"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Friday, December 25, 2009

Andy Rottenham, Screwge of the Year

I know, I know, what about Bill Gates and Eli Broad. They are in a bigger category and in the running for Screwge of the Decade.

Rotherham, better known as Eduwanker around the house, has a long and undistinguished history with the Clintonians of the 90s, enough distinction, however, to get his tushes into the federal education feeding trough. When Bush came to town, in fact, Andy was one of the few Democants who could pass the neocon smell test, thus assuring a nice nest egg from cuts of the Education Leaders Council federal piggy bank that siphoned millions from the federal education pot, with nothing of educational value ever to show for it.

With his retirement funds guaranteed, then, Rottenham has moved on to become Obama advisor and edupreneurial spokesman for the apartheid charter school blueprint that is being applied in DC, New Orleans, and NYC, and he stands to become fabulously wealthy if the Broad plan for urban school charterizing is realized across the nation. The fruition of that neo-Jim Crow plan hinges, largely, on the oligarichs' ability to crush the teaching profession and to nullify collective bargaining and school board governance.

And so it is that Rottenham puts his putrid pen to the yellow corporate rag, the Detroit News, to castigate the same teachers who have just before Christmas agreed to accept a pay-per-score plan, to gut their own health benefits, and give up $500 a month for the next 20 months in order to pay down the Detroit Schools deficit that none of the philanthrocapitalists could be bothered to even mention as a problem.

Rottenham uses this opportunity two days before Christmas to kick Detroit teachers in the teeth while they are down. So for choosing to ignore Detroit teacher sacrifices, and for blaming them, instead, for 80 years of racist segregation policies, poverty creation, and malignant neglect, here's to you, Andrew Rottenham, Screwge of the Year.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:05 PM

    You spend a great deal of time and energy on hatred and bitterness.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous11:49 AM

    To 'anonymous' above, it WOULD sound a lot like hatred and bitterness if it were not true. But alas, the facts are hard to handle for some. I visit this blog regularly because I believe in public education. Thank you to all here at 'Schools Matter' for keeping it real.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous8:46 PM

    I am Canadian and our school system is 'Nationalized' with somewhat standard textbooks and teaching across the nation.
    I am really and totally agast with the American School System especially as it becomes "Corporatized".
    Truly, I feel for your nations students as they are turned into little digits representing profits.
    Good God but I do hope somebody at the national level will really begin to think about TRUE childens/students proper education and that means leaving out the 'pork'.
    Teachers who love their role model attempting to instill the ethics of educating definitely are being 'left behind' for the $$'s and cents of profitability. Truly scary!

    ReplyDelete