2008 Spencer Education Journalism Fellows

Three veteran journalists were selected last March as the Journalism School’s 2008 Spencer Education Journalism Fellows. Each fellow received a $75,000 stipend to work on a major education reporting project during the 2008 academic year.

Alexander Russo, Nancy Solomon and Claudia Wallis were selected as fellows based on “the strength of proposals that combined a unique blend of serious resident university research and student with the execution of an important work of education journalism,” said Associate Dean Arlene Morgan, who directed the fellowship search.

Russo, a resident of Brooklyn, N.Y., is a well-known freelance education writer, editor and blogger. His work has appeared in Slate, The Washington Monthly, the Huffington Post, the Britannica Blog, The National Review Online, Chicago Magazine, Chicago Sun-Times, Indianapolis Monthly, and numerous education, urban affairs and policy publications. He is a contributing editor for Catalyst Magazine, which sponsors his Chicago schools blog, “District 299.” Russo received numerous awards for another blog, “This Week in Education,” sponsored by Scholastic Administrator Magazine. Russo plans to follow the first year of a teacher-led effort to turn a troubled Los Angeles high school into an independent charter school.

Solomon, a resident of South Orange, N.J., is an award-winning independent radio reporter and producer for National Public Radio. She earned a master’s degree in 1986 from the Journalism School and worked for several California daily newspapers before moving to radio. Solomon won the 2005 Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism for a story that examined the collapse of New Jersey’s state child welfare agency. Solomon plans to spend the year producing an in-depth radio series exploring how race, socio-economic status, youth culture and pedagogy contribute to the minority educational achievement gap.

Wallis, a resident of Pelham, N.Y., is currently a contributor to Time magazine. She has worked at Time as a staff reporter and editor, and has produced 35 cover stories on education, science, health, psychology, children and family issues. Wallis was the founding editor of Time for Kids magazine, and served as editor-at-large from 2003-2007. A two-time National Magazine Award finalist, Wallis plans to examine how the rising number of students diagnosed across the spectrum of autism disorders is challenging educators and the solvency of school districts.

The Spencer Foundation, which was established in 1962 by Lyle M. Spencer, received its major endowment upon Spencer’s death in 1968 and began formal grant making in 1971. The Foundation is intended, by Spencer’s direction, to investigate ways in which education, broadly conceived, can be improved around the world. The Spencer Fellowship for Education Reporting is a key activity of the Spencer Forum, a Foundation initiative established in 2005 to strengthen the connections between education research, policy and practice and to enrich the broader public discourse on issues related to education.