Spotted: Mayor Fenty and Michelle Rhee!

Another month in DC, and I feel like I'm getting to know the better and better. I've moved on from those incredibly frustrating paper metro cards to the all-important Smartcard! I've cooked pasta for the first time in my very own apartment! I'm even following local politics! I've become pretty caught up in the mayoral primary down here, especially since education is such an integral piece for both candidates. Speaking of which, my co-worker and I randomly drove by mayor Adrian Fenty as he was campaigning for the mayoral primaries the other day (he waved at us!). I also got to see DC schools chancellor and ed reform celebrity Michelle Rhee speak at a Q & A for young education professionals a few weeks ago, which was awesome. Not did she answer some tough questions about education reform, but she also told us the color of her bridesmaids dresses (she's getting married in September) and listed her favorite movies.

Also winding down another month at the CityBridge Foundation, and the more I learn about education reform the more fascinating and intricate it all gets. My research at the foundation is focused on what it takes to turn around the worst-performing schools in the district; as part of that, I've gotten to travel around the city and see both very high-performing schools as well as historically low-performing schools that the district has handed over to outside management in the hopes of sparking dramatic improvements. In the last month or so I've spoken to over a dozen ed reformers across the country - in New Orleans, Boston, New Haven, New York - who are doing this work; basically, I call them up on the phone and get to spend an hour picking their brains about how they're tackling turnaround in their respective cities.

For those of you in education fellowships (or those of you who are just interested), my co-workers at CityBridge got me into this awesome blog called Eduwonk (http://www.eduwonk.com/) - it's great commentary, and has lots of links to current news in ed reform - so I thought I'd pass the info along!