the very ones who allowed the system to break down so far. The politics and red tape that surround "grown-up" bureaucracy should not leave our children uneducated. When elephants battle, the grass suffers. I admire the honesty in Chancellor Rhee's view on the consequences if she fails, but I would like to correct her. Given how long it has taken to see real change start, it's not just that she's screwed if she fails. We all are.

Lisa Jackson
Washington, D.C.

As a resident of D.C. and parent of a child who might enter into the public-school system, I want to point out an issue not addressed in the article. Rhee says she answers only to Mayor Fenty, but what she and others have to realize is that, now that D.C. doesn't have a school board to which we can voice our concerns, we have only the city council. If she is allowed to shun the city council because she doesn't want to get hammered by council members on TV, she has practically no one to hold her accountable.

Lamont Clark
Washington, D.C.

MySpace vs. Facebook

Thanks for the insight on the workings at MySpace ("MySpace, the Sequel," September). I've been a longtime user of MySpace and am now a new short-time user of Facebook. MySpace is far more flexible in terms of HTML formatting and has a lot of interesting multimedia content, but I never know when I log in if it's going to work or if it's going to be hopelessly bogged down to the point that page loads repeatedly time out. My assumption is that the network is under-engineered. Facebook seems to be able to deal with its user load. Rupert Murdoch needs to give his kids at MySpace a kick in the pants.