October 13, 2010 9:05AM # Least Shocking Education News of the Year … By [Adam B. Schaeffer](https://www.cato.org/people/adam-b-schaeffer) --- SHARE The *Washington Post* [reports](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/12/AR2010101205658.html) that Michelle Rhee is on her way out of the DC Public School system: > D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee will announce Wednesday that she is resigning at the end of this month, bringing an abrupt end to a tenure that drew national acclaim but that also became a central issue in an election that sent her patron, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, to defeat. Rhee survived three contentious years that made her a superstar of the education reform movement and one of the longest-serving school leaders in the city in two decades. Student test scores rose, and the teachers union accepted a contract that gave the chancellor sweeping powers to fire the lowest-performing among them. No man or woman, mayor, chancellor or superintendent can significantly and permanently reform the government education monopoly. It is *unreformable*. Rhee’s tenure and modest success underscores this fact. Entrenched interests regroup, respond, bide their time, and reformers move on or are shoved along. We’re all still waiting for [Superman](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_for_%22Superman%22) in DC and across the nation, and it reminds me a whole lot of waiting for [Godot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_for_Godot). Rhee, [Geoffrey Canada](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Canada), and all the rest of the celebrated reformers clearly aren’t Superman, and the whole reform conversation is far past absurd. Only *systemic* reform that creates a market in education will bring sustained, continual improvement. Try looking a [this](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703709804575202310888043490.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion) for a sustainable bite out of the system. ##### Related Tags [Education](https://www.cato.org/education), [Center for Educational Freedom](https://www.cato.org/center-educational-freedom) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).