allowed kids not to come to school and didn’t do anything about it.”
Michelle Rhee and Brian Betts, the enterprising principal she recruited from the Maryland suburbs (Photo Credit 3.4)
Rhee had no illusions that handing out money for good grades and behavior is a silver bullet solution. As she put it, “Not one thing will turn the district around; it’s going to be fifty different strategies and initiatives that add up to success.”
While visiting Rhee, I got an insight into how “Capital Gains” had very practical implications. One of the programs involved assigning students roles—for example, a married mom with two kids, a single man, and so on. The students were then given a checkbook with a phantom balance in it and told to do the family’s shopping for food, clothing, and other necessities.
One student told me, “I wasn’t that good at math so I thought it was a good project, but I knew it would be hard to do. We had to pay bills, look for houses, go to the store. Get groceries. We’re learning how to deal with real life.”
I teasingly said, “If you could fix the economy, that would be a big relief to all of us.”
A member of the class immediately shot back, “We’re working on that now.”
In an economy that is growing more and more complicated, with difficult decisions to be made about health care policies, choosing a pension plan, finding or refinancing a mortgage at favorable rates, sizing up bond or mutual funds, preparing a tax return, and calculating currency exchange rates, fundamental instruction in consumer finance should be as much a part of every school’s curriculum as basic math and English. We can hope this early training will temper young people’s attitudes toward thrift and credit card debt, and give them pause when a mortgage broker slides a subprime loan across the desk and says, “Hey, I can get you into a big home for no money down and interest only for ten years.”
Rhee’s aggressive approach was just three years old, and the results in student performance were encouraging, but time ran out before her systems could be fully realized. Her patron, Mayor Adrian Fenty, was defeated in the Democratic mayoral primary after one term for what was widely believed to be his aloof manner, especially with fellow African Americans in the poorest neighborhoods. Shortly thereafter, Rhee resigned.
In a joint statement to the city that is such a curious combination of wealthy and poor blacks, old-line white neighborhoods and the citadels of government and corporate power, Fenty and Rhee acknowledged that when it came to ensuring broad support for their efforts, they fell short.
Nonetheless, they were justifiably proud of the progress district students had made in a little more than three years. They urged the entire community to get behind the new mayor in his efforts to continue the progress. “We have laid the foundation,” they said, “but the hardest steps are yet to come.”
In the short time she was in the job, Rhee came to believe fervently that the old claims about ethnicity and zip codes as an excuse for failing grades are more about the general failing of society than about children and their families. She also recognized that schools must value the students.
The embodiment of that sentiment was the principal at Shaw Middle School, Brian Betts, a cheerful, athletic white Southerner who made a name for himself as an administrator in the wealthy, leafy suburbs of Montgomery County, Maryland, next door to Washington and light-years away in terms of income, family stability, and expectations for students.
Within a few days on his new job, Betts, who had a phenomenal memory, was a fixture on the schoolhouse steps every morning, in rain, sleet, or snow, greeting his hundreds of charges by name and cheering them on for the day ahead.
Dana, a student who had been suspended ten times a year earlier, became a model student. Why? “Mr. Betts. He’s a very positive person
Michelle Rhee and Brian Betts, the enterprising principal she recruited from the Maryland suburbs (Photo Credit 3.4)
Rhee had no illusions that handing out money for good grades and behavior is a silver bullet solution. As she put it, “Not one thing will turn the district around; it’s going to be fifty different strategies and initiatives that add up to success.”
While visiting Rhee, I got an insight into how “Capital Gains” had very practical implications. One of the programs involved assigning students roles—for example, a married mom with two kids, a single man, and so on. The students were then given a checkbook with a phantom balance in it and told to do the family’s shopping for food, clothing, and other necessities.
One student told me, “I wasn’t that good at math so I thought it was a good project, but I knew it would be hard to do. We had to pay bills, look for houses, go to the store. Get groceries. We’re learning how to deal with real life.”
I teasingly said, “If you could fix the economy, that would be a big relief to all of us.”
A member of the class immediately shot back, “We’re working on that now.”
In an economy that is growing more and more complicated, with difficult decisions to be made about health care policies, choosing a pension plan, finding or refinancing a mortgage at favorable rates, sizing up bond or mutual funds, preparing a tax return, and calculating currency exchange rates, fundamental instruction in consumer finance should be as much a part of every school’s curriculum as basic math and English. We can hope this early training will temper young people’s attitudes toward thrift and credit card debt, and give them pause when a mortgage broker slides a subprime loan across the desk and says, “Hey, I can get you into a big home for no money down and interest only for ten years.”
Rhee’s aggressive approach was just three years old, and the results in student performance were encouraging, but time ran out before her systems could be fully realized. Her patron, Mayor Adrian Fenty, was defeated in the Democratic mayoral primary after one term for what was widely believed to be his aloof manner, especially with fellow African Americans in the poorest neighborhoods. Shortly thereafter, Rhee resigned.
In a joint statement to the city that is such a curious combination of wealthy and poor blacks, old-line white neighborhoods and the citadels of government and corporate power, Fenty and Rhee acknowledged that when it came to ensuring broad support for their efforts, they fell short.
Nonetheless, they were justifiably proud of the progress district students had made in a little more than three years. They urged the entire community to get behind the new mayor in his efforts to continue the progress. “We have laid the foundation,” they said, “but the hardest steps are yet to come.”
In the short time she was in the job, Rhee came to believe fervently that the old claims about ethnicity and zip codes as an excuse for failing grades are more about the general failing of society than about children and their families. She also recognized that schools must value the students.
The embodiment of that sentiment was the principal at Shaw Middle School, Brian Betts, a cheerful, athletic white Southerner who made a name for himself as an administrator in the wealthy, leafy suburbs of Montgomery County, Maryland, next door to Washington and light-years away in terms of income, family stability, and expectations for students.
Within a few days on his new job, Betts, who had a phenomenal memory, was a fixture on the schoolhouse steps every morning, in rain, sleet, or snow, greeting his hundreds of charges by name and cheering them on for the day ahead.
Dana, a student who had been suspended ten times a year earlier, became a model student. Why? “Mr. Betts. He’s a very positive person
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