Anthony Cody was taken aback when he saw that pundit Alexander Russo was critical of the media for ganging up against Betsy DeVos when she explained at a budget hearing why she was defunding the Special Olympics. Russo seemed to think that the media critique of DeVos may have been the work of “advocates and trolls,” special interests blowing up a story that was a Nothingburger. Russo treated the hearing as a ho-hum event, nothing new.

But Cody, who sat behind DeVos throughout the hearing, saw plenty that was new.

First, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro grilled DeVos about the new report by the Network for Public Education which documented that the federal Charter Schools Program had wasted nearly $1 billion on charter schools that either never opened or closed soon after opening. The basic issue was that the Department of Education was handing out millions of dollars without fact-checking the applications. Yet DeVos was seeking a $60 million increase for this slipshod, wasteful program while asking to cut or eliminate many other programs. Russo didn’t find that newsworthy.

There was another important story that Russo found to be not newsworthy. Anthony Cody became part of that story because of the expression on his face as he sat directly behind DeVos.

He writes:

“In fact, I wound up being a part of a whole OTHER viral story that Russo doesn’t even mention – the moment when Lucille Roybal-Allard asks DeVos to explain her absurd belief that larger class sizes may benefit students. And although I am indeed an advocate (if not a troll) I had very little to do with this clip going viral — 8.4 million views at last count.”

Cody complains that Russo has tried to set himself up as the “ethical minder” of education journalism. But anyone with an ethical barometer should be appalled every day by the unethical actions of DeVos, as she rolls back civil rights protections, undercuts students who were defrauded by for-profit “colleges,” and campaigns against the nation’s public schools. She is a novelty: the first person to lead either the Department of Education (established in 1980) or the U.S. Office of Education (established in 1867) who was actively opposed to public schools. That should be a daily story, kind of like having an Environmental Protection Agency head who doesn’t believe in protecting the environment.

I have my own beef with Russo.

In the spring of 2010, I published The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.

It got a lot of attention because I had been deeply embedded in prominent rightwing think tanks (the Koret Task Force at the Hoover Institution and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute), and in the book  I renounced policies and a worldview I had espoused for years. It became a national bestseller. The very fact that anyone had changed her mind was a big deal.

Many months later, I was contacted by Russo. He invited me to meet with him at a cafe near my home in Brooklyn. We had a nice getting-to-know-you chat. I told him that I had cast the deciding vote in his favor as a judge of the Spencer Fellowships, and he thanked me. Towards the end of our meeting, he asked if I would be willing to read his book about the Green Dot charter chain and write a blurb for the jacket. I agreed to do so. I found the book informative and I wrote a blurb.

Some weeks later, a friend sent me Russo’s latest article, in which he criticized me and said I could not be trusted because I changed my mind and could do it again. I am paraphrasing here. Basically, he implied that I was an intellectual or political whore, lacking in sincerity or conviction.

I was stunned. As soon as I got over the shock of being attacked by someone I thought was a friend, I called his publisher and asked to speak to his editor. When I reached her, I said I wanted my blurb off his book. She explained that the jacket was in production, and it was too late. I read to her what Alexander Russo had written about me, and there was a long pause. She said, “I agree with you. We will take your blurb off the jacket.”

I have never mentioned his name since then, and hope I never again have reason to do so.