Russell was born on August 17, 1969 in historic Mound Bayou, Mississippi. Growing up, he spent his childhood traveling yearly between his mother’s rural hometown and his father’s home in Mattapan. Several of Russell’s later school years were spent in Boston, where he graduated from Thompson Middle School and Hyde Park High School. In 1992, he obtained his BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Boston University, and in 2000, his MBA from Northeastern. In 2007, he obtained his Certified Financial Planner (CFP) certification.
I view public education as investing in America’s capacity for the long haul. We must educate and develop our youth to equip them with the skills necessary to be successful in the global economy. Studies show that if we can get our kids learning at the proper level by the time they enter kindergarten and third grade, we dramatically increase their likelihood of future success. The long-term costs of education are far lower than for dealing with criminals and dropouts created by a dysfunctional school system. And tackling this challenge from a community perspective is a powerful way to do so.
We can transform parks and public swimming pools into educational opportunities for parents and children as a way to further integrate families into their communities. We can emulate programs like Miami’s Parent Academy, which seeks to empower parents as citizens or residents from a workforce perspective by providing job training. Additionally, parent academies can address the personal and civic needs of parents by helping them understand their rights in the community and putting immigrants on the path to citizenship.
I believe that there ought to be greater active citizen participation in schools. Most school systems underutilize the power of their graduates. We should bring back successful alumni to inspire current students and build organizations to attract public-private partnerships for scholarships and new facilities and opportunities.
I also believe that public schools ought to accelerate their partnerships with organizations like CityYear and Teach for America. Organizations like TFA use this combination to produce some of the highest performing teachers after a five-week boot camp. They become the shock troops who have the passion to transform the world one kid at a time.
One of the most important reforms we can make is to divide large, monolithic schools into smaller ones that specialized in various vocational fields. It eliminates the process of simply sending students through a one-size-fits-all educational pipeline.
But improving academic education is not enough. Children need personal and civic education. The vitality of a community rests with its educational system. How do we expect kids of a certain age to act? Can they say please and thank you, shake hands, or fill out a résumé? Focusing on details like these conditions our children for success.
I strongly believe that school districts should never have to choose which subjects to keep and which to forgo because of funding shortfalls, or whether they have to shorten the school year to make ends meet. I promise to be a strong advocate in the Massachusetts House of Representative for education funding and for increased teacher pay.