No Job Too Small for Fenty-Rhee Team
Hands-On Schools Approach Excites Some, Worries Others

By David Nakamura
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 9, 2007

Michelle A. Rhee estimates she has received 12,000 e-mails since becoming chancellor of the D.C. public schools three months ago -- and says she has responded to every one.

That kind of personal engagement pleases her boss, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, who has tried to lend a hand whenever he can, no matter how mundane the request. After someone complained about a pile of debris in the hallway of an elementary school, Fenty (D) called the city's public works department and ordered the trash removed.

It has not taken long for the mayor and his chancellor to become the faces of the 50,000-student school system. In a city impatient for change, they have raised expectations about what can be done and how fast. At the same time, the sheer volume of requests -- Fenty's office dealt with 700 problems related to schools this summer, said Deputy Mayor Victor A. Reinoso -- raises the possibility that the administration could become overwhelmed in its attempt to satisfy every demand.

Fenty dismisses such a notion.

"If you interviewed a $70 million-a-year CEO, they would say that Textbook 101 of business schools is: You respond to everything," he said. "It goes back to the first conversation I had with the chancellor, where I committed myself to saying that the entire government will be at the school system's disposal."

The Fenty team's style has registered with some parents who marvel when they run into the mayor touring a school. But others wonder whether the administration is focusing too much on trying to make quick fixes that translate into easy political points at the expense of meaningful long-term reform.

For example, as Rhee fields e-mail after e-mail, Fenty has yet to hire the school ombudsman he promised would be appointed to investigate complaints from parents.

"The worry is that she will be overwhelmed because she seems to be trying to respond to everybody's problems," Mary Levy, director of the Public Education Reform Project for the Washington Lawyers' Committee, said of Rhee. "Parents e-mail, and she does get back, and she'll solve problems for them. That makes people feel wonderful. But she's only one person. There's only 24 hours in a day."

Before Fenty took control, the Board of Education's nine members helped the superintendent deal with the bulk of calls and e-mails. Now, with the board's role largely advisory, members say they are unsure of what to tell constituents, other than to call the chancellor or mayor.

Rhee said she is not overwhelmed because she has developed a reliable response system. When she receives an e-mail, she said, she responds personally. She hears from parents with questions about facilities, staffers who haven't received paychecks, civic associations that want her to speak at their meetings.

If she cannot fully address the concern, she forwards the e-mail to her "critical response team," headed by special assistant Richard Nyankori. He works with various departments in the central office to find an answer and, once he does, Rhee follows up with another e-mail.

"You can't always give them the answer they want, but they always get an answer," Rhee said. "People are actually -- and this is really surprising to me -- they are okay with that."

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.