{"id":657,"date":"2010-12-13T10:23:50","date_gmt":"2010-12-13T14:23:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/?p=657"},"modified":"2011-01-11T10:09:08","modified_gmt":"2011-01-11T14:09:08","slug":"the-haynesworth-%e2%80%93-rhee-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/?p=657","title":{"rendered":"The Haynesworth \u2013 Rhee Connection"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s not surprising at a time when the idea of individual players getting high salaries isn’t questioned that the Washington Redskins<\/em> Albert Haynesworth might forget that football is a team<\/span> sport.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, ignoring that fundamental truth is not an option for Mike Shanahan, the teams’ coach — who is held individually accountable for the results that only a team can achieve.\u00a0\u00a0 That universal principle applies whether the leader is called a coach, CEO or school system superintendent.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately Michelle Rhee never learned it — and judging by the cover article of the current Newsweek<\/span> — apparently still hasn’t.\u00a0\u00a0 Instead, in DC \u201cher team\u201d was the enemy.<\/em> It’s \u201cplayers\u201d she saw as self-serving bureaucrats and union leaders – who then served as the focal points for continual \u201cbattles\u201d that first had to be \u201cwon\u201d before all students could be \u201cput first.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for those children, she never understood that (like Shanahan) she was the only one<\/em> accountable for integrating all the players in ways that would create a sustained capacity for \u201cwinning\u201d – i.e., meeting the needs of each child every day<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And now according to her words on Newsweek’<\/span>s cover — \u201cI’m not done fighting<\/span>\u201d — The real battle<\/span> for school reform begins now\u201d<\/em> — she’s taking this game plan national with a new political organization –\u00a0 \u201cStudentsFirst.<\/em><\/p>\n

But how many of her well-intentioned supporters will understand<\/p>\n

(1) that at the end of that game, the losers will once more be those same students they hoped some Superman<\/em> would make \u201cfirst.\u201d\u00a0 And<\/p>\n

(2) that there is a better putting-<\/em>students<\/em>-first<\/em> game plan that actually works.<\/p>\n

The evidence is right \u201cnext door\u201d in the larger and more complex Montgomery County Public Schools which this month received national recognition for \u201cwinning\u201d its putting<\/em>–students-learning<\/span><\/em>–first<\/em> game when it received a Broad Foundation\u2019s Prize in Urban Education<\/em> and the federal government’s Baldrige Award for Performance Excellence<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Significantly, both objective observers acknowledged that in Montgomery County the kids were winning because of a \u201cteam\u201d effort.<\/p>\n

A team with a game plan that effectively integrated the work of a school board<\/em> with its diverse interests, three unions<\/em> (not one), and a bureaucracy<\/em> of former teachers and principals so that on the playing field of daily schooling they together had ways to make decisions that actually kept students first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s not surprising at a time when the idea of individual players getting high salaries isn’t questioned that the Washington Redskins Albert Haynesworth might forget that football is a team sport. Unfortunately, ignoring that fundamental truth is not an option for Mike Shanahan, the teams’ coach — who is held individually accountable for the results […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=657"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":661,"href":"https:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions\/661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sabusense.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}