Michelle Rhee, the former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor, might very well be the most controversial figure in public education these days.

She runs the national nonprofit she started in 2010 called Students First, which advocates for increased parent choice, fiscal accountability at all levels of public education and weeding out ineffective teachers and, last year, Time magazine named her among the world's 100 most influential people.

But she is vilified by the teachers unions for her support of charter schools and vouchers and her efforts to rid schools of ineffective teachers regardless of their seniority. Her organization has gained national recognition among education-minded reformers and even Oprah.

Now living in Sacramento, Rhee, 42, is married to the city's Mayor Kevin Johnson. She was in the Bay Area last week for several speaking engagements and spoke to The Chronicle. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Your parents pulled you out of public school questioning the quality and sent you to a private school. Did you agree with them?

Rhee: You know, at that point I don't think I felt in any way I wasn't getting a good education or anything like that. But at the time that my parents did that my brother was attending a private school and I definitely saw the rigor of the instruction he was getting.

Q: Do you think that decision affected you and the direction that you've taken?

Rhee: Well, I feel like I had a very positive experience in public school for elementary school. ... As I got older and went through private school, especially for high school, I definitely saw the difference in the quality of instruction that we were getting every day, particularly when I talked to people who were attending public school ... I feel I got an excellent education and I definitely knew ... that what we were getting every day was really a privilege and really at that point thought, "Why isn't this something that every kid everywhere gets?"

Q: You are archenemy No. 1, according to the teachers unions. Do you see a way to work with them rather than wage war with them?

Rhee: First of all, we definitely did not wage war on the union. In fact, the union has very little to do with what we're focused on really at all.

What we are focused on is a pro-kid agenda. And if we have to fight the existing district bureaucracy, state legislators, teachers, whoever is standing in the way of kids getting the education they deserve and trying to protect the status quo, and maintain the way things are, we're going to be willing to fight against any of those.

I believe that the teachers unions are doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing. They were designed to be professional organizations that protect the rights and privileges and pay of their members. ... The problem is that we don't have an organized national interest group with the same heft as the teachers union that's advocating on behalf of children.

Q: Critics have labeled you as evil, as a monster, as the devil's handmaiden. How do you respond to that?

Rhee: I don't even know how to respond to a lot of those things.

We need to do everything we can to ensure every single child has an effective teacher every day, which means we need to identify who are the most highly effective teachers, and we should recognize and reward them for the incredible professionals that they are.

And we need to also identify the least effective or ineffective teachers and for those people we need to either quickly accelerate their practice or move them out of the profession. That's what I believe and quite frankly I have never met anybody at least to my face who said they disagree with that notion.

Q: You were one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people last year, alongside Michelle Obama, Oprah and the president of Brazil. Did you deserve it?

Rhee: (laughs) I cannot comment on that. What I think was very heartening about that was the fact that I think people don't talk enough about education and what we need to do in our public education system. I think it's an acknowledgment that an education reformer is as important in this country as the first lady.