I failed to fulfill my promise to write a post about Michelle Rhee's appearance before our reporter roundtable on Friday, and now the Washington Post's Bill Turque has gone ahead and written a fully credentialed newspaper article about it, so the pressure is off. His piece explains Rhee's back-up plan in case her teacher pay-for-performance proposal gets voted down by the teachers union:
In recent weeks, Rhee has moved to defuse expectations surrounding the contract and novel pay package. Asked earlier this year by Fast Company magazine what happens if she fails to get the labor deal she wants, Rhee replied, "Then I'm screwed." But at Friday's roundtable, she suggested that "Plan B" could have a national impact as far-reaching as the pay plan because it would show other cities a path to reform that does not require winning over unions and spending millions more on raises.
And:
"The contract is the way that I would prefer to go," Rhee said. "But if we can't get to agreement on the contract, there's another very clear way that we can get there. . . . The bottom line is we are going to bring accountability in a very significant way to the educator force in this school district."
The way she'd get there is by making administrative changes to the District's evaluation process for teachers-changes that are in synch with reformers being pushed by DC's "state superintendent," Deborah Gist.
So read between the lines, DC teachers: Either you can go with Rhee's pay-for-performance plan and get huge bonuses plus a greater chance of getting fired if you don't get results. Or you can skip the bonuses and just face the greater chance of getting fired if you don't get results.
It's hard not to love Michelle Rhee!
