Podcast appearances and mentions of dale russakoff

In this week's episode of The Watchung Booksellers Podcast, journalists Candy J. Cooper and Dale Russakoff share their excitement in the triumphs of journalistic writing.Candy J. Cooper is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and winner of the Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting. She is the author, most recently, of Shackled: A Tale of Wronged Kids, Rogue Judges, and A Town that Looked Away, which was recently named a 2025 honoree by the American Library Association's YALSA award for young adult nonfiction. She also wrote Poisoned Water: How the Citizens of Flint Michigan Fought for Their Lies and Warned the Nation, named a 2020 top 10 young adult book by the New York Public Library. She has been a staff writer for four newspapers, including The Detroit Free Press and the San Francisco Examiner. Dale Russakoff spent twenty-eight years as a reporter for the Washington Post, covering politics, education, social policy, and other topics. From 1994 to 2008, she served in the Post's New York Bureau, where she covered the NYC metropolitan area, including Newark, New Jersey. Dale Russakoff grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, and began her career as a reporter for The Alabama Journal and later The Atlanta Journal. In 2015 she published THE PRIZE:  Who's in Charge of America's Schools, a New York Times bestseller, and a finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize for a work of nonfiction. She lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with her husband Matthew Purdy, an editor at The New York Times. Resources:Waiting for Superman Books:A full list of the books and authors mentioned in this episode is available here. Register for Upcoming Events.The Watchung Booksellers Podcast is produced by Kathryn Counsell and Marni Jessup and is recorded at Watchung Booksellers in Montclair, NJ. The show is edited by Kathryn Counsell. Original music is composed and performed by Violet Mujica. Art & design and social media by Evelyn Moulton. Research and show notes by Caroline Shurtleff. Thanks to all the staff at Watchung Booksellers and The Kids' Room! If you liked our episode please like, follow, and share! Stay in touch!Email: wbpodcast@watchungbooksellers.comSocial: @watchungbooksellersSign up for our newsletter to get the latest on our shows, events, and book recommendations!

Public law scholar Peter Shane and journalist and public affairs writer Dale Russakoff lay the ground work for a series of deep dives into Project 2025 by explaining its four “pillars,” its animating vision, and the key individuals and organizations behind it

On this special "Connect the Dots" episode, co-hosts Peter Shane and Dale Russakoff discuss how Season 2 episodes on "Disqualifying an Insurrectionist President," "The Electoral Count Act and the Rule of Law," and "The Electoral College" affected their reactions to the Supreme Court argument on the decision of the Colorado Supreme Court to exclude Donald Trump from a primary ballot. All Democracy's Chief Executive Behind the Vote episodes. Spotify iTunes

Today, Debbie talks to Dale Russakoff, a veteran reporter for The Washington Post, a bestselling author, and a classmate from her Harvard/Radcliffe class of 1974. They talk about her surprising experience at Harvard as a woman from the South, her distinguished career as a journalist, and the importance of family. Debbie knew that Dale had been a reporter for The Washington Post for almost 30 years. And that she is the author of a best-selling book, THE PRIZE. But in this episode she told Debbie things she'd never heard before. Like what it was like to be a Southern girl at Harvard (with a Southern accent). Dale said she was reluctant to open her mouth at first. She'd grown up in Birmingham, AL and when she arrived in Cambridge she learned that Radcliffe never admitted white women from the South because the admissions committee assumed they were all racist. She and Debbie talk about what it was like to be a female student in the man's world of Harvard, how "ambition" fit into her college years and, later, how it related to Dale's career in journalism. They talk about the importance of family, including grandchildren. And how she feels AT. CAPACITY. (i.e. too busy) in semi-retirement, at age 71. //////////Don't miss Debbie's Substack essay on the topic of AT. CAPACITY. ////////// Mentioned in this episode or useful:The Prize: Who's in Charge of America's Schools? By Dale Russakoff (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 2015)New York Times review of THE PRIZE (Aug. 18, 2015)Dale's reporting about the South when she was a college student: The Other Lost Cause (The Harvard Crimson, May 13, 1974)How a girl in the old South grew up to be a civil rights historian and a Harvard president: a review of a new memoir by Drew Faust, President of Harvard from 2007 - 2018 (LA Times, Aug. 17, 2023)Nathan Pusey  President of Harvard from 1953 to 1971:Matina Horner President of Radcliffe College in the 1970s The first two in a trilogy of podcast episodes Conversations with two more of Debbie's classmates from the Harvard/Radcliffe class of 1974:A'lelia Bundles on Legacy, Leadership and Growing [B]older at 70Winifred White Neisser on Ambition, Embracing 70, and What Comes Next Connect with Debbie:debbieweil.com[B]OLD AGE podcast[B]OLD AGE newsletter on SubstackEmail: thebolderpodcast@gmail.comDebbie and Sam's blog: Gap Year After Sixty Our Media Partners:CoGenerate (formerly Encore.org)MEA and with thanks to Chip ConleyNext For Me (former media partner and in memory of Jeff Tidwell) How to Support this podcast:Leave a review on Apple PodcastsSubscribe via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or Spotify Credits:Host: Debbie WeilProducer: Far Out MediaMusic: Lakeside Path by Duck Lake

How well does the American presidency serve the principles of American democracy? Is our democracy a beacon of hope, or a candle in the wind?  For Season 2 we go ‘Behind the Vote', looking in detail at presidential elections, big money in politics, the electoral college, third parties and polling among other important topics. Launching exactly one year ahead of election day 2024. Lawyers, politicians, pollsters and government officials join Professor Peter Shane of Ohio State and NYU and co-host, veteran Washington Post journalist and best selling writer Dale Russakoff.

ChoiceMedia‘s Bob Bowdon and Pioneer Institute‘s Cara Candal talk about charter school authorizing in California and a recent bill that gives school districts rather than the state the authority to approve charter schools; good news for online learning programs in Oklahoma; and is there a shortage of teachers in American schools? Plus, Bob calls out Dale Russakoff for a selective New York Times... Source

How can parents have more say in how their children are educated? What’s the difference between different approaches to school choice, like vouchers, education savings accounts, and tax credits? Do we know these work?Jason Bedrick joins us this week to make the case for school choice.Show Notes and Further ReadingHere’s an earlier episode of Free Thoughts with Neal McCluskey on the history of public schooling in America.Bedrick mentions Dale Russakoff’s recent book, The Prize: Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools? (2016) and his review of the book at the Library of Law and Liberty.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Journalist Dale Russakoff's new book, “The Prize: Who’s In Charge of America’s Schools,” investigates the state of public education in America’s underserved communities. In this conversation with NYPL’s Jessica Strand, Russakoff tells the story of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million quest to transform the debilitated school system of Newark, New Jersey — and spark educational change across the country.

Recorded at NJ Spotlight On Cities, held October 16th, 2015 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Dale Russakoff, Author of “The Prize: Who’s In Charge of America’s Schools?” moderates a discussion with three of the educators featured in her book: Dominique D. Lee, Joanna Belcher, Princess Fils Aime.

There is a school of thought in crisis management that says, if you have a completely intractable problem, sometimes the only solution is to create a larger problem.  In fact, to blow things up to the point where you get to start over. Sometimes that’s a strategy that happens not just by design, but by outcome.When then Newark Mayor Cory Booker, N.J. Governor Chris Christie and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg put together a plan that they thought would completely reform and transform Newark schools back in 2010, they thought they were doing the right thing.  However what they did was reminiscent of what Ronald Reagan declared as the most terrifying phrases in the English language…”I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”What they did, what they failed at and even what they succeeded at, shows how incredibly hard it is to be transformative in public education.  This is the story told by Dale Russakoff in The Prize: Who's in Charge of America's Schools?My conversation with Dale Russakoff:  

Political Books for a Political SeasonWe recorded this episode on November 3rd. All the off year electioneering had us thinking about the books that delved into political issues, both fiction and non-fiction. But let's face it, so many books are tinged with politics.   The Books we discussed this episode.Alan Drury, “Advise and Consent.”Robert Penn Warren, “All The King’s Men.”Dale Russakoff,  “The Prize: Who’s In Charge of America’s Schools?” – "Education isn’t separate from quality of life." - NancyGeoffrey Canada, “Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun.”Ari Berman, “Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America.” (Noble story about the passage and the legacy of the voting rights act. It is  one that can fill a reader with despair. “I don’t want this history to be forgotten” - Nancy)Kay Mills, “This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer.”John Lewis, “Walking With the Wind.”Duong Van Mai Elliot.“The Sacred Willow: Four Generations In The Life Of A Vietnamese Family”Robert Caro’s “Passage of Power.”Larry Ceplair and Christpher Trumbo,   “Dalton Trumbo: Blacklisted Hollywood Radical”Dalton Trumbo, “Johnny Got His Gun.”Tony Judt, “Ill Fairs the Land.” 

The story of a lifetime only comes around once...Dale Russakoff spent more than three decades as a top news journalist, reporting for The Washington Post for more than 28 years.When Facebook co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg, announced a $100 million grant, teaming with then rock-start mayor, Cory Booker, to revolutionize the Newark schools and create a model for national education reform, she'd found a story worthy of her full attention and her first-ever book.Leaving her job, she spent four and a half years embedded in the lives, conversations and inner-most workings of what seemed, at first, to be positioned as a stunning transformational endeavor. What unfolded on the ground, though, was a profoundly different story. One that seemed straight out of a Shakespearian drama with a complex cast of players, each driven by their own personal and social agendas.At play wasn't just the lives of tens of thousands of kids, many living in desperate poverty and violence, but also a $1 billion budget and thousands of jobs.Russakoff tells this story in her riveting new book, The Prize: Who's in Charge of America's Schools? In this week's conversation, we dive into this tense and complex drama, played out on both the highest levels of government and business and the most basic level of human interaction, one teacher, one kid, one life at a time.We also explore how growing up in the deep south, the child of an "outlier" family who never bought into segregation, cultivated Russakoff's lens on people and equality. We dive into her career as a journalist and how that world is changing and being largely dismantled. We talk about the good and the bad and explore how the new golden age of podcasting just might end up saving the field.Even if you have zero interest in education, you will love this conversation. Because it's about a breathtaking human drama. It's about power and corruption. It's about the desire to do the right thing and how that gets almost perversely "bent" to the will of too many interests along the way.It's about the need for access to truth, to stories not only well-told but also vigorously researched and validated. It's about one woman's quest to shine the light, even when those who've given her the batteries for her flashlight end up unhappy with what that light ends up illuminating.

Mike Petrilli talks with Dale Russakoff about her new book on school reform in Newark. The Prize: Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools? tells a gripping, and mostly depressing, tale of the reform efforts in woebegone Newark, complete with some of the most colorful characters in American public life today. Chris Christie. Corey Booker. Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. Appointed schools superintendent Cami Anderson. And of course the teachers and students who are the true heroes of the book—and the victims of a school system—and a reform effort—gone badly astray.

Mike Petrilli talks with Dale Russakoff about her new book on school reform in Newark. The Prize: Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools? tells a gripping, and mostly depressing, tale of the reform efforts in woebegone Newark, complete with some of the most colorful characters in American public life today. Chris Christie. Corey Booker. Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. Appointed schools superintendent Cami Anderson. And of course the teachers and students who are the true heroes of the book—and the victims of a school system—and a reform effort—gone badly astray.

Dale Russakoff, author of "The Prize," examines the troubled education reform story of Newark and reflects on what can be learned from its failure to provide system wide reform.

When Mark Zuckerberg announced his $100 million pledge to transform the Newark Schools -- and to solve the education crisis in every city in America -- it looked like a huge win for then-mayor Cory Booker and governor Chris Christie. But their plans soon ran into a constituency not so easily moved: Newark's key education players, fiercely protective of their billion-dollar-per-annum system. It's a prize that, for generations, has enriched seemingly everyone, except Newark's students.Journalist Dale Russakoff delivers a story of high ideals and hubris, good intentions and greed, celebrity and street smarts, as reformers face off against entrenched unions, skeptical parents and bewildered students. The growth of charters forces the hand of Newark's school superintendent Cami Anderson who closes, consolidates, or redesigns more than a third of the city's schools.The Prize is a portrait of a titanic struggle over the future of education for the poorest kids, and a cautionary tale for those who care about the shape of America's schools.Dale Russakoff spent 28 years as a reporter for the Washington Post, covering politics, education, social policy and other topics.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a generous grant from PNC Bank.Recorded On: Thursday, September 17, 2015

When Mark Zuckerberg announced his $100 million pledge to transform the Newark Schools -- and to solve the education crisis in every city in America -- it looked like a huge win for then-mayor Cory Booker and governor Chris Christie. But their plans soon ran into a constituency not so easily moved: Newark's key education players, fiercely protective of their billion-dollar-per-annum system. It's a prize that, for generations, has enriched seemingly everyone, except Newark's students.Journalist Dale Russakoff delivers a story of high ideals and hubris, good intentions and greed, celebrity and street smarts, as reformers face off against entrenched unions, skeptical parents and bewildered students. The growth of charters forces the hand of Newark's school superintendent Cami Anderson who closes, consolidates, or redesigns more than a third of the city's schools.The Prize is a portrait of a titanic struggle over the future of education for the poorest kids, and a cautionary tale for those who care about the shape of America's schools.Dale Russakoff spent 28 years as a reporter for the Washington Post, covering politics, education, social policy and other topics.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a generous grant from PNC Bank.