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CARMEN RUSSO: Gave “guidance” to Broad Superintendent’s Academy participants in 2003 (Press Release, November 6, 2003). Served as CEO of Baltimore schools, leaving it in crisis with a $58 million deficit.
FORMER BALTIMORE SCHOOLS CHIEF LIVING LARGE IN FLORIDA: CARMEN V. RUSSO LIVES IN EXCLUSIVE FLA. AREA; February 23, 2004; Baltimore Sun (MD)BOCA RATON, Fla. - Carmen V. Russo has nothing to say.
From her home on the 7th hole of a posh country club, where the red brick streets are lined with palm trees and the residents are protected by guarded entrances and stone walls, the former Baltimore schools CEO remains silent about the $58 million deficit haunting the system and her own role in the crisis.
When a Sun reporter, bearing copies of the paper's coverage of the controversy, knocked on the door of her elegant, Spanish-style home several days ago, Russo came to the entrance in bare feet and with a phone to her ear. After examining the visitor's press pass, she shook her head no three times, waved the visitor away and turned to ascend a white staircase.
Reached later by phone, she said, "I'm not talking."…
Russo bought her yellow house with a red-barrel roof here when she was an associate superintendent of the Broward County school system. Some of Russo's former colleagues in Broward were surprised to hear of the deficit she left in Baltimore and did not even know she had returned to Florida.
Her three years in Baltimore were uneven, marked by impressive gains in student test scores but also record deficits, the magnitude of which have only recently become known…
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