Customer Reviews

The Bee Eater: Michelle Rhee Takes on the Nation's Worst School District

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is a gripping tale; I could not put it down. The book chronicles the massive challenges Michelle Rhee encountered when she took on the job of turning around the Washington, D.C. public schools. Rhee's bold moves and brash style shocked the city and Whitmire describes the stakes, the politics and the explosive, fast-paced story in stunning detail. There's plenty here for Rhee critics to contest, and if you are one of those critics you're probably not going to find much to like in this book. Whitmire is clear about his admiration for Rhee and his belief that her dramatic actions were badly needed. If you're not sure what you think about Rhee, or you are among her legions of fans, there's a lot here for you to consider. The book includes interviews with Rhee's family and colleagues, revealing details about her childhood and early career that offer important insights into her style and personality. She's a clotheshorse and a big eater. At the end of the book, just days away from resigning, Rhee is interviewed by Whitmire for the last time. A big bag of greasy French Fries and a jumbo cupcake sit uneaten on her desk as she juggles her phone and her Blackberry. It's a lasting image of a fascinating personality whose next moves will be equally interesting to watch.

This is must reading for anyone who's passionate about education reform in the United States. Although the author admires much about Michelle Rhee, he's also clear about her failings and how those wound up costing her her job (and the mayor's who appointed her.) Although I'd read extensively about Rhee before this, I learned much I didn't know before. Some of the insights are fascinating, such as why Rhee failed to win support from the African-American community, despite demonstrable results in improving the quality of education for children in the district.

The Bee Eater is a well written book about a subject vital to all of us- the education of children. The author discusses in detail not only the life of Ms.Rhee but, more importantly, the problems,disappointments and successes she had with her efforts to improve the Washington D.C. public school system.

The retention of substandard teachers by the school administration and Ms.Rhee's trials to have those teachers terminated make good, even suspenseful reading.
It is a tragic loss to all education and the betterment of public schooling in our nation's capitol that she was forced to resign.

I recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the future of our country which depends on our having an educated electorate.

I confess I started this book as an admirer and staunch supporter of Michelle Rhee and her efforts to transform the worst school system in our nation. When I finished it several hours later not having been able to put it down, I felt as if we have all let her down. This is no ordinary woman -- this is a woman of unbelievable courage, remarkable stamina and intellect and who has an unshakable commitment to children. I wondered why we made her stand alone so many times during fight. I questioned why we silently cheered her on, but rarely came publicly to her side when she needed a helping hand or words of encouragement for the burden she was carrying. Having read this book, I think lesser of myself for not having done more during Michelle's heroic and epic battle chronicled so thoughtfully by Richard Whitmire.

In this account of Michelle Rhee's struggles to transform a failed system, it is impossible to be human and not be angry by the cycle of dependency that failed schools create. That there are parents anywhere in America who would rather see a bad teacher have a job than for their own children to have a world class education that gives them a better shot in life is beyond complete and total comprehension. And that there are organizations who enable failure and mediocrity to protect their own power is shameful. Michelle Rhee may have lost her job fighting to change all that, but we see through this book that this extraordinary woman will ultimately lead us all to win the revolution to save a failed public education system.

Buy this book. And then go join this giant of woman who is just beginning to fulfill the calling of our time.

My review addresses if this is a good book and worth reading, rather than to air my own political and social views. This is always difficult with a work that covers a controversial topic or a controversial figure. When, say, Glen Beck or Anne Coulter on the right and Michael Moore or Bill Maher on the left launches a book, there will be a flood of reviews from supporters or opponents of their views and it then becomes difficult to assess the book rather than the issue.
The questions I try to answer in my review are:

1. Is this a good book? Definitely 4 stars here. It is judicious in its judgments and clear in its analysis and conclusions. It's well crafted. One of the elements I most like is that while it is strongly supportive of Rhee, as it progresses and he has established her as a real and caring person, he adds layers of criticism and queries about how she operated. He lets Rhee express herself with him as the shrewd observer and doesn't try to build her up or give his own picture. It's very well done.

2. Is it reliable? Yes. I live twenty miles outside DC and, being an ex-elementary school teacher and ex-DC resident, followed the Fenty-Rhee story fairly closely. The book seems very accurate and balanced in its details and does enough justice to all the parties to provide an informed and sound narrative. It holds back a lot on the seamy aide of DC politics. Mayor Gray, who could have been portrayed as the villain of the piece, is perhaps too fairly treated. Within just months of his becoming mayor, there has been a nonstop flood of scandals, police investigations, accusations of bribes and diversion of funds, vote-buying, and all the regular mess of the city. It does deal what appears to be a breakdown in the editorial direction of the Washington Post, several of whose outstanding Metro columnists came after Rhee big time, with often dubious portrayal of events and some vey one-sided opinionating. If anything, the author's downplaying of the DC open air political lunatic asylum helps bring out the issues of education - he avoids colorful sidetracks and melodrama that could have made the book more of a popular best seller and "controversial." It makes the book quite low key, reasoned and reasonable, all of which are distinctive merits.

3. What makes it special? This could have been a local story of conflicts and personalities at one extreme or a dreary policy wonk-laden tome on education. It is well-positioned as a story and definitely makes one think. It's resonant and convincing - this is the world of our kids ion a system that just about everyone agrees has become more and more dysfunctional. Rhee took a clear and bold stand. Though she was dumped - sorry, she resigned - she made some major changes and much of what she put in place has been continued. Since the book was published, her successor who has been her long-time and closest colleague has continued just about all her major initiatives and just last week laid off over four hundred teachers for poor performance, mostly under the IMPACT program agreement Rhee put in place two years ago. 300 teachers rated as highly effective for two years in a row are being given base salary raises of up to $25,000 and are eligible for bonuses of another $20,000. Chancellor Henderson looks very effective, with two frequent comments being made in the media: Rhee's initiatives seem to have taken hold and maybe if Rhee had had her tact and patience perhaps she would still be there.
Michelle Rhee is certainly controversial and she brings out strong reactions. Mine are positive but the rights/wrongs of her controversial term as Chancellor of one of the worst school systems in the nation is not a reason either to read or ignore the book. It raises questions that are important regardless of where you stand. In particular, it poses the core issue of whether the problem is the kids and their background or the teachers and their unions. She took over the position through what was very much a go for broke move by the new mayor, Adrian Fenty, who won his election on the promise of a fresh face, new generation leadership and so on. He ran into many problems largely of his own making - losing tough with the community and being labeled as arrogant and dismissive - and his support in the community eroded badly. Rhee became both the lightning rod for much of this opposition and the core of the next mayoral campaign, which he lost. The winner had made it clear, albeit elliptically in public statements, that Rhee would have to go. She resigned and has moved on to a national stage as an advocate for school reform.

At the core of her plans was and remains her belief that the problem in schools is not the children and the culture of poverty, gangs and unemployment they live in. the far deeper cause is the resignation of so many principals that nothing really be done and that the best the schools can do is get by. DC is not exactly known for clean government and the schools plus the massive bureaucracy it has created has for long been a source of patronage jobs and notorious inefficiency and corruption. Even basic administration is a mess, with buildings in chaos, a lack of even basic record keeping even on attendance records and employee levels, waste and diversion of Federal funds, and in many instances schools in a state of semi-chaos. It also has a very strong teacher's union, opposed to teacher evaluations and dismissal for poor performance.
Rhee built her turnaround with a very tough personal style that is often seen as the main reason for the opposition to her. She is clearly an aggressive leader who engenders strong loyalty, and she built a dedicated team. She sought out and promoted new principals and held them accountable, often brutally so. There was very much a my way or the highway flavor to her relationships with principals who faced a daunting task and in some instances were just not quite strong enough to win through; she seems to have left some of these to sink or swim and didn't provide a lifejacket. She put scores on standardized tests at the center of her planning, monitoring and rewards. She went after the bad teachers, of whom there are many. She tried to win support from the unions for her firings and school reorganization by negotiating a contract that gave very substantial merit raises to the best performers; an agreement was eventually reached. She was decidedly not tactful in her public positions as she became a national figure with raves from Oprah, a documentary film and the infamous magazine cover of her as the witch with a broomstick. A major and still ongoing debate is whether she was on the right track but with the wrong personality. DC test scores improved, though again there are many people who question the data, even to the extent of accusations that Rhee herself "manipulated" the figures that first brought her to attention as a teacher in Maryland. DC politics is dominated by a rich of racial and social issues and both Fenty and Rhee were seen as favoring the white liberal elite at the cost of a community that has many valid complaints about gentrification, a right to the city jobs that keep them afloat - and the schools. Some of these were used, inexcusably in my view, as weapons against her.

All in all, this is a strong 4-star rating, not quite a 5 only because many readers may not be interested in the local DC issues. But this could be a tale of Chicago or other cities with somewhat dubious politics and major needs for school reform. Is Rhee the talisperson (is that a real word?) for leadership in school reform but it is worth reading the book just to answer that question. In many ways, if Rhee couldn't turn the system around it is very unlikely others could. Do our schools need radical reform and if so does that demand an aggressive rather than consensual campaign? This book may help you decide.

I've been a teacher for over 25 years so I found this book extremely interesting. While the incompetence I have personally seen doesn't come near the incompetence of the D.C. schools, it doesn't surprise me. It does frustrate me when you see the self-serving components of "education as usual" defend the current failing system and work so hard to prevent real reform from happening. Especially when the victims are the children, and the victors are politicians, poor teachers, and teacher unions.

This book appears to be a well-balanced description and on what happened when Michelle Rhee tried to improve the D.C. schools. I write "appears" because just like the author explains in his book, we, like the D.C. voters are at the mercy of a reporter's agenda and integrity. I tend to think he is telling it as honestly as he can because although the overall message is a positive one about Rhee the author does include a significant amount of criticism of her as well.

This is a must read for anyone who wants to know why so many schools are failing.

This book highlights the struggles, achievements and mistakes made by Michelle Rhee during the years she was the chancellor of one of the worst public school districts in the country. The author provides an in-depth look into Rhee's background, her early role as a public teacher in Baltimore for Teach for America and the rocky time she spent fighting the entrenched sub-par policies and procedures that had been a part of the D.C. public school system for too long. I was a bit confused as the book did not always follow chronologically, but seemed to jump around from time to time, but there were important lessons to be learned from Michelle Rhee. I, for one, admire her for her courage and no-holds-barred attitude when it came to making changes within the public school system and her proactiveness in implementing change. Unfortunately, the politics in the District, including, as the author points out, the racial politics, led her to resign in 2010. In the end, this book is a good case study regarding some of the issues the inner-city public school system faces in cities around the country. If intended to be a biography (which may not be the intent), this book could have been better.

On a humanitarian level The Bee Eater is quite compelling. One part I found distracting however, and that were the citations about the 'parents' reportedly 'in mass' disagreement over the teacher-firings. Inciting and citing `unsuspecting' gullible families blamed for the failing conditions of schools as one of the primary sources of opposition really was hard to read.

So, of course I jumped on Michelle Rhee's bandwagon. Coupled by what I remember of teachers teaching at underachieving schools, her motivations to see failing schools succeed, and drive to make this happen, were palpably clear. And even so I tried following the opposition's arguments by ignoring the humanitarian decibel, Michelle's unwavering contention which consistently maintained--children deemed incorrigible can be taught, and those who pursue careers to teach them must be held accountable.

Perhaps, maybe she wasn't handling the firings in the best interest of what may have worked better? From that perspective one argument did catch my attention. `Educate the teachers who had been in the system for years instead of giving them pink-slips.'

But then Whitmire goes on to present classic case scenarios, accompanied by real examples of ways other teachers accomplished this task in the time it may have taken to educate, or `re-train' teachers that came with the school. Sousa's principal Jordan and Sunaria Tatum were beautiful testaments.

Finally, though not in the least, given today's advancements in technology, newer versions of systems and software rolling out seemingly every other day, I was particularly stricken by sluggish bureaucratic systems and thinking processes employed to handle reforms such as this. It seems not only logical, but key that critical decision-making tools improve as well. For these reasons, The Bee Eater is an impressively valuable read.

What would you be willing to do if things were so out of control that nobody dared do anything?

What a tragedy it is that this book was even made possible in the wealthiest country on the planet. Having attended the second worst school district, Los Angeles (70's), everything in this book hit home. It is unbelievable that such low standards are maintained by the very people who claim to be fighting for the students, namely, the Teachers Union, Politicians, and the Teachers themselves.

The condition of the schools that Michelle Rhee was thrown into was abominable, but worst, the excuse for this most subtle form of racism was that the parents and students were to blame. For the mostly black population, the district's party line being that the parents were uncaring and the students were incorrigible, was patently racist. Rhee proved them wrong and brought down the wrath of an entire system designed for failure.

The Bee Eater consists of three parts. The first part deals with who Michelle Rhee is, where she came from, and what her core values are. Clearly, she has always felt that the students were all teachable and how passionate she is about education.

The second part deals with her rapid success as an educator and administrator culminating with her appointment as the Chancellor of the Washington DC School District. The battles she fought were primarily against the Teacher's Union machine that had allowed standards to exist that even a third world country would not accept. She must have known that her reforms must be sweeping and deep because her opposition would be relentless.

I was very impressed with her focus and determination in getting rid of teachers who did nothing, principals who allowed chaos, and administrators who didn't even know how to keep records. The amount of progress and new levels of competence she achieved in just a few years is proof that the excuses ginned up by the real problems were bogus.

On the downside, part three deals with the criticisms of how these reforms were enacted. More than fair, I feel, were the many charges leveled at her by the people who wanted Rhee out at any cost. Of course, the 'racist' chant, which was more a projection by people who had nothing substantive to say.

Some charges do stick, particularly where Rhee made decisions that were a bit too radical. When she refused to back off of the Hardy Middle School move, or maybe too hasty with Dunbar High School, many of her detractors were given plenty of ammo to take her down in the next mayoral race. That last third of the book is not sunshine and roses; there are some very important flaws in Rhee's approach and basic character that set her up for a short lived tenure.

We all have faults, and many are hard to excuse, but on the positive side few people have the kind of determination and passion for providing children the best possible education as Rhee. Her future as a school reformer has just begun and this book offers a hopeful vision for parents and students tired of being blamed for an institutional failure.

Read this book, I couldn't put it down.

The Beeeater describes Michelle Rhee's attempts to reform the education system of the Washington D.C. public schools. Her attempts were deemed too radical and over a period of time, she suffered major backlash for her efforts. The book's author is unapologetically pro-Rhee and as such, those who disagreed with her methods and policies will find much to bash in this book.

Personally, I found this to be an insightful read. It is not just about Rhee the reformist, but also her background and personality, all of which shaped the person she became and informed her actions. Pro-unionists will obviously not be great fans of this book, but it does offer an interesting perspective into the mind of someone who cares deeply and passionately about improving the quality of public education.