D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee garnered big local headlines and national attention July 23 when she announced that she had fired 241 teachers, including 165 who received poor evaluations under a tough new assessment system that for the first time held some educators accountable for student test scores.
It turns out that the story is a bit more complicated, and Rhee is facing accusations from the Washington Teachers’ Union that she inflated the figures to burnish her image as a take-no-prisoners schools leader.
The number of teachers fired for scores in the “ineffective” range on the IMPACT evaluation system is 76, or fewer than half of the 165 originally cited, according to data presented by the District to the union last week. The rest of the 165, school officials acknowledge, were educators judged “minimally effective” who had lost their positions in the school system because of enrollment declines or program changes at their schools mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind law.