Michelle Rhee '92 returned to Cornell on Oct. 5 to speak about her efforts to overhaul the Washington, D.C., public schools -- arguably the most troubled school system in the country. Her lecture, given to a nearly full Bailey Hall, was sponsored by the Iscol Family Program for Leadership Development in Public Service.

When Rhee was appointed chancellor of the District of Columbia public schools in 2007 by Mayor Adrian Fenty, the task before her was overwhelming: The achievement gap between black and white students was 70 percent; only 8 percent of eighth-grade students achieved grade level in math; and poor black fourth-graders tested two grade levels behind the same demographic in New York City.

"That's what I inherited -- a system where kids were better off staying at home," Rhee said.

As an outsider and a reformer, Rhee was met with some skepticism. "I was the diametric opposite of what people wanted and expected: I was this 37-year-old Korean girl form Ohio," Rhee said.

In two years on the job, she has since become a highly controversial figure. Rhee distilled the schools' failings into two egregious problems: an utter lack of accountability within the system and the negative effects of local politics.

The problems are not caused, she argued, by insufficient funding. "When I started this job, D.C. spent the most money of any school district, but the results were at the bottom," she said. One of Rhee's first actions as chancellor was to track down where that money was spent. "I found that $74 million was going toward transporting a few thousand special education children -- that was $18,000 per child per year."

She found other shocking expenditures and tracked them down to mistakes made by administrators, none of whom had been reprimanded. "I realized that a mentality was permeating the school system [where] there was no obligation for people to ensure they were actually doing their jobs well," she explained.

Rhee stirred controversy by firing administrators and principals she deemed incompetent and by closing several city schools that were underutilizing resources. She hopes to replace all underperforming teachers in the district -- that, she believes, is the single most important change that can be made.

"Three highly effective teachers in a row can literally change a child's life trajectory," she said. Rhee does believe that professional development can improve underperforming teachers, but she acknowledges that it is a slow process.

Her conviction that good teachers are the keystone of education reform stems from her experience teaching in Baltimore with Teach for America. She is a strong advocate of the program, which trains and places impassioned new teachers in struggling school systems for two years.

In spite of the roadblocks she encounters every day, Rhee, who was a government major at Cornell, remains a picture of optimism. She concluded that "it is absolutely possible to improve the quality of schools. The question is: Do we as adults have the fortitude to make decisions on behalf of kids?"

Graduate student Melissa Rice is a writer intern at the Cornell Chronicle.