University of Chicago researcher Charles Payne's book, So Much Reform, So Little Change, mentions my Chicago blog, District 299, in its introduction. As Payne describes it, "The blog offers yet another
level of scrutiny, often irreverent and proudly impolitic." Indeed.
That's
very kind praise coming from Payne. And all of those who write in with their comments and insights or send me memos and slideshows from inside
CPS deserve much of the credit.
You can check out Payne's book here, or read a longer excerpt from the introduction below. Thanks to contributing writer John Thompson for letting me know about the mention.
Is my Chicago education blog District 299 too serious for the Tribune's new Huffington Post-killer, ChicagoNow, or too light and zany for nonprofit Catalyst Chicago magazine? Or both? Find out the answer at BeatBlogging.org, a social media blog directed by NYU media critic Jay Rosen. Lead editor Patrick Thornton has posted the results of a recent interview we did, in which he exposes how lazy and grandiose I really am. (Russo bringing District 299 to Tribune’s ChicagoNow).
Starting today, my Chicago blog District 299 is going to appear both on the Chicago Tribune's new Huffington Post-like site, called "Chicago Now," and at Catalyst Chicago, where it has been since 2007. You can go over there and check it out if you want to. Or just enjoy the funky new banner they came up with for me. It's a schoolbus. I'm looking at you in the rearview mirror.
"Barr doesn't drop F-bombs left and right -- except in front of print
reporters. Assistant principal Zeus Cubias is more than just a poster boy for Green
Dot. The nationwide expansion of Green Dot isn't a done deal - yet. And what's going on at Locke goes far beyond just turning
around failing schools."
Promo from my upcominglatest piece at the Huffington Post.
There's a nice little writeup of District 299 (my Chicago blog) and GothamSchools.org on Beatblogging.org, a NYU-affiliated site dedicated to promoting "beat-based" online journalism.
"Many traditional journalists are so focused on producing content that they don’t take any time to create a quality space for people to discuss issues. Russo, a Spencer Fellow at Columbia University, is interested in more than just covering education — he wants to help create change. He is no a dispassionate spectator like most newspaper journalists aim to be and instead uses his blog to get people talking about ways to improve the under-performing Chicago school district."
I don't know about wanting to "help create change" -- I'm just exorcising personal demons and trying help people get through the week -- but the rest sounds about right. Traditional journalists hide their real take on things and don't realize that their readers often know more than they do.
It's Wednesday afternoon. It's snowing. The stimulus excitement is over. The economy still sucks. There's at least another month of winter ahead of us. And so, here they are, the 20 hottest education folks of 2009 -- an all-new set of education hotties from the worlds of journalism, philanthropy, policy, politics, practice, and even the classroom (sort of).
In no particular order, based on the best pics and advice available, with apologies in advance for any misidentifications (like last year's Heather Higginbottom fiasco). Thanks to Facebook, this might be the hottest group ever. But I'm sure I got some wrong. Send pictures or links to back up your claims! Thanks for all the input. Sorry not to be able to include everyone's secret crushes objective recommendations.
WINNERS: Obama campaign staff: they threaded the needle for 22 months and then (some) got plum DPC jobs. Win! Arne Duncan: from nearly-complete obscurity to the top education job in the country. Randi Weingarten: wins top AFT job, successfully blackballs Klein without having to admit to it, and prevents DCTA from giving away the farm. Jon Schnur: finally out ahead of folks like Kopp and Rotherham in the name recognition game. Broader Bolder: civil war a small price to pay for rebalancing the school reform world. Michelle Rhee: took the DC schools by storm and -- so far -- remains on top. Paul Tough: incoming President endorses book topic. Eduwonkette: a welcome ally against the think tank mafia. Bob Compton: "2MM" documentary took the world by storm (almost as much as Roland Fryer's "Learn To Earn"). Margaret Spellings: still a media darling until the end (somehow). Steve Barr: Union-charter model goes big in LA -- and in NYC. Cigars for everyone.
LOSERS:Joel Klein: dumped overboard by his DFER allies and blocked from a triumphant return to DC by his "friend" Randi. NCLB: from scapegoat to comic punch line. Linda Darling Hammond: hazed mercilessly by the media (and the Brat Pack) despite all her work for the campaign. Bill Ayers: "I wish I knew [Obama] better." EDINO8: bland platform and bad timing undercut innovative philanthropic effort and admirable effort. DFER transition memo: most embarrassing document of the year? Andy (Eduwonk) Rotherham: not such a wunderkind anymore. TFA: the AOL of alt cert programs. Education blogs (like this one): too many, too predictable, too much opinion and advocacy (and too little news). Education journalism: still too credulous and superficial (see Margaret Spellings and Arne Duncan above).
"What I always find striking is the dual standards that we expect for
students and teachers. Students should demonstrate their learning and
march to an intrinsic set of values (which include the value of
learning). Punishment (or consequences) are OK if they don't. Teachers
should not have to demonstrate that they are teaching (or that learning
occurs). They should receive regular rewards and there should be no
consequences for inadequate levels of success."
Knowing what a freakish stickler I am about journalists and other sites not crediting or linking back to what they learn here, or even excerpting too long a paragraph, you can imagine what I thought when I saw this page from the Examiner.com's New York page. The Examiner is snagging my content -- and many others' I'm sure -- and selling their own ads. What to do? I'm not sure. Maybe I'll hand this one over to the folks at Scholastic and see what they have to say. Any ideas?
"Let schools try and do what they are supposed to do," I write in the latest Scholastic Administrator (Scholastic.com). "If more is needed—few argue that it isn’t—let’s address those problems separately and head-on, rather than making them something schools have to do. Schools can’t fix poverty. And that’s OK."
Blogging is so 2004. It's slower than Twitter, the mobile micro-blogging sensation of the year. It's less interactive than Facebook, where readers (all 100 million of them) can post articles and videos to the Internet without any bloggy help. Everyone's their own blogger now.
Yes, I have a Facebook page where my blog posts get posted at about the same time as here (via the RSS reader application). Sure, my blog posts are sent out on Twitter (via Twitterfeed), and I occasionally Twitter random thoughts from my phone. (Sign up here.) No, I don't want to turn into one of those types who overdoes it (EdWeek.org, are you listening?)
Still, I'm working on a feature many others already have that lets folks easily post things from here to Facebook, and a new box in the upper right corner showing "latest comments" so you can see who's saying what about what I have to say.
My description of a scary Michelle Rhee costume made the Washington City Paper's "Loose Lips" Daily Blog.
In case you missed it:
"She only wears black. She’ll close your school. She’ll fire her own
children’s principal. She doesn’t care about your stupid feelings.
Comes with a cape and mask.”
Hooray! Boo! Whooo!
Credit to Eduwonkette and Skoolboy for getting the Halloween thing started.
I'm pleased to feature the FritzWire -- Fritz Edelstein's email-only roundup of meetings, hearings, reports, and jobs -- each week on this site, starting today. Click below to see all about the Secretary's Title I regulations announcement tomorrow, a Friday CEF briefing on how the fiscal crisis will affect education spending, and all sorts of policy and PR jobs.
If it's happening, Fritz knows about it -- usually before anyone else. Now you don't have to worry where that email went.
"Audrey Jamieson, 10, of Nevada, says her video camera was seized after she began taping a fight on her school bus Friday. The camera was returned later, but the memory card was missing, says Audrey, who is flanked above by brother John, 7, and father Doug."
Sorry the site was down this morning -- not that you missed very much. There are a couple of changes coming down the pike that I wanted to let you know about, in response to last week's survey. First and foremost, the RSS feed (if you use Bloglines or Google Reader) should now give you the full copy of the post to read. No more nuisance-some clicking over to read the full text. This should also be true for the free daily email that some of you like to get. Check it out and let me know if it's not working for you.
Thanks to everyone who took the reader survey last week, ridiculous as it was. (Even more ridiculous since they made me start a second survey after the first one reached its cap.)
I learned lots of things I didn't know before. For example, Jay Mathews -- and write-in candidate Elizabeth Green -- are top reporters, according to you. And the Ed Sector and Ed Trust are top think tanks, with Fordham as the top write-in.
Other things were less of a surprise but still interesting to see confirmed: Everyone loves Eduwonkette. No one thinks the top EdSec contenders are actually going to be EdSec. You guys love the morning news roundup and hate everything else.
Here are the two sets of responses for you to mull over ( 1a
and 1b) . Add responses together if you want. Count write-in votes if you want. Contest the results, the format, or anything else -- I was drunk or just waking up when I did this thing. Just remember that the sample size is really small, and not at all representative. There may even have been some ballot-stuffing (I like to think).
Wednesday Update: Thanks to everyone who's done the survey -- especially those who are writing in their own answers! Two days in, the leaders include Eduwonkette, budget cuts, Jay Mathews, and the Ed Sector. But the races are still close. Click Here to take survey
So far, at least, this Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship gig at Columbia is pretty amazing. I don't think I've ever been treated this well or been given so much support. Except by mom, of course. Well, it's close.
Education writer Eddy Ramirez has a nice article about classroom bloggers that's just out in US News this morning (Teachers Seek Influence, Risk Trouble).
As Ramirez and I discussed last week when he was working on the piece, classroom blogs can be an amazing tool for letting the media and policymakers know what's going on in the real world. A few -- the now-defunct "Fast Times At Regnef" among them -- have already influenced real-world events. More example of concrete effects will follow. In the meantime, many classroom blogs are frontline tools for reporters covering the beat (though too many reporters fail to credit where they're getting their leads).
Still, classroom blogs have to be funny or insightful to win readers, I'd argue. Honest and observant helps, too. That's one of the things that John Thompson, a contributor here who is unfortunately not mentioned in the article, brings.
Driving up to Locke High School for the first day of school, I worried for a moment that they might make me tuck in. After all, tucking in shirts is a big part of the new Locke, run by Green Dot, along with uniforms and smaller schools. All the kids were going to be tucking in. Even the adults were going to be showing some belt.
What should I do? Tuck my shirt in ahead of time and risk my journalistic independence (not to speak of my vanity and illusions of rebelliousness)? Wait and then comply if someone from Locke pulls me aside? Point out how fashionable and common untucked shirts are these days? Remind them that I not only tucked in but wore a suit for years?
In the end, it wasn't an issue. I walked around untucked. No one said anything. Well, n0 adult said anything. During lunch, one of Locke's many observant and conversational students admonished me to tuck it in. I thought about telling him that once you graduate high school you get to do what you want. But then I thought better.
Things are going great with the Spencer fellowship -- thanks to everyone who's asked. I'm taking classes at the Columbia j-school (and TC) and tracking everything that's going on in preparation to open the "new" Locke High School. Smart folks teaching me the dark arts of mainstream journalism and updating my knowledge of research. Excellent.
How strange to be back in school -- 18 years since I was last in a grad school classroom as a student. (Biggest change: laptops and wireless access in the classroom.)
How interesting and somewhat distressing that blogs and other forms of online writing, which have now been widely accepted in the media, are still a little bit hands off here. (This despite the fact that most of the folks I'm in class with will -- I think -- end up working in an online world.)
How fun. I hope Banchero is doing equally well out in Palo Alto.
I'm in LA again this week, checking in on how things are going at the "new" Locke High School. Should be interesting.
In the meantime, I'm going to take a little break from the usual blogging. I may post some things here or there, but will mostly stand down in order to focus on things in LA.
Thanks as always to all of you who read this blog and send me things and comment. I'll check back in soon.
Over the weekend, JT and Norm have been going back and forth over whether it was fair of Nightline to highlight DC union negotiations over vending machines in its Friday night segment. Read the comments, or just watch the segment.
Meanwhile, the folks reading the Chicago blog have been debating the merits and demerits of Rahm Emanuel's idea to limit high school dropouts' access to drivers licenses nationwide, as a few states have already done. I bet you can guess what the liberal Congressional caucuses think about this. But I bet you don't know which four states already have laws like this in place.
I am pleased to let you know that Oklahoma City high school teacher (and education blog commenter extraordinaire) John Thompson is going to be posting here this summer, giving a much-needed classroom perspective to my usual blather.
Thompson teaches high school in Oklahoma City and has been commenting on various education blogs for the past several months -- often with vivid, honest, and sometimes biting insights.
His first post is about the HBO documentary "Hard Times At Douglass High." Click below for his review and some video excerpts.
Notifylist -- the outfit that is supposed to send folks a weekly update / reminder about this site, seems to have been on the fritz for at least a couple of weeks now. So sorry about that. While I'm figuring out an alternative, you can sign up for the daily email alert, which folks seem to like:
Thanks to everyone who sent me an email about their interest in contributing to the site. I really appreciate all the interest, and will look through the emails this weekend and see what makes sense. There's a lot of energy and talent out there. It'll be hard to make a choice, I'm sure.
Hard to believe that it was five years ago I began sending out
weekly emails to everyone and over four since I started blogging (that
is, posting my weekly emails online).
This was on Blogspot, way before
Scholastic (November 2007-present) or EdWeek (Jan.-Nov. 2007) -- way back before the blog split into two.
If you're feeling nostalgic or curious, you can check out about 20 favorite images from way back then, which I've just put up on my new Facebook page. There wasn't a ton of images or image-manipulating back then, but there are still some good ones in there.
Thanks to all of you who've been with me since then.
I'm in LA for part of this week, checking out the "old" Locke high school before it is officially handed over to Green Dot, and checking in on Green Dot to see how things are going for the big re-opening in September. Coming out here is part of my new fellowship, which also includes coursework at Columbia's journalism school that (which?) is intended to turn me into a decent writer.
It's great to meet some of the folks at Locke that I've been emailing and
talking with face to face, and interesting to catch up on how things
have gone this year (not so well at the school, not so badly at Green Dot). It's also good to be back in LA, where I lived for a few years right out of college and taught (private school) English. Great also to be staying up in the hills of Mt. Washington at the home of former LA Times education blogger Bob Sipchen (remember "School Me"?).
Interested in education, public policy, or online journalism? Think you can write about it in an engaging way? Click below to find out about being a contributor to This Week In Education this summer.
Catalyst To Stop Printing Monthly Magazine 12 comments
In an email earlier today, Catalyst announced that next year it will be
replacing the print monthly newsmagazine it has long produced with more
frequent web content and five in-depth reports.
No More "Baying At The Moon" About CTU?
17 comments For those of you who are interested in more CTU info, a reader sends in
this analysis of the current CTU budget problem and what can -- and
can't -- be done to address the situation.
Reading This Blog -- In Secret
16 comments A friend of mine in CPS tells me that people not only don't use
their names when writing in on this blog but many also don't even admit
to reading it.
Testing Alla Time 11 comments
It seems like a lot of testing. (And I like testing.)
These days, creating Facebook "pages" is all the rage among folks
who are trying and capture some of the 70 million users Facebook claims
to have (fewer but fancier than MySpace). Barack Obama's page has 867K fans.
Justin Timberlake's has 194K.
I snuck onto Facebook way back when you still had to give a college email to get onto the site and I started feeding my blog posts over there about a year ago (Blogging On Facebook). I have a healthy number of Facebook "friends" -- including many colleagues and blog readers (see full list here). However, since then I have fallen way behind -- not quite sure that it was worth the effort.
I'm still not sure, but in the meantime here's my new Facebook page. Feel free to sign up as a fan or click on the picture of me in the blue shirt to see some "secret" pics and images that you may remember from the past.
Keeping up with pesky blogs like this one just keeps getting easier -- even if you never figured out RSS feeds and Google Reader or are trying to keep up with 50 posts a day from Jezebel (or you-know-who).
Now, if you want to get posts from this (and other) blogs without leaving your home page or email reader, Twitteroo (PC) or Twitterific
(Mac) will give you a little desktop corner box (sort of like Instant
Messaging) that lists when new posts from me and others come online.
Easy installation required, and then it's almost like we're friends. (Speaking of which, thanks to Brett for telling me about this.)
Too much? There are other recently-created ways to get updates. Over the last few weeks, for example, bunches of people are signing up for the daily email version of this blog (you can do the same here). One email a day, M-F around noon. Skim or delete it depending on how your day is going. Unsubscribe anytime if you just can't stand the pressure.
Or, some folks are getting mobile blog posts sent to their cell phones via Twitter. You can find my Twitter feed here.
Think
that gaming the numbers is something that only happens in education or
maybe crime? Think again. Last weekend's On The Media show on NPR
included this segment (Cooking the Books). In it, an economist explains
how the government's economic...
An
Initiative on Reading Is Rated Ineffective NYT President Bush’s $1
billion a year effort to teach reading to low-income children has not
helped improve their reading comprehension, according to the Department
of Education. PLUS: Federal Reading Program Hasn't Helped,...
Bush
Announces "Good News," But Doesn't Mention Bad News The Hoff What he
didn't mention was Reading First. Who Knew He Could Sing? Alyson Klein
For someone who just a few years ago seemed pretty skeptical of
multiple measures, Miller...
First,
everyone said that Reading First was the best thing since sliced bread
-- early intervention on literacy to reach kids that Title I sometimes
missed. Then came lots of accusations about conflicts of interest, and
the departure of that...
There's a new and easy way to keep up with the latest education news, gossip, and analysis: a daily email. That's right. All you have to do is click here: Subscribe to This Week In Education and then confirm your subscription via email. Then you'll get a daily update of what's been posted -- usually 4-5 posts -- including the morning's big news stories and a roundup of what's good on other blogs. Free. Easy. Give it a try.
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The new Administrator magazine is almost out, but in the meantime here are a couple of things I wrote, assigned, or edited in the August edition: 
Campaign 2008
