Rhee's Replacement

Before we get all teary-eyed at the announcement that Michelle Rhee is packing up her bags, broom, and hostility and returning to Sacramento full time to keep her husband, Kevin Johnson, away from the sixteen year olds, let's take a look at who is replacing her, at least on an interim basis:

Presumptive mayor-elect Vincent C. Gray introduced Kaya Henderson on Wednesday as the interim chancellor of D.C. public schools and vowed that reforms launched under Michelle A. Rhee would continue when he takes office in January.

"We cannot and will not return to the days of incrementalism," said Gray, who appeared at a mid-morning news conference with Rhee, Henderson and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, who will formally appoint Henderson at Gray's request. Gray, the D.C. Council chairman, beat Fenty in the Democratic primary election last month.

Gray also said that while he has "no intention of micromanaging DCPS," he asked Henderson to keep the school system's senior leadership in place until at least the end of the current school year. Henderson is regarded within the Gray camp as a potential permanent successor to Rhee.

...

In Henderson, Gray inherits someone in tune with Rhee on the fundamentals of education reform, especially the belief that teacher quality is the most important determinant of student success. Rhee and Henderson worked together at the New Teacher Project, a teacher recruiting nonprofit group that Rhee founded and ran before she was appointed by Fenty in June 2007. Henderson was a vice president for the group.

She was Rhee's first appointment and was named her top deputy the day Rhee was introduced to the District. At the time, Rhee made it sound as if they had come to the District as a package.

"I told Kaya, 'I can't do this without you,'â??" Rhee said at the time. "She's everything you'd want in a leader. She has an ability to motivate people. She's a critical thinker, and she's an innovative thinker."

At the New Teacher Project, Henderson ran the organization's D.C. operation, which had contracts with D.C. public schools to supply teachers. Before that, Henderson worked for Teach for America - where Rhee began her educational career - teaching middle school Spanish in the South Bronx.

At a D.C. Council meeting last year, Henderson recounted her first impressions of the city's struggling school system and her aspirations to change it. "I was stunned at the lack of commitment to ensuring the highest-quality educational force in the country," Henderson said. "The District tolerated people and practices that other school systems would never accept."

At a meeting in August of school principals, Henderson offered a football coach-style motivational talk, reinforcing Rhee's core message: that poverty and other conditions outside the classroom are not an excuse for poor academic achievement.

"Our responsibility is to deliver the goods, no matter what the situations our students are in," she said. "The reform is in the schoolhouse. You are here because we believe you are the right people to deliver this reform. The election is not our concern; the election is not your concern. Go hard, or go home!"

As deputy chancellor for "human capital," Henderson was a key figure in the firing of 98 central office employees in 2008. She was also lead D.C. negotiator on the marathon contract talks with the Washington Teachers' Union, which led to a labor pact that establishes classroom performance - rather than traditional seniority - as the main factor driving job security.

Seems to me the replacement is going to follow the same "reform" path trod by the more controversial Rhee.

In fact, Henderson may be more successful at it because she is less controversial, less of a lightning rod and a publicity hound than Rhee.

So while I definitely enjoyed seeing the arrogant Mr. Fenty have his political hat handed to him in the primary and I especially enjoyed Michelle Rhee looking like she was going to cry at the press conference she held with Gray after their post-primary meeting, I think we need to acknowledge that while one reform witch has left for now, another is stirring the very same cauldron and will be doing much mischief in D.C.