The Future of Urban School Reform
An Address by D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee

After gaining control of the District of Columbia Public Schools last summer, Mayor Adrian Fenty’s first act was to appoint Michelle Rhee chancellor of the perennially troubled system. Chancellor Rhee--the dynamic, youthful founder and CEO of the nonprofit New Teacher Project--as regarded as a daring and unconventional choice. During her short tenure, she has gained a national profile for aggressive measures to instill personal accountability, attract top talent, reengineer the central administration, close nearly two dozen underenrolled schools, and mount a frontal assault on the District’s culture of mediocrity. Please join us as Chancellor Rhee reflects on her first eight months in office and the lessons that they hold for improving America’s urban schools.

About the Author

 

Christopher
DeMuth
  • Christopher DeMuth was president of AEI from December 1986 through December 2008. Previously, he was administrator for information and regulatory affairs in the Office of Management and Budget and executive director of the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief in the Reagan administration; taught economics, law, and regulatory policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University; practiced regulatory, antitrust, and general corporate law; and worked on urban and environmental policy in the Nixon White House.

     

  • Phone: 2028625895
    Email: cdemuth@aei.org
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    Name: Keriann Hopkins
    Phone: 2028625897
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Frederick M.
Hess



  • An educator, political scientist and author, Frederick M. Hess studies a range of K-12 and higher education issues. He is the author of influential books on education including “The Same Thing Over and Over,” “Education Unbound,” “ Common Sense School Reform,” “ Revolution at the Margins” and “Spinning Wheels,” and he pens the Education Week blog, Rick Hess Straight Up. His work has appeared in scholarly and popular outlets such as Teachers College Record, Harvard Education Review, Social Science Quarterly, Urban Affairs Review, American Politics Quarterly, Chronicle of Higher Education, Phi Delta Kappan, Educational Leadership, U.S. News & World Report, National Affairs, The Washington Post, New York Times, The Atlantic and National Review. He has edited widely cited volumes on education philanthropy, stretching the school dollar, the impact of education research and No Child Left Behind.  He serves as executive editor of Education Next, as lead faculty member for the Rice Education Entrepreneurship Program, on the review boards for the Broad Prize in Urban Education and the Broad Prize for Public School Charters as well as on the boards of directors of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, 4.0 SCHOOLS and the American Board for the Certification of Teaching Excellence. A former high school social studies teacher, he has taught at the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Rice University and Harvard University. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University as well as an M.Ed. in Teaching and Curriculum.


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  • Email: rhess@aei.org
  • Assistant Info

    Name: Lauren Aronson
    Phone: 202-862-5904
    Email: lauren.aronson@aei.org
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