And she's found her prey, DC Public School teachers that she thinks are "ineffective"

Among the measures Rhee plans to impose are a new teacher evaluation system based primarily on student test scores and other achievement benchmarks. She also promised more aggressive implementation of legal provisions already in place, including the ability to eliminate teacher jobs -- because of declining enrollment or school closures -- using seniority as only one of several factors taken into consideration.

Rhee said she intended to more intensively use the so-called "90-day plan" that allows administrators to give teachers three months' notice to improve or face dismissal.

The Post seems to think, as does Rhee, that poor performance means bad teaching. I could remind you all about my daughter's experiences in DCPS, or how there's a teacher shortage in the District with hundreds of jobs STILL unfilled after 5 weeks , or that Rhee continues to provide no information about WHAT will be used to measure performance, or that this isn't just completely arbitrary, but, that's just me. I'm just one voice against the Anti-union steam roller that is Fenty-Rhee.

The issue here for teachers and students isn't teacher performance, it's student performance. And until Fenty gets his act together and makes sure that all the other services that parents need are there, we're going to be empowering Rhee to hunt teachers at our kids expense.

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In the recent past, Mayor of DC, Adrian Fenty has been all too willing to throw workers under the bus in his obsessed mantra of "Accountability". But for once, Adrian isn't calling for the head (yet) of any case workers in this horrific case of abuse and death from the Washington Post:

Early Saturday, Calvert authorities made a gruesome discovery: the bodies of two children encased in ice in a freezer in the home of Renee D. Bowman, 43. Bowman has been receiving a monthly government subsidy of $2,400 to care for her three adopted children: the 7-year-old girl on the street and two others who are now officially missing.

"You think you've seen it all," Sheriff Mike Evans said yesterday in announcing the discovery, "but you haven't."

With Bowman in jail, charged with child abuse, and investigators working to piece together what happened, the case again shined a spotlight on the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency, which recommended Bowman to a D.C. Superior Court judge as a suitable adoptive parent in 2001 and 2004. The girls had been wards of the D.C. government.

Adrian came out to say that there will be an invesigation, but, uncharacteristically, he did not mention firing, yet.

What I've noticed about Mayor Fenty is his willingness to hold workers accountable for things that they may not have the ability to control. In the recent past, The Department of Child and Family Services has been inundated with cases yet they have not been inundated with new social workers nor have they been able to reduce the overwhelming case load most social workers now carry in the District. The case load issue falls directly in Fenty's lap. It is his poor choices in terms of the all encompassing "accountability" mantra that has caused the increase in case load and his firings which have also caused a decrease in staffing. And all of this leads to poor morale.

A few months back I had a chance to speak to a middle manager within family services and she noted that she'd read my posts on these issues (available here), and that yeah, the case load is more than excessive and yep, it sucks coming into the job never knowing if you'll have your job the next day or if you've missed one child too many who needed your help. She noted that as much as all of this sucked, that the worst part was knowing that she didn't become a social worker for money. She did it because she wanted to make a difference in the lives of families. She wanted to protect children and help moms and dads find their way. But she no longer felt that she could do this and was really just waiting to leave.

Besides being an interesting discussion about staffing, cases and families, it was more interesting to hear a perspective of "All I want to do is help, but I no longer can in my current job." There was frustration at missing kids and parents who'd fallen through the cracks. There was this sound in her voice that made me think she'd given up. This is what is saddest of all. Someone who'd only went to school to get a degree so she could help families was no so unhappy that she really just didn't seem to think anything could be done any longer.

See, this is one aspect of the Adrianisms that I have been writing about, the idea that accountability should be about real accountability. And accountability doesn't start with overworked, over stretched and stressed out workers, it begins at the highest levels first. It begins with Adrian Fenty.

I'm hopeful that Council will hold hearings (if they haven't already) on the staffing issues within all of DC government. Children shouldn't suffer the way these three children have suffered. It's time for DC City Council to address service staffing and they need to do it now before any more children die.

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So, Mr. Accountability has hatcheted Child and Family Services, Housing Inspectors and oh,yeah, DC Public Schools. Take this recent WJLA report:

McKinley's not alone. ABC 7/NewsChannel 8 visited Thurgood Marshall Elementary School last week and found classes with only substitute teachers. One classroom with a permanent teacher had 46 students.

Apparently, I qualify to be a substitute teacher in DC, that isn't a good thing. I don't have the technical knowledge (no matter how good at math I am, and I am) of what it takes to be a teacher. It's not just the subject, it's how you teach. Apparently, Mr. Accountability and his side kick, Chancellor Rhee, see nothing wrong with understaffing and putting in non-union substitutes to fill those gaps, gaps they created this summer when they fired 270 teachers for not having their certification. How many substitutes are certified?

This just reminds me of a lock out. Perhaps families at McKinley Tech should weigh in on this:

After millions of dollars in renovations, some parents claim McKinley Tech High School still suffers a critical shortage of teachers.

"We asked what's going on, why there's no teachers," said Monica Lowe. "They made false promises."

Her son is a junior at McKinley. After weeks of school, his Algebra II/Trigonometry class is on its second substitute teacher, she says.

"Parent-teacher conference is next Friday, October the third, Mr. Ford, and we have yet to receive a teacher," Lowe told ABC 7/NewsChannel 8 reporter Sam Ford Friday.

No Algebra II teacher? What kind of school system are you running here? Oh wait, Mr Anti-union Michael Brown can probably lend a hand with destroying the schools and getting rid of the dastardly union in support of substitutes, he's just about suggested such in his campaign lit. I suppose he's just another little Adrian. Kind of sad, really.

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From the WashingtonPost:

Fenty fired six workers in that case. A hearing officer recommended three for reinstatement.

It was the kind of swift action Fenty has become known for, although he is sometimes reversed. Fenty said he has instituted the approach of quickly terminating those he finds accountable, because that is what constituents demand. In the past, employees got "a slap on the wrist," he said. "People are tired of that."

I don't know. I think I'm more tired of promises that aren't followed through with, like funding that is never provided or staffing that is never increased, or potholes never filled...

The brisk style, coupled with the increase in reported cases, has created an atmosphere of fear and has lowered morale at CFSA, Courtney said. "With our new mayor, it's a fix-it. Get it done or lose your job," she said. Although the drive is there, union leaders said, the resources are not, and more social workers are needed.

The death of a child is a tragedy, but having worked in child support enforcement, Iremember working with social workers and seeing how stressed and overworked they all were. It's one of those jobs where you have to love what you're doing, even when what you're doing is taking children from the only homes they've ever known and placing them in overcrowded foster homes (there are good ones out there, but there are a number of not so good ones, too).

You have to advocate, advocate and advocate and kiss your weekends, evenings and personal life goodbye.

The national standard for a social worker's caseload is 12, but after the Jacks case, District social workers were dealing with 20 on average, and some had more than 30.

Sam Smith on his blog DC City Desk (Free DC) really broke it down well:

Said Fenty, "If someone is saying the District of Columbia human services agency is somewhat overburdened . . . I'm the first to say that," he said. However, Fenty added, "There can be no excuses."

But, if that is true, shouldn't the guy who suddenly increased the social worker's job load be fired as well? It wasn't the social worker's fault that the agency was "somewhat overburdened." At the very least, Fenty should stop treating these incidents as political campaign events.

Fenty has proved a grand disappointment to me and an awful lot of working men and women of this city. I'm sure Cropp would have been worse, but this isn't the guy I thought I was getting. It really sucks to fire an employee for not doing their job, despite not giving the worker the tools to do their job or even a workload that is actually doable. Wonder how many other children are at risk right now because of the choices you've made Mr. Mayor. What other police officer or social worker are you going to hold accountable for your lack of resources?

If there really are no excuses Mr. Mayor, perhaps a little more house cleaning closer to your office is in line, perhaps, even in your office. I suppose this is just another attempt by you to make sure that accountability is about how the buck stops with all front line workers. I think this is just an example of what I'll be calling an Adrianism.

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