A takeover plan for the District of Columbia Public Schools that left more than a few feathers ruffled. The separation of the school system’s management of real estate from school operations, to say nothing of the creation of a state superintendent of schools (Deborah Gist), a Deputy Mayor for Education (Victor Reinoso) and a transformation of the city board of education into a state board. The selection of an untested chancellor (Michelle Rhee) with no constituency beyond the mayor, who is having problems providing proof of her claims to “outstanding success” raising student performance in earlier jobs. (And reminding us of the first school improvement company, Education Alternatives Inc.) The selection of a real estate manager (Allan Lew) with friends on the City Council. A process to appoint both that violated at least the spirit of the takeover law.  And now three very high-powered consulting firms are about to work their way through the bureaucracy finding problems and recommending fixes “down to the most granular level.”

There will be a great deal of turmoil over the next months as management consultants once again turn over every rock and and then report on the system's problems and proposed fixes (see why these consulting efforts generally come to naught); Chancellor Rhee establishes her legitimacy and operational control; Rhee and Lew determine how to mesh construction and repairs with operations; and Rhee, Lew, Reinoso, Gist, the state board, the city council and Fenty develop a working relationship. This will still be in process when the 2007-2008 school year begins, to say nothing of the mess of moving hundreds of administrative employees to the several new agencies - a process that education officials don't expect to finish until September of 2008.  Meanwhile, teachers, principals, central office administrators and the city council will see every one of their own assumptions of the system's future called into question. Rhee cannot know how the consultants' work and inevitable bureacratic maneuvering among and inside the new agencies will affect her own freedom of action, or where her power will begins and everyone else's will leave off.

It's a safe bet that while this goes on there will be no significant positive change in student or school performance. It's a certainty that the new crew will be blamed. Don’t expect a return to something resembling the kind of calm that allows people to focus on their job of helping students achieve academic proficiency until at least January of 2009.  Your editor feels reasonably confident in offering a 90% probability that between now and then there will be at least one painful surprise that keeps the system out of balance.  In short, expect the high degree of chaos and uncertainty that turns district purchasing offices into quagmires, and makes them especially sluggish in support of new, costly academic initiatives.

What does this mean if you are a school improvement provider looking at the DC marketplace?  

If you are already doing business there, chances are that your work is secure for another year, probably two, maybe three.  While matters large and small are being studied, lines of demarcation among political power centers are resolved, and a consensus plan for improvement is being worked up while interim crises are managed, there are unlikely to be many big changes in current contractual relationships with school improvement providers. The exceptions will be contracts that rest on a personal relationship with outgoing Superintendent Clifford Janey or one of his outgoing lieutenants. They are likely to fade away, replaced with this groups special friends.

If you are looking to do business with the new regime, plan on a marketing effort on the order of 18 months or more. If you have friends in the new regime and so no marketing costs, look to replace the outgoing crowd. If you have a real product or service lthat recoups marketing costs within a year, like program evaluation – go for it. If you are offering a service like information management that is simply too expensive and complicated to rip out just because the next chancellor would like something different – go for it.

On the other hand, if you will not begin to recoup your marketing costs and make a profit on your work until year two or three, and your offering is easily changed by the powers that be, say professional development or a math or reading curriculum program, think twice. It might be better to spend the marketing resources becoming more deeply embedded in the districts where you are now located, because DCPS is bound to go through a few more equally disruptive "reforms" over the next five years.