Michelle Rhee fires 165 Washington DC teachers for poor performance

Michelle Rhee, the chancellor of the D.C. Public Schools, is a polarizing figure. People either love her or hate her for the way she’s tackling education reform in D.C., which ranks as one of the nation’s worst school systems.

In the new documentary, ?Waiting for ?Superman,’? she and the director have this exchange:

RHEE: You wake up every morning and you know that kids are getting a really crappy education right now.

DIRECTOR: So you think that most of the kids here are getting a crappy education right now?

RHEE: Oh, I don’t think they are, I know they are.

As part of a drastic effort to change that, Rhee announced Friday that she has fired 241 D.C. teachers — 165 of them for poor performance. Kavitha Cardoza, a senior reporter for WAMU in Washington, D.C. discusses Rhee and how she’s affecting the upcoming mayoral race.