D.C. Public School Chancellor Michelle Rhee to Speak at Duke Nov. 17

Michelle Rhee, who as chancellor has been overhauling the struggling Washington, D.C. public school system, will discuss her experiences at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 17, at Duke University.

The discussion, which is free and open to the public, will be held in Sanford Institute of Public Policy's Fleishman Commons.

For the 2006-07 year, the D.C. school system ranked next to last in the nation for reading and math scores for fourth and eighth graders. It had experienced a drop in enrollment rates and 30 percent of local students now attend charter schools.

In her first 17 months on the job, Rhee closed 23 schools with low enrollment and overhauled 27 schools with poor academic achievement. She also fired more than 250 teachers and about one-third of the principals at the system's 128 schools. Now, the 38-year-old Rhee is tackling the teacher's union with a controversial proposal to increase teacher pay to $100,000 or more in exchange for giving up tenure.

"We are always going to put the best interests of kids above the rights, privileges and priorities of adults," she said.

She previously taught a second-grade class in a tough Baltimore school. "It was total culture shock," she said, but it taught her that with the right teachers and high expectations, urban kids can achieve. In 1997, she founded The New Teacher Project, a consulting organization that develops best practices for hiring new teachers.

Her talk is sponsored by the Office of Duke University President Richard Brodhead and the Sanford Institute of Public Policy.