[6] Rhee told Washingtonian magazine that she was demoralized by her first year of teaching, but said to herself, "I’m not going to let eight-year-old kids run me out of town."

[16] The D.C. schools were performing poorly despite having the advantage of the third highest spending per student in the U.S.[17] Fenty and Rhee announced that they planned to make revolutionary changes in D.C. schools, and that part of the planned changes was a hoped-for "grand bargain" with teachers under which "greater accountability, including an end to tenure," would be traded "for a nearly 100-percent increase in salaries.

Under this new agreement, Rhee fired 241 teachers, the vast majority of whom received poor evaluations, and put 737 additional school employees on notice.

One common criticism disputes her assertion that, while a teacher, she dramatically increased students' average scores from the 13th percentile to the 90th.

[23] Some D.C. parents and community leaders complained that despite these improvements, the speed with which Rhee enacted her reforms left them without input on the changes.

Also, the Post indicated that "Rhee's efforts to raise the quality of teaching through improved training, evaluation, and dismissals might be gaining traction as well.

According to The Washington Post, "the departure has stunned many Oyster–Adams parents who wondered why, in a city filled with underperforming public schools, Rhee would sack a principal who has presided for the past five years over one of its few success stories.

"[25] Rhee also fired a principal she had hired seven weeks before in Shepherd Elementary, another high-performing school in the upper Northwest neighborhood.

[26] Rhee was criticized for closing several D.C. schools without holding public hearings,[27] for not reporting complete budget figures at D.C. council hearings,[27] for not involving parents to a sufficient degree,[28] hiring former supporters to conduct an evaluation of her performance,[29] and for spending considerable time before the national media (Time, PBS, lecture circuit) instead of visiting schools.

[31] Rhee declined to apologize for her statement, claimed that one of the 266 dismissed employees had been accused of sexual misconduct, six had been suspended for using corporal punishment, and two had been absent without leave, while many others also had egregious time and attendance records.

[32] The 2010 mayoral election in Washington, D.C., was interpreted by some political observers as, in part, a referendum on Rhee's tenure as school chancellor.

[34] Critics of Rhee, arguing that she had not genuinely improved education in D.C. schools, maintained that improvement in test scores must have been due to cheating, and attempted to show that changes made on some students’ tests, in which wrong answers were erased and correct answers substituted, indicated a systematic pattern of answer-changing, presumably at Rhee's direction.

"[39] In an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal on January 11, 2011, Rhee endorsed vouchers, saying that she supported "giving poor families access to publicly funded scholarships to attend private schools."

She added that "All children deserve the chance to get a great education; no family should be forced to send kids to a school they know is failing.

"[40] In a February 2011 speech before Georgia's legislature, she indicated she had supported the D.C. voucher program as a supplement to the charter school alternative.

"[41] On December 6, 2010, Rhee went on The Oprah Winfrey Show to announce that she had declined all job offers resulting from her high-profile work as D.C. Chancellor and would be focusing on a new advocacy organization she had formed called StudentsFirst.

[42] She told Winfrey's audience she wanted to have one million members and raise $1 billion in order to catalyze education reform in the United States.

[43] Within weeks of its founding, Rhee and StudentsFirst had advised the governors of Florida, Nevada and New Jersey on abolishing teacher tenure and other issues related to public education reform.

[44] She has also been a visible figure in the national media, appearing on television shows, radio programs, and the documentary film Waiting for Superman.

[48] On March 29, 2016, StudentsFirst announced some of its state chapters would merge with 50CAN, a nonprofit education advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.[49] On November 19, 2016, Rhee met with President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President–elect Mike Pence, sparking speculation that she was in consideration for Secretary of Education;[50][51] Rhee later tweeted that she was not interested in pursuing the position.