Michelle Rhee and mayor bring 'listening tour'

Education activist Michelle Rhee and her husband, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, are visiting California cities to talk about education. They began in San Diego and will travel to San Jose, Fresno and Los Angeles. Today, they will hold a round-table discussion with Sacramento residents. Rhee was formerly the schools chancellor in Washington D.C., where she fired dozens of teachers, attacked seniority rules and pushed for merit pay. She founded StudentsFirst a year ago, leasing the second floor of the historic Hale's building at Ninth and K streets in Sacramento in October. The organization has campaigned in many states to change teacher layoffs from a seniority-based decision to one based on teacher performance. Rhee answers our questions here: What is the mission of StudentsFirst? Our mission is to transform public education. We want to be a voice for kids in public education. For many decades education policy in this country has been shaped by special interest groups. How are you doing that? We are educating the public. A lot of people don't know the kinds of policies that are in place in communities that impact their schools. We give our members the tools to advocate by writing letters to legislators, making calls, going to legislative meetings. Our members are our greatest strength and biggest voice. Sixteen to 17 percent of our members are reform-minded teachers, as well as parents, grandparents and business owners. Your website says you have 1 million members. Is that right? We set the goal that we wanted 1 million members by Dec. 1 (2011). We have 1.034 million; 150,000 of our members are from California – far and away our largest membership. Do you attribute that to years of cutting education funding in the state? In other states education is being cut in similar ways. … There are a number of factors that are playing into it. Layoffs have hit California hard in the last decade. A lot of teachers have seen how seniority-based layoffs impact schools. The L.A. Times and the California media also have done a more in-depth job of educating the public on seniority-based layoffs and value-added teacher evaluations. What is the goal of the listening tour? It is the beginning of us engaging with our (California) members. We have to go to a few more cities before we lay out a game plan. What did you hear in San Diego? We asked "What are you most concerned about?" The last in, first out policy is the No. 1 reason of the people that were there that evening. Then parental empowerment. People want to feel they have more information and choices with education. The third thing we learned is that people really want direction. … We wanted this to be a listening tour, but people said, "We want you to tell us what to do. We want to go, go, go. Now!" What is the role of your husband and the California Mayors Education Roundtable in the listening tour? The California Mayors Education Roundtable is sponsoring the listening tour, and this is enabled through my husband. We have mayors across the state, whether Republican or Democrat who are participating. It is an opportunity to hear from their constituents.