No Job Too Small for Fenty-Rhee Team

Brian Lang, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Ward 4, has tested Rhee. He was concerned about poor renovation work at Brightwood Elementary. So Lang sent Rhee a message inviting her for a tour. Two weeks ago, she showed up with Fenty in tow. They toured the building, including the roof, and waited for school construction officials to arrive even after Lang left for another meeting.

"It's very encouraging they are taking the state of schools seriously," said Lang, who has a follow-up meeting with Rhee and Fenty this week. "It speaks to the level of involvement that she will bring to the central office."

For Fenty, the emphasis on education has dominated his first eight months in office to the point that D.C. Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) has wondered whether the mayor is devoting enough attention to other matters. Fenty is facing mounting challenges -- the pending sale of Greater Southeast Community Hospital, a Supreme Court appeal to maintain the city's handgun ban, the development of Poplar Point, a 110-acre site in Southeast.

The administration believes part of its challenge with schools is to "manage expectations," a phrase Rhee uses often during strategy sessions, including two brainstorming meetings the administration held on schools this summer. It has set some specific goals -- Fenty has promised heat in every school by October and air conditioning in every classroom by next spring -- that can be easily measured.

"If you look at part of the reason why folks are frustrated with the district, a lot has to do with communication and a lack of clarity of expectation," Rhee said. "People know the school district has plans called 'blitz' and 'buff and scrub.' People read or hear about them, and they think it means 'everything in my school is going to get fixed.' That's not the case. . . . We are not good at communicating what these things mean. That is part of what we've got to do."

To that end, Rhee has hired New Future Communications, a consulting group, on a three-month contract to develop a strategy for how her office will disseminate information to the public. The company's founders worked on the presidential campaigns of Al Gore and Wesley Clark but had never before worked with a school system.

Some wonder whether that means more political spin than academic substance. In New York City, where Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's schools takeover has served as Fenty's model, school activists have complained that the mayor's office presents only the most positive data and regularly withholds more damning information.

Mark Lerner, board chairman for William E. Doar, a performing-arts charter school in Northeast, said he grew dismayed watching Fenty and Rhee hold news conferences this summer that announced age-old problems -- such as missing textbooks and unorganized personnel filing systems in the central office.

The final straw, Lerner said, was when scores came out last month showing that nearly two-thirds of D.C. students had poor reading and math skills, but Fenty and Rhee did not have a news conference.

"Where's the outrage?" Lerner said, "Why isn't the complete focus on raising the academics of these students? Why isn't she speaking about that?"

Kathy Patterson, a former D.C. Council member who once headed the education committee, compared Fenty's school reform effort to a "political campaign" with a heavy emphasis on public relations. But, she cautioned, "at some point in time, progress has to be demonstrated."

Rhee said that progress will come, stressing that she talks about academics every day during the individual meetings she is having with the principals of all 140 schools.

For now, though, the daily requests take priority. After Fenty and Rhee wrapped up a ceremony at Roosevelt High last week celebrating the renovation of athletic fields, they were mobbed by coaches and students. One coach wondered when renovations would be made at his school. Another asked about a long-delayed locker room expansion.

Wendell Felder, 16, a junior runner at McKinley Technology High School, had a more personal agenda: He invited the chancellor to lunch.

"I wouldn't ask her about her job," he explained later. "I'd keep it on the personal level."

Rhee gave him her e-mail address and promised to set something up.

Staff writer Theola Labb? contributed to this report.