D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has turned to a long-time loyalist to help her rescue the city’s failing $300 million special education system.
Richard Nyankori has been appointed deputy chancellor for special education, Rhee spokeswoman Dena Iverson told The Examiner.
He replaces Phyllis Harris, whom Rhee appointed as her $200,000-per year special ed “czar” and who is now on medical leave as she receives treatment for cancer, Iverson said in an e-mail exchange.
Nyankori, a former administrator in the Baltimore public schools, is Rhee’s third special ed chieftain in the past 15 months. Rhee demoted then-director Marla Oakes to make room from Harris, whom she recruited from Oakland, Calif. Oakes died of cancer last week.
The Examiner has reported extensively on D.C.’s special education meltdown, where critics say that the mental and physical problems of thousands of children are routinely ignored and thousands of other children are warehoused in schools and clinics around the country with little regard for their health and safety.
Rhee has promised to make fixing the special education system her top priority. Last month, a federal court-appointed monitor blasted Rhee for losing focus on special education reform. Among monitor Amy Totenberg’s findings were that Nyankori and Harris were tripping over one another as the system lurched from crisis to crisis.
Nyankori didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story. He was on Rhee’s transition team last year and has served as a special assistant to Rhee since Mayor Adrian Fenty plucked her from relative obscurity and gave her command of the $1 billion-plus school system.
Mary Levy, a schools and budget expert for the Washington Lawyers Committee, said Nyankori is well-regarded by parents, but it was too early to tell whether he would be effective.
“I’ve never heard anything but good about him. He seems to be forthcoming and honest,” Levy said. “They need an effective manager, there is no question about that. I don’t know whether he is or not.”
