Education advocate and former news anchor for CNN and NBC Campbell Brown will be creating an online newsroom called The Seventy Four dedicated to discussing reform to America's education system.

"The Seventy Four will be led by Editorial Director Steven Snyder, former Assistant Managing Editor at TIME Magazine. Snyder and a team of experienced journalists will conduct hard-hitting investigations, provide provocative analysis, and develop cutting-edge multimedia content, which will break through the clutter of stale education news and make an impact," said the site in a statement.

The site is named in reference to the 74 million children in America, and is intended to open up an "honest conversation" about what works and doesn't in the country's current education system.

According to The Wall Street Journal, "the creation of the site is likely to stir controversy. Since turning to advocacy in the years after she left CNN in 2010, Ms. Brown became a lightning rod for criticism from the teachers’ union and its supporters who have seen her efforts – most notably a push to reform tenure rules in New York – as part of a thinly-veiled campaign aimed at union busting."

It is set to launch in mid-July and is extremely well funded with an annual budget of $4 million, the Journal said, meaning it will likely produce high quality content.

"Among the site’s contributors will be Cynthia Tucker, a Pulitzer Prize winner for commentary who served as the editorial page editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for 17 years; Conor Williams, who previously worked for Talking Points Memo; and Steve Snyder, former assistant managing editor at Time Magazine," the article said.

As the presidential campaign for the 2016 election gears up, Brown hopes the site will be a way for the public to define change that needs to happen in education.

Read the full article here and comment below.

Article by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor

06/24/2015