RttT and Corporate Education Brands, plus Rotherham and NSVF's Smith Team Up

The Scrooge of the Year, Andy Rotherham, and NewSchool Venture Fund's Kim Smith will be teaming up and starting a "for-profit consulting shop" (according to Alexander Russo). Keep in mind that Smith, the former CEO of NSVF, has served on Rotherham's EdSector board; keep in mind, also, that EdSector has come under fire for their scrubbed-clean CMO report, which wiped away all references to the downsides of CMOs (and the final version didn't include Thomas Toch's name - even though he wrote the initial draft; Toch co-founded EdSector with Rotherham).

Add another layer (from Russo, again):

The as-yet unconfirmed word on the street is that several of the best-known school reform organizations are talking to states about including them in their RTTT applications. The big six are KIPP, TFA, New Leaders for New Schools, New Schools Venture Fund, Charter School Venture Fund, and the New Teacher Project.

Russo claims these groups are looking for 5% cut of state's RttT winnings; and that states would consider this trade-off because the agreement would make their application more desirable to Duncan/Obama's DOE (fair assumption - Duncan clearly loves the charter chaingangs and corporate education programs like TFA and NLNS).

Remember, too, that the President of the California State Board of Education, Ted Mitchell, also pulls in a cool half a million for his work as the CEO of NSVF. Good thing Mitchell can advocate for RttT funds - and, potentially a 5% cut for his other employer and affiliated groups - as a form of privatization sweeps the nation.