Alexander Russo

“The killing of 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in 1999 continues to shape how we view and understand school shootings today.” While the event remains chilling all these years later, this New York Times Retro Report (When Columbine Is Invoked, Fears Tend to Overshadow Facts) makes clear that the coverage at […]

While other outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, NPR, and LA Times are all beefing up their education coverage, a few places like the Wall Street Journal are going the other direction. The outlet’s most recent national education reporter, Caroline Porter, is no longer at the paper and has not yet […]

House Speaker Boehner, Key Architect of NCLB, to Resign From Congress PK12:&nbsdivp;Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, was the chairman of the House Education and the Workforce committee when Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, and played a key role in shepherding NCLB through the legislative process. See also Washington Post. LAUSD board to […]

BEST OF THE WEEK  Politico: Arne Duncan’s Wars http://ow.ly/SGkzx LA Times: $490-million plan would put half of LAUSD students in charter schools http://ow.ly/SGkLh Atlantic: A Philly High School Where College Is Not the Goal http://ow.ly/SGlb2 Chalkbeat: As city acts on their cause, community school advocates carve out a new role http://ow.ly/SGkwI Deadspin: Who’s Funding Kevin Johnson’s Secret […]

There are three different ways to cover education, I’d argue. One of them is best but relatively unusual; the other two are common but vastly inferior. The first way is to cover the latest events, rhetoric, and competing claims between adversaries. Who’s up? Who’s down?  This “horse race” approach has become increasingly common in recent […]

Sadness in international-student community after tour-bus tragedy Seattle Times: North Seattle enrolls about 900 international students each year, and the students on the bus, including the four who died, were among this year’s group. For 1st time, New York City schools close for Muslim holiday AP: Thursday was the first time the schools serving 1.1 million pupils […]

Politico’s big education package came out yesterday, complete with (glowing) profile of Arne Duncan, (skeptical-minded) reporting about online learning, and a fascinating oral history tracing out how the unlikely group of politicians (Kennedy, Miller, Boehner, Bush among them) got NCLB done way back in 2001.  Some folks have admired the Duncan profile, others haven’t — but none […]

Looking for an amazing piece of journalism to read? Check out Invisible Child, the NYT’s five-part series about the life of a homeless girl named Dasani, which the newspaper included in a recent roundup of favorite stories that are being provided for free (50 of Our Best). The piece didn’t win a Pulitzer, and the […]

High school students give Chinese president football AP: Chinese President Xi Jinping received a football, a personalized jersey and instruction on America’s most popular sport during a tour of a Washington state high school…. Detailed MCAS Results: Mostly Up, But Some Concerns Boston Learning Lab: Mitchell Chester, Massachusetts commissioner of elementary and secondary education, is “very concerned” […]

The Dyett hunger strike in Chicago is long over. The strikers succeeded in pressuring the district to agree to creating a new school on the site (if not to creating a local school council in the first year). But it’s worth pointing out that this early September Melissa Harris-Perry MSNBC interview with two of the […]