D.C. Schools Chief Wants Power to Fire Ineffective Teachers

Main said she has been served by some central office employees. "They try to help me and refer me, but there just seems to be some breakdown," Main said.

The skills that principals have developed to deal with such bureaucracy might represent Rhee's biggest challenge in her ultimate goal: to create an efficient central office, said Sheila A. Margolis, an Atlanta-based workplace consultant. Even with mass firings, educators may be reluctant to let go of the patterns that have helped them cope with the dysfunction, she said.

"They won't have trust until there's new systems in place that show them it's a different place," Margolis said. "They can't hope that it's going to be right; they have to really know."

Rhee tells central office anecdotes to drive home her point, and she has told this one several times:

When she saw that the school system was paying nearly $500,000 to educate two special education students outside the District, she wanted to know why. She found out that one placement specialist at the central office had not completed a needed form, and another had missed a filing deadline, leading to the costly out-of-town placement.

The chancellor recounted calling the employee into her office.

"You don't understand how busy I am," the employee told her.

"Wait a minute," Rhee said. "Everybody's busy. If you have a job that's too big for you, maybe you need to consider another job."

Staff writer Nikita Stewart contributed to this report.