Iris Rotberg, a research professor of education policy at the Graduate School of Education and Human Development, died Jan. 1. She was 91.
Rotberg served as a thesis adviser at the time of her death but joined the University as a research professor of education in 1996, where she researched issues of school reform, increasing in segregation from charter schools, the education of low-income students, test-based accountability, international test-score comparisons, welfare reform and federal policy in financing education. Her colleagues at GSEHD remember her as a strong-willed but supportive contrarian in a male-dominated field.
Rotberg was born in 1932 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to Samuel Comens and Golda “Shuman” Comens. As a child, Rotberg went to school with the children of steel executives while her father treated families as a doctor at $5 a house call, which developed her perceptions of class, racial, ethnic and religious discrimination, according to her obituary.
Jim Williams, a professor of international education and international affairs, said Rotberg worked for a more equitable world, where collective decision-making is informed by evidence and “good thinking.” Williams said she believed education could improve all individuals and societies.
“She believed that humans and individuals were capable of good, she believed that collectively, we’re capable of good but also harm,” Williams said. “She believed that there needed to be institutional ways to support the good and keep the evil at bay.”
Rotberg received her undergraduate and master’s degrees at the University of Pennsylvania, where she met her husband Eugene Rotberg, a lawyer and financial engineer who taught at GW Law. She earned her doctorate in experimental psychology from Johns Hopkins University at age 24 and is the second woman to have received that degree in 50 years, according to her obituary.
Before joining GW, Rotberg held positions at the National Science Foundation, RAND, the Technology Policy Task Force of the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology and the National Institute of Education.
She also held research positions within the Office of Economic Opportunity, a government agency responsible for administrating most of the War on Poverty programs in 1964, the President’s Commission on Income Maintenance Programs under President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Human Resources Research Office and Johns Hopkins, where she researched psycholinguistics and learning, according to her faculty profile.
Williams said he fondly remembers co-teaching Comparative Solutions to Common Educational Problems with Rotberg for several years. He said Rotberg taught the class without pay because GW would not pay both of them for teaching the course together.
“I really enjoyed that, and she enjoyed it, and our students enjoyed it,” Williams said.
He said Rotberg was a firm opponent of international educational comparison and large scale international education systems like Programme for International Student Assessment, a global survey that evaluates education systems by assessing the skills of 15-year-old students because she believed they looked at the U.S. education system through a very narrow lens.
“She believed in and supported the decentralized complexity of the U.S. system and the ways in which it supported innovation, the ways it supported excellence, the ways it supported second chances and its goals of equity,” Williams said.
Yas Nakib, an associate professor of education policy, said Rotberg ensured students would not fall for “fashionable” policies or quick fixes in the realm of education policy. Nakib said despite Rotberg’s declining health in the last year, she continued to aid doctoral candidates with their dissertation work and provide analysis of the latest education fad.
He said Rotberg’s favorite pastime at GW was interacting with international students and learning about their educational experiences and backgrounds from their home countries.
“Iris cherished her faculty role,” Nakib said in an email. “To her, working with students was the highlight of her life mission to instill rigor of argument and salience of policies.”
Rotberg wrote articles and provided commentaries on school reform, international education and the effects of higher education on low-income students, which were published in Science, Phi Delta Kappan, Harvard Educational Review, Teachers College Record, Prospects, the Washington Post, the Hill and Education Week.
She was also the editor of “Balancing Change and Tradition in Global Education Reform,” a book published in 2004 that brings together examples of current education reforms in 16 countries, according to her obituary.
Nakib said Rotberg held her views very strongly and was unafraid to express her opinions.
“Iris could not stand researchers and policymakers who scapegoat income inequality with ‘straw man’ tactics,” Nakib said. “She was never impartial to express and publish her views on the downsides of international assessments, charter schools, and school accountability.”
Joshua Glazer, an associate professor of education policy, said Rotberg was a “tireless” supporter, researcher, critic and advocate for public education.
Glazer said her teaching style was a mix of “methodological” training in education policy with an “acute” sense of social justice and educational equity.
“As a woman who worked in many male-dominated contexts, she developed formidable powers of persuasion and argumentation,” Glazer said in an email. “Anyone who thought to disagree with her was well-advised to hone their points ahead of time.”
Glazer said GSEHD and the larger field of educational research will miss Rotberg. The school plans to dedicate a seminar to Rotberg, according to a tribute from the school.
Rotberg’s funeral service was held Jan. 6 at the Emanuel Cemetery within Fairmount Cemetery in Denver, Colorado. She is survived by her husband, Eugene, two daughters, two sons-in-law, eight grandchildren and a great-grandson, her obituary states.