The reality in Washington D.C. is if you live in Tenleytown versus if you live in Anacostia, you get two wildly different educational experiences. Itโs the biggest social injustice imaginable. What we are allowing to happen in this day and age, we are still allowing the color of a childโs skin and the Zip code they live in to dictate their educational outcome, and therefore their life outcome. We are robbing them every single day of their futures. And everybody in this country should be infuriated by that.
Michelle RheeThereโs a belief now that the problem with our schools is parents, that if we just had better parents we would have better performing kids and, therefore, we wouldnโt have a problem at all. But whatโs missing in that equation is that you do have a lot of parents in this country who are very involved in their childrenโs education and who do want something better. They want to see better for their kids. They know that theyโre in schools that arenโt performing particularly well and if you look at how we treat those parents, it is quite poorly.
Michelle RheeWe've lost our competitive spirit. We've become so obsessed with making kids feel good about themselves that we've lost sight of building the skills they need to actually be good at things.
Michelle RheeCreativity is good and whatever. But if the children don't know how to read, I don't care how creative you are. You're not doing your job.
Michelle RheeIn schools where parent involvement is greater, you do have higher achievement levels and better functioning, better performing schools.
Michelle RheeI think for what success looks like for me, it is a world in which you can look at the achievement scores, the academic scores, of any school anywhere in this country [the USA], and you wouldn't be able to look at the score and determine what the racial makeup or the socioeconomic makeup of that school is simply because of the academic achievement levels.
Michelle Rhee