Alexander Russo

Hillary Clinton Rebukes Charter Schools Politico: Her comments in South Carolina came straight from charter school critics’ playbook and distanced her from the legacies of her husband, former President Bill Clinton — credited with creating a federal stream of money to launch charters around the country — and President Barack Obama, whose administration has dangled federal incentives […]

Screengrab from last week’s WSJ Common Core story. It’s not hard to come away from reading last week’s front-page WSJ article (Financial Woes Plague Common-Core Rollout) feeling like things are going really, really poorly for the nationwide standards-setting effort called Common Core:  “Though 45 states initially adopted the shared academic standards in English and math, seven […]

Here’s a video of the NYT’s Nikole Hannah-Jones telling a story about a teenage high school student who has it all … well, almost all. Via Longreads Story Night (Nikole Hannah-Jones on Race, Education and Inequality). Hannah-Jones has recently moved over from ProPublica to the New York Times. She reported last summer’s widely-admired “This American […]

Obama: Schools ‘Really Don’t Have An Excuse’ To Keep Native American Mascots HuffPost: With Adidas’ recent announcement that the company will help schools transition away from Native American mascots, “schools now really don’t have an excuse” for keeping them, President Barack Obama said Thursday at the 2015 White House Tribal Nations Conference. De Blasio: City must respect […]

BEST OF THE WEEK LA Times: Better pay, more time to plan and one other thing teachers want from you  http://ow.ly/Udc4w Politico: Here’s why $7B SIG didn’t help worst schools http://ow.ly/UbCUR Vox: What Success Academy fight over kicking out students says about charter movement ow.ly/Ug1PJ NYT: Success Academy Founder Calls ‘Got to Go’ List an Anomaly http://ow.ly/UkwEO Hechinger Report: At […]

Maybe it was just me — probably so — but I was caught pretty much entirely by surprise at the news Wednesday morning that there had been a big local school board race decided in St. Paul, Minnesota, and that activist Helen Gym had won election to the Philadelphia city council. There was another Minnesota race, […]

This CJR piece links @BroadFoundation $$ for @LATeducation w/possible Broad purchase of LAT https://t.co/PuKP0wIjvN pic.twitter.com/fGnXPNzMfU — The Grade (@thegrade_) November 4, 2015 Last week, the Washington Post’s report on inconsistent disclosure by the LA Times’ foundation-funded education reporting effort led the LAT to commit to providing information to readers more regularly. This week, piece from the Columbia […]

With White House rethinking tests, Washington wants its ‘No Child Left Behind’ waiver back Seattle Times: With federal waivers — which Washington had for awhile — school districts didn’t have to set aside some of their federal funds to pay for private tutoring for students attending schools where test scores fell under certain levels.   PARCC Exam […]

This image has nothing to do with the blog post that follows. Let’s be honest. It’s easy to dismiss so-called “solutions” journalism. It’s such a goofy name. In education, at least, it’s distractingly associated with the Gates Foundation (who’s funded the Seattle Times’ Education Lab). There’s a long and highly-valued tradition among journalists for doing the […]

Federal government puts the brakes on $32 million to Ohio for charters Washington Post: More than a month after the Obama administration gave $32.5 million to Ohio to expand charter schools despite Ohio’s history of multiple scandals involving charters, the U.S. Department of Education sent a letter to state officials in which it said it… See also […]