Partnership for Educational Justice<\/a>, she has helped parents file lawsuits against New York State challenging teacher tenure. She has been critical of the teachers’ union and vocal about her rejection of the status quo.<\/p>\n\u201cEvery education law should be based around the question, \u2018Is this good for children?\u2019 And it\u2019s not,\u201d she tells JTA.<\/p>\n
Brown sees herself as both a journalist and an advocate for the powerless. Critics describe her as a union-busting, pro-charter school mouthpiece for the 1 percent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe critics are going to say what they want,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I\u2019ll let our journalism speak.\u201d<\/p>\n
The site launches\u00a0with an inspirational profile on Chris Bonner, a search-and-rescue pilot for the Coast Guard who traded military life to become a second-grade teacher at a charter school in Newark, New Jersey. Pulitzer Prize-winner Cynthia Tucker\u2019s debut column is\u00a0about how\u00a0presidential candidates should\u00a0address the relationship between educational inequality and income inequality.<\/p>\n
Campbell says that most of her detractors \u201care part of the education system and the status quo.”<\/p>\n
“They have vested interests and don\u2019t want us calling them out \u2014 but that\u2019s our jobs as journalists,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Her opponents \u2014 pointing to the fact that her two children attend private school, a Jewish day school in Manhattan \u2014 say she is disconnected and not qualified to argue on behalf of the country\u2019s public school students.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the contrary,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve had opportunities that many others don\u2019t have and was able to choose my children\u2019s school. I\u2019m fully aware that many people are stuck with their failing neighborhood school.”<\/p>\n
\u201cI care deeply about Jewish education and Jewish values, and chose a school with those values,\u201d she says, but declined to name the school.\u00a0\u201cBut every mother should have a choice when it comes to education.<\/p>\n
Brown was born Alma Dale Campbell Brown and raised Catholic in Louisiana, the daughter of former State Senator and Secretary of State James “Jim” Brown and his first wife, Dale Campbell. Campbell Brown converted to Judaism more than a decade ago. Her husband, Dan Senor, grew up modern Orthodox in Toronto. (Senor was an adviser to Paul Bremer, who was appointed by then-President George W. Bush to lead the occupational authority of Iraq, and is the author of \u201cStart-up Nation: The Story of Israel\u2019s Economic Miracle.\u201d)<\/p>\n
The decision to convert was a difficult one, Brown says \u2014 she didn’t know much about Judaism growing up.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was something I struggled with \u2014 trying to understand why it was so important to my husband and to my mother-in-law that I do it,” she says. “I asked her to try and tell me. I\u2019m a journalist, after all, and I ask a lot of questions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown\u2019s mother-in-law recounted her family\u2019s story of fleeing Slovakia during the Holocaust.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile they were on the run, every Friday night they\u2019d cover themselves up long enough to light Shabbat candles. That was the length they went to to preserve their traditions,” Brown recalls from the story. “How could I not raise my kids with the tradition they worked so hard to uphold?\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown underwent a Reform conversion while at NBC. Every week for about six months, her rabbi would come to her office, close the door and study with her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never closed my door, and that was the one time during the week that I would,” she says. “The rumors were flying. People thought she must be my shrink or something.\u201d<\/p>\n
That \u201cwas one of the most rewarding times of my life,\u201d Brown says.<\/p>\n
The family lights Shabbat candles every week and observes many aspects of Judaism.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t do it to my mother-in-law\u2019s specifications, though,\u201d Brown jokes. Her mother-in-law now lives in Israel (the family visited her there last Passover) and \u201cshe is still a mentor to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about her favorite part of Jewish culture, Brown doesn’t hesitate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the sense of community,” she says. “My kids went to Jewish preschool, they go to Jewish day school and I\u2019m involved in our Jewish community center. It\u2019s all very kid-centric.\u201d<\/p>\n
And so is her professional life, of course. Brown \u2014 along with her The Seventy Four co-founder Romy Drucker, who worked at the New York City Department of Education on former Mayor Michael Bloomberg\u2019s transformational \u201cChildren First\u201d reforms \u2014 say they are looking to put children\u2019s education at the forefront of the national conversation, something that’s especially important ahead of next year’s presidential election.<\/p>\n
The Seventy Four, they hope, will be a forum where people with different opinions and viewpoints present solutions to what Brown describes\u00a0as the \u201ccurrent crisis in our schools.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cToo many children in this country are falling behind at an early age and are never given the help they need to succeed,\u201d Drucker says.<\/p>\n
\u201cResearch shows that the most significant school-based factor in a child\u2019s learning is the quality of his or her teacher,” she adds. “We must make it a priority that every child, regardless of their ZIP code, background or skin color, has a high-quality, effective teacher in the classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n
But The Seventy Four isn’t\u00a0all doom and gloom. Brown and Drucker also plan to feature success stories, like Bonner\u2019s.\u00a0 Stories will be both long- and short-form, with a large video component. Brown will contribute editorially.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this is the direction journalism is going in: news sites that go deep on specific issues,\u201d Brown\u00a0says, pointing specifically to Bill Keller\u2019s The Marshall Project, which covers the American criminal justice system, and the single-topic news site Syria Deeply.<\/p>\n
And if there\u2019s controversy, so be it, Brown says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat just means we\u2019re relevant and in the heart of it all,” she says. “The role of journalists is to hold people in power accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n
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