D.C. schools Chancellor given authority to fire underperforming administrative employees
The D.C. Council has given final approval to legislation granting schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee authority to fire underperforming administrative employees. The bill says administrative employees past a probationary period can be fired "at the discretion of the mayor" after they are served with a 15-day separation notice and as long as they have had a performance evaluation within the previous six months. The legislation will affect 488 administrative positions in the school system, although city officials have said that only between 100 and 150 employees would likely be terminated. Mr. Gray said the chancellor's office told him that more than 600 performance evaluations of employees already have been completed in an effort to reform the school system bureaucracy. The bill's approval did not come without opposition. Three council member voted against the measure. They said the bill abdicates due process and that Ms. Rhee already has the authority she needs to clean house in the school system's central office. "This is people's lives we're talking about," member Harry Thomas Jr. said. "This is serious business."
Washington Times By Gary Emerling
[Editor’s Note: The website at the first link below has posted the text of the letter a reader indicates Chancellor Rhee has sent to district central office personnel about the legislation. For background on the proposal, see the second link. According to the article at the third link, at the time of the Council’s initial approval of the measure last month, “Rhee also said a number of superintendents in school districts elsewhere in the country have contacted her and said they were ‘praying’ for this measure in hopes that it would influence similar change in their own systems.” The next two news articles are about Ms. Rhee’s plan to dispatch fact-gathering teams to each of 27 schools designated for restructuring under the No Child Left Behind Act and her efforts to close 23 under-enrolled schools. The politics of the school closings, initiated under a facility master plan adopted by the now-advisory school board in 2006, are analyzed in the commentary by Marc Fisher. The whirlwind of activity has resulted in a lengthy profile in the Wall Street Journal and prompted Newsweek to name the 37-year-old chancellor a “Person to Watch in 2008.”]
DCist.com on legislation
NSBA School Law pages on legislation
Capitol Hill Voice By Victoria Solomon
Washington Post By V. Dion Haynes & Nikita Stewart
Washington Post By Theola Labbé
Washington Post By Marc Fisher
Wall Street Journal By Collin Levy
Newsweek By Martha Brant