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What am I to make of a recent Washington Post poll that says D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s popularity has fallen—yet people are happier with the state of their schools?

It makes no sense to me that her “performance rating” has fallen from 59 percent last year to 43 percent this year. Or that her disapproval rating is 62 percent among African-Americans.

Test scores are up. Violence and crime are down. The quality of textbooks and other instructional materials has improved. Bad teachers are being taken out of the classroom.

This is exactly the progress that Washington, D.C., residents have wanted to see for the past 30 years, a period when a revolving door of superintendents and a variety of school governance models ensured that every step toward improvement was disrupted by political infighting and a sharp turn in policy direction.

Certainly Rhee is no saint. She’s made some questionable decisions. She’s also made her share of public relations blunders. She’s challenged the politically powerful teachers union and annoyed some parents with her willingness to make unpopular decisions, like closing their low-performing neighborhood schools.

But if concrete results are being seen, do people have to approve of how she’s doing things?
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