Miscellaneous
A daughter of Korean immigrants, Michelle Rhee graduated from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and began her career in education as an outstanding member of Teach for America. She founded the New Teacher Project in 1997, recruiting and training teachers for disadvantaged communities. In ten years, the Project had expanded to 40 programs in 20 states and recruited more than 10,000 teachers. In 2007, she was appointed Chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public school system by newly elected Mayor Adrian Fenty. She immediately drew fire from critics who resented her as an outsider, but she has persevered in the face of all resistance, replacing entrenched teachers, principals and administrators whose performance she found unsatisfactory. In the face of determined resistance to change, he has won national acclaim for her efforts to turn around one of the nation's most troubled school systems.