Focus: Michelle Rhee & the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in DC

Michelle Rhee is the Chancellor of DC Public Schools.  She is responsible for the DC Public Schools HIV/AIDS Program.

Rhee taught in Baltimore, Maryland as a recruit of Teach For America for three years before founding The New Teacher Project, a non-profit organization which works with needy school districts to recruit and train new teachers. She founded the program in 1997, and it has since expanded to forty programs in twenty states, recruiting more than 10,000 teachers. On June 12th, 2007, Washington, D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty announced that he had chosen her to replace superintendent of D.C. public schools Clifford Janey and become the schools' new chancellor. Washington has had a New Teacher Project presence through DC Teaching Fellows[4] for several years before Rhee's appointment. Rhee initially rebuffed Fenty's offer, but relented when promised wide latitude and significant authority in decision-making as well as strong mayoral support for her proposed initiatives.