The education documentary "Waiting for Superman" is provocative and worth watching because it elevates a serious national issue -- the problems of urban education -- to a national platform. It's also not a very good documentary because the director throws lots of ideas together without examining them deeply. For example, the movie chastises teachers' unions as a bottleneck for reform, then acknowledges they've historically existed because teachers aren't paid well, but doesn't address this conflict. It also says there are countless underperforming teachers who need to be replaced, but doesn't wonder from where these replacements will come or why American society doesn't produce more high-quality teachers.
When Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of D.C.'s public schools, appears, all I could think was, Urban renewal. Rhee seems to take such glee in dynamiting the system, saying she can totally re-shape it because she only wants to be a chancellor once. (Ironically, she didn't realize how brief that one-time position would be: After she was interviewed, her patron, then-Mayor Adrian Fenty, was defeated in D.C.'s Democratic primary, which, as in most American cities, is essentially its general election. She then resigned.) She has no favors to ask or re-pay, and swiftly reorganizes the system, cuts the administration, closes schools, fires bad teachers, changes the union's contract, and sees results. How long those last is unclear, but it's clear the system needed to be changed.
However, her comments are also juxtaposed with a public meeting about the administration's plan to close some schools, where Rhee steps away from the microphone because there's no point in talking -- parents and students (and teachers and union members who mainly want to save their ranks) are shouting so loudly and holding signs in protest that Rhee wouldn't be heard. Obviously, parents are going to be pissed when their kids schools close, and it's impossible to transform any system without angering many people. But are the parents acting irrationally because they're scared of the impending change and, for several reasons, can't see the big picture, and Rhee is acting in their best interest? Or is Rhee overlooking something, that as bad as these schools are, they have a defined, longstanding community whose disruption is traumatic for everyone involved and shouldn't be discounted?
Urban renewal fits the same theme. In the postwar years, using money from the federal government, cities cleared neighborhoods, typically ones with minority-majority populations, that it declared to be slums, so that it could put high-rises, highways or large roads there instead. Even if residents objected, governments argued it was in their and the city's best interests to clean them. Many of the neighborhoods were in bad condition, but they were also functioning neighborhoods with communities of people -- and sometimes the judgment on their quality was truly subjective. The North End and SoHo, two of the most desirable places to live in the urban Northeast these days, were nearly cleared as part of urban renewal, before Jane Jacobs stepped in. Now, urban renewal is uniformly dismissed and has been for many years.
Rhee probably won't be Robert Moses, who led the massive redevelopment of New York City during the urban renewal years and was probably the most famous and controversial planner of the 20th century, because of her brief tenure. But she has many peers and followers implementing similar plans, and will probably at least advise powerful people in the future. It's hard to argue totally against them, but it's hard to argue totally for them as well.
Update: The Times reports that Rhee, after being considered for schools chancellor in Florida, New Jersey and New York City, is founding her own educational advocacy organization, to push her policies. That it's exploiting the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision to raise more money from wealthy individuals and corporations than it could before only adds to the complexity.
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