Alexander Russo

I’ll soon be joining the crack research team at @LastWeekTonight. Looking forward to working with @iamjohnoliver & reuniting with @LizDDay! — Marian Wang (@mariancw) July 30, 2015 ProPublica education writer Marian Wang announced last week that she’s joining the team at HBO’s Last Week Tonight. As you may recall, the John Oliver-hosted HBO show came to […]

It’s a moving, fascinating story that Nikole Hannah-Jones tells in the latest This American Life podcast, The Problem We All Live With, focusing on how the 2013 de-accreditation of the long-troubled Normandy (Missouri) schools (temporarily) sends roughly 1,000 mostly black kids to a mostly-white high school Francis Howell and in so doing creating a modern-day school integration […]

Today’s news includes a Politico piece about candidates’ positions on college reform, plus a Chris Christie slap at the teachers unions and some coverage of Urban League speeches from Bush and others: 2016 election: College in the crosshairs Politico: Presidential candidates from both parties are tapping into Americans’ growing angst over paying for college, placing an unprecedented […]

Above: A New Yorker back to school cover from September 2012 Every year starting about now, media outlets start putting out back-to-school stories and packages built around the end of summer and the return to school.   Sometimes they’re great — inspired work that’s taken months and is timed for maximum reader attention. The New […]

Today’s news includes test score results from a couple of states (Minnesota and Tennessee), the internal labor struggle over Clinton vs. Sanders, and a Washington Post story about how the College Board caved to conservative critics over AP US History. On the Hill, the ESEA reauthorization conference process is ramping up: Minn. student test scores […]

Sometimes the key to making an education story really stand out is finding and highlighting a key detail that’s so memorable and unique that it’s hard to forget. Extra points if it’s a dramatic visual or sound. That’s what NPR’s Cory Turner did in this recent segment about DC-area kids using pasta and glue to […]

In a Monday article at Vox, Matt Yglesias makes the case that politicians and the media have gotten the narrative largely wrong on several counts and as a result diminished attention and focus on issues that need attention. The obsessions he focuses on in particular are robots displacing human workers, and also income inequality. According […]

Today’s news includes updates on the AP US History controversy in Jefferson County, Colorado, plus a resurgent debate over giving Pell Grants to prisoners and news about Rep. Fattah’s indictment: In a county that tried to amend US history course, a lesson in politics Washington Post: Voters in Jefferson County, Colo., are petitioning to recall three conservative […]

This Key & Peele parody in which teachers are the subject of a SportsCenter-style show makes the obvious point that our society treats pro athletes much better than it does classroom teachers, delightfully imagining what it’d be like if things were very, very different. The luxury car ad at the end of the segment (in […]

Anyone who felt horror or surprise a couple of weeks ago when it was revealed — gasp! — that the NEA was working with Republican lawmakers as well as Democrats to get a revamped version of the ESEA law that it liked should take a minute to check out Kate Taylor’s latest NYT article about […]