DCentric

Bread for The World

After-school program, Washington, D.C.

Any piece with the line “I’ve seen Latin American juntas surrender power more gracefully” deserves a look, especially when the target of such a damning pronouncement is Michelle Rhee. Eugene Robinson is offended:

It may be the case that Rhee, who can point to some admirable accomplishments during her tenure, is the only visionary-cum-taskmaster who can whip the chronically troubled D.C. schools into shape — though it’s always foolish to forget Charles de Gaulle’s famous observation that “the graveyards are full of indispensible men.” But what’s so offensive is the idea that Gray — a native Washingtonian who graduated from Dunbar High School and has dedicated his career to public service — would inevitably allow the children of his beloved city to be devastated. Whether through incompetence, callousness or some other failing, Rhee does not specify.

EXACTLY. Adrian Fenty and Michelle Rhee aren’t the only ones who care about the city’s children.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’d think that someone who cared so desperately about the city’s students would do everything she could to try to ensure that the reforms she initiated would continue. She might look for a way to stay on with the new administration, learning to work under a new boss. If that were unrealistic — and, after what she said, I find it hard to imagine how Gray could ask her to stay — she might at least begin a constructive dialogue aimed at a smooth transition. But the way to start that conversation would be with words of congratulations. Instead, she took the peremptory Louis XV approach: “After me, the deluge.”

But it’s not about her, you understand. As she said at the Newseum, “I’ll be fine.”

I’m sure she will be fine; I just wish she could have been a bigger person, too.