SACRAMENTO, Calif. — When Michelle Rhee wants to make a point about what she sees as the coddling of American children, she refers to her daughters’ abundant soccer trophies.
“My daughters suck at soccer,” she says to crowds that roar with knowing laughter.
The former District of Columbia schools chancellor is pitch perfect in the role of outraged parent and education reformer, distilling complex policy debates into bare-knuckled banter.
In Rhee’s world, as she recently told crowds in Los Angeles and Sacramento, teacher seniority protections are “whack,” principals can be “nutty” and charter schools can be “crappy.” Such frank talk has made the controversial former teacher a celebrity and potential political powerhouse.
StudentsFirst, the advocacy group Rhee founded in California’s capital, where she lives with her husband, Mayor Kevin Johnson, is positioning itself as the political counterweight to teachers unions. Funded by entrepreneurs and philanthropists, it’s pushing to elect candidates and rewrite policies on charter schools, teacher assessment and other charged issues in at least 17 states, including California.
Teachers unions and other critics say the group, which spent $250,000 to boost three candidates for the Los Angeles Board of Education in the March 5 election, promotes unproven policy proposals with cash from sources whose main goal is crushing organized labor. Among StudentsFirst’s major donors is the Walton Family Foundation, funded by heirs to the fortune generated by Wal-Mart, which has vigorously opposed unions.
“StudentsFirst,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, “has found a way to be the education flank of a broader anti-union movement.”
Rhee says she supports collective bargaining. Her group, she said, balances labor’s role in the education debate.
“The purpose of teachers unions is to prioritize the pay and privileges of members. That is their job. I don’t think that’s the problem,” she said in an interview. “What I think the issue is is we don’t have an organized national interest group with the same heft … advocating on behalf of kids.”
The 43-year-old Rhee, whose children attend public school in Tennessee, where her ex-husband lives, is guided by the free-market principles that characterized her tumultuous three-year tenure in Washington.
She wants publicly funded charter schools, “trigger” laws that allow parents to shut down low-performing campuses and vouchers that permit low-income students to use public dollars at private schools. Many labor leaders and academics call her a stalking horse for corporate interests that want to turn a profit in public education.
In Washington, Rhee closed scores of under-enrolled schools and fired hundreds of teachers
deemed ineffective by a new evaluation system based largely on student test scores. She dismissed a principal in front of a TV news crew for not meeting goals. Top performers received bonuses.
Rhee’s record there still generates debate. Her critics have said her administration resisted calls to investigate evidence suggesting that teachers and administrators falsified test results, and they allege inadequacies in outside probes that found no major wrongdoing.
In 2010, unions spent heavily to oust Rhee’s boss, Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty, in what was widely viewed as a referendum on Rhee. She resigned. A few months later, she announced StudentsFirst on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”
Since then, millions of donated dollars have funded a staff of more than 120 and enabled the group to push model legislation crafted in its Sacramento offices.
“There is a really talented field of advocates, but it is … underpowered,” said Ed Kirby, deputy director of the Walton Family Foundation, which has reported giving StudentsFirst at least $3 million. “The fact that StudentsFirst has joined the fight — that’s a big deal.”
StudentsFirst spent nearly $2 million in last year’s general election to support 105 candidates across the country. The vast majority, mostly Republicans, won their races.
Rhee, a lifelong Democrat, says her group has helped pass more than 100 education proposals
nationwide. StudentsFirst has worked with Republican governors in Florida, Nevada and Tennessee to abolish seniority systems that protect veteran teachers from layoffs without regard for performance.
