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What’s Chancellor Joel Klein’s message about Michelle Rhee’s resignation? He told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell yesterday that even though D.C. residents voted out their mayor and their schools superintendent resigned, the city still wants “committed, aggressive reform.”

“I think the message is the following, and I think the D.C. community is sending that message to Mayor [Vincent] Gray, which is: We want to continue on this path,” he said.

“We may want some changes in this or that, and I think the best thing he can do is establish himself as a political independent — someone who’s willing not to listen to all the moneyed interests, but actually listen to the people, and ultimately the kids in D.C. — is to go forward with a really strong committed aggressive reform. That’s what the city needs, everybody knows it.”

The chancellor also praised D.C.’s interim superintendent, Kaya Henderson, and called on her to continue Rhee’s policies of closing poor-performing schools and firing incompetent teachers.

To whet your appetite while I process some video and pictures from Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s stimulus bill announcement this afternoon, here’s a link to the newest episode of “Education News Parents Can Use,” the U.S. Department of Education’s monthly television broadcast. Last night’s show was Duncan’s first, and the broadcast’s title, “Charter Schools: School Reform That Works,” offers a hint at his administration’s policy priorities.

Given Duncan’s obvious support for charter schools — as Elizabeth noted earlier, the first school Duncan visited as education secretary was a D.C. charter — I wasn’t suprised to learn that he was holding his first New York City event at one. But there was another, more obvious reason that Explore Charter School in Flatbush played host today, I was reminded when I asked a member of Duncan’s entourage about the choice of location: With its freedom to set its own schedule, Explore is one of the only schools in the city that’s actually in session this week.