New Education Newsroom 'The Seventy Four' Goes Live with Announcement of Education Summits
New York, N.Y. —The Seventy Four, an online education newsroom co-founded by former NBC News and CNN anchor Campbell Brown that seeks to drive a much-needed conversation about reforming America’s education system, launched today at www.the74million.org.
Coinciding with the launch, The Seventy Four announced that it will host a series of live forums in New Hampshire and Iowa moderated by Brown and others. They will gather prominent elected officials, political influencers, and education thought leaders to discuss the greatest challenges facing America’s education system.
“As the political world descends on New Hampshire and Iowa, these summits are an unprecedented opportunity to have an honest and intelligent discussion with our leaders about the failures of the education system,” said Campbell Brown. “We must begin to treat fixing our education system with the urgency the crisis demands, as it is vital not only to our children’s future, but also the future of this nation.”
The site, led by Editorial Director Steven Snyder, former Assistant Managing Editor at TIME Magazine, will pursue stories about the education of our 74 million children in honest, fearless, and relentless terms.
“It is the mission of The Seventy Four to not only make education front page news, but also inspire a much-needed debate over reform inside our children’s classrooms,” said Romy Drucker, co-founder and CEO of The Seventy Four. “Our team of reporters is dedicated to exposing the failures of the education system, while highlighting what does work, as we seek to accomplish our ultimate goal, providing all 74 million children with a quality education.”
The Seventy Four launches with a variety of stories that illustrates the breadth and depth of its team of reporters and contributors. Features include a Richard Whitmire-penned inspirational profile on Chris Bonner, a hardcore search-and-rescue pilot for the Coast Guard who traded in his military life to become a second-grade teacher at a charter school in Newark, NJ; Cynthia Tucker’s debut column on why now is the time candidates must address the relationship between educational inequality and income inequality; and an in-depth investigation into the forces and scare tactics behind the opt-out movement in Montclair, New Jersey, an upscale New York City suburb, where nearly 40% of students opted out of the standardized exams.
In keeping with the mission of The Seventy Four to make 2016 the education election, the site will also feature presidential baseball cards, with all the information voters need to know about each candidate’s stance on education issues.
The Seventy Four’s first political forum, the New Hampshire Education Summit sponsored by the American Federation for Children, will be held on August 19 in New Hampshire and livestreamed on www.the74million.org. Confirmed participants thus far include former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, former business executive Carly Fiorina, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, Ohio Governor John Kasich and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
In October, The Seventy Four will partner with the Des Moines Register for its second forum, the 2015 Iowa Education Summit, where voices from the Democratic side of the aisle will have an opportunity to share their vision on education reform.
All featured speakers at both the 2015 New Hampshire Summit and 2015 Iowa Summit are invited in their current personal or professional capacities and will appear on stage separately.
The Seventy Four is a non-profit, nonpartisan online newsroom aimed at driving a much-needed conversation about reforming America’s education system. Founded by education advocate and former CNN and NBC anchor Campbell Brown and former New York City Department of Education official Romy Drucker, The Seventy Four pursues stories about the education of our 74 million children in honest, fearless, and relentless terms.