The Future of Education

Michelle Rhee on AC360: Loose Lips Daily

Posted by Mike DeBonis on Jan. 8, 2010, at 11:56 am

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Morning all. Michelle Rhee appeared last night with CNN's Anderson Cooper, for a segment on 'What's Next: Education.' Said Cooper, 'When we were brainstorming possible guests for this interview, Michelle Rhee immediately came to mind...she's been fearless when shaking up the status quo.' So what is next in education? 'A focus on teacher quality and human capital in schools,' Rhee says---both in paying teachers more and making it easier to fire bad teachers. 'As long as we have [tenure] protections in place, we are going to continue to have the problems in the public education system in this country that we have today.' Furthermore, 'in order to implement the solutions that are necessary, it's going to take a lot of political capital on the part of our politicians and our leaders....One of the things that we've realized here in Washington, D.C., with our reform efforts is that you have to be willing to withstand a little bit of that opposition and pushback.' In closing, Cooper asked Rhee for 'three things you can't live without.' E-mail, she answered, plus 'really good food, and on the professional side, I could not live without the boss that backs me every single day, Adrian Fenty....He is the most supportive and strongest mayor on education that you could possibly imagine.'