When Eduwonks Attack

Andrew Rotherham and others exercised about some of Eduwonkette's surgical strikes at the heart of their pro-everything BloomKlein all the time, have thrown barbs at her for remaining anonymous, acting like there's no connections between the long reach of their Bloomie hero vindictiveness and someone who might one day look for a job. The fact that she asked me to check out the Rotherham/Russo/Medina/Colvin session at AERA (is Andy miffed that she may not have graced him with her presence) somehow taints her with my supposed lunacy.

Note that I am joined in my anti-everything NYC lunacy by such esteemed colleagues as NYC Educator, Leonie Haimson, Diane Ravitch and a whole core of NYC teacher bloggers who are beyond outrage at the phony ed reform movement. And probably 90% of the NYC teaching corps.


Here is Rotherham's silly post this on the Eduwonk blog.
The Wire
Not to rehash this entire debate but if Eduwonkette and Education Week want us to believe she's just some dispassionate observer of the education scene, especially the scene in New York City, so anonymous journalism is OK in this case, then it might not be such a good idea for her to use anti-everything NYC ed activist Norm Scott as her stringer...kinda, you know, blows her cover...but I did like her coverage!

Eduwonkette responded with this:
Marry Me, Eduwonk!: Boys, watch and learn from a Clinton-certified Don Juan - the passive aggressive flirting, truculent pet names, salacious locker room gossip, and wonky bickering all make me hot. Sure, you're already married - but after #9, polygamy is the new prostitution in New York.


I left this comment on his blog:
You don't read enough. I'm not only anti-everything NYC, but anti-everything Chicago and anywhere else that the phony reform movement to turn schools into factories is in operation. When it is clear that the PR expression "Children First" is really "Children Last" then you look at what's really going on behind the PR and oppose the entire program of BloomKlein.

I'm proud to be part of the NYC community where a host of respected teacher bloggers are on the same page as I am, in addition to influential parents on the NYC public school parents blog who have been persistent critics of the Bloomberg/Klein administration. Someone should point to a similar outpouring of support from parents and teachers in NYC for the mayor.

But then again, why listen to teachers and parents? You mentioned in your session at AERA that your survey shows teachers don't know much about educational policy. You know – NYC teachers are just a little busy marking those 150-170 papers a day from overcrowded classes and those 10 hour days the heroic "quality" teachers are expected to put in to save the world to have much time for these little debates.

As for Eduwonkette, whatever research she comes up with to support what we feel in our gut, is welcome. Why not take the research she puts out there and pick that apart instead of the irrelevant issue as to whether she is anonymous or not? No one seems to care except you and other pro-everything NYC people who get their words thrown right back in their faces and want to flush her out for purposes that seem awful suspicious.