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She's on the cover of Time (week of December 8), in a classroom, unsmiling, dressed in black, holding a broom, with the cover title, "How to Fix America's Schools," set to look as though it's the lesson for the day written on the blackboard. Framing her head is the huge "TIME" trademark. She is Michelle Rhee, Chancellor of Education, District of Columbia Public Schools. And the question for the "class" is, Does she have the answer to America's failing public school systems? Is it, finally, time to make the kinds of sweeping changes that she represents?

I keep waiting for someone to tell the young mayor, and Miss Rhee that to be a teacher in the District of Columbia is a very hard job shaped by all kinds of outside forces. I think about my three years I which I spent all of my savings contributing to the school system. I taught across from a large welfare housing in southwest Washington DC. The school is still there. They called me the pied piper of SW. I took children on field trips, taught them to use the museums on the mall to learn, did NASA Marsville with them and had wonderful reading scores. It was not appreciated. I was making trouble. That's why I left. Children followed me in the SW mall. Children in trouble slept at my doorstep. There was never enough time or money to address all of their needs.

I applaud Rhee's efforts at reform, particularly with the DC schools, but it appears that she may not recognize or address the influence of parents, the community, and peer groups on human behavior and learning. Incorporating a plan to address and use these factors are also necessary to achieve her objectives, which are laudable.

Special care should be taken to protect highly effective schools for low-income minority students during district upheaval and budget cuts. We should treat highly effective teachers in areas of need as the stars that they are. But the places of learning in the community need to step up to the plate.