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| BEST OF THE WEEKThe week’s best education journalism, all in one place. |
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| đ BEST: The best education journalism of the week is Politico Californiaâs âState-sanctioned segregationâ: Californiaâs school closure debate boils over by Mackenzie Mays and Katy Murphy. It features a Democratic state education committee chairâs scathing critique of the stateâs reluctance to encourage schools to provide risky in-person education even when infection rates were low. The piece does a good job explaining the political dynamics and suggests the conflictâs national implications.đ RUNNER-UP: The runner-up of the week is the Wall Street Journalâs New York City schools shutdown explainer, New York City Mayor Deliberated for Hours Before Closing Schools. Reporters Jimmy Vielkind and Katie Honan detail the frustrating last-minute negotiations between the state and the city to avert a citywide school shutdown. Focused on whether to switch the stateâs positivity calculation for NYC, which was 2.5%, thus averting the shutdown, the deliberations delayed the announcement until Wednesday afternoon.
đ BONUS PICK: New York Daily News reporter Michael Gartland had a great week, including one fascinating story about conflicts within City Hall over the 3% cutoff.
BIG STORY OF THE WEEK: REMOTE STRUGGLESÂ
As more schools go or stay remote, schools, staff, and families try to cope with the uncertainties of remote learning. Here are some of the best of the week:
đ From individual sessions to taking a real-world approach, hereâs how teachers are adapting to the pandemic (Boston Globe)
đ A Chicago Family And Teacher Cope With Remote Learning (WBEZ Chicago)
đ ‘That’s what we do’: These kids, teachers are making school work during COVID-19 (USA Today)
đ Black students most likely to be going to school remotely (Marketplace)
đ In Rural âDead Zones,â School Comes on a Flash Drive (New York Times)
đ ‘How am I going to do this again?â: Michigan families squeezed as COVID cases skyrocket and classrooms shut down (Chalkbeat)
đ Waiting to return: How a Newark charter school is hanging on while classrooms are closed  (Chalkbeat)Â
đ As grades and attendance slip, CPS places hopes on schools reopening, citing risk of ‘losing an entire generation of students’ (Chicago Tribune) |
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| GREAT NEWSLETTERS & THE MYSTERY METRIC GOVERNING NYC SCHOOLS |
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| Above: The Wall Street Journalâs Chastity Pratt, NPRâs Anya Kamenetz, and I hope to give a panel about K-12 coronavirus coverage at next yearâs SXSW EDU. Give us a vote!GREAT NEWSLETTERS: Email newsletters are more popular than ever, and there are a lot of great education ones. To help you sort through which newsletters to follow, contributor Colleen Connolly rounded up some of the most interesting and useful publications out there. The list includes some under-the-radar newsletters as well as some of the essential ones. I also put the question to the Twitterverse, asking which newsroom produces the best newsletter in 2020. Chalkbeat New York won by a landslide.
NYC’S MYSTERY METRIC: Earlier this week, contributor David Zweig looked at the origin of the 3% cutoff that triggered New York City closing its schools to in-person learning. But where did this metric come from, and what science is it based on? âThese may be savvy political moves, and one that a mayor or governor feels he needs to make,â Zweig writes. âBut neither is following the science.â
Thanks to John Bailey for including Zweigâs story and my tweet about the New York chapter of the ACLU calling on NYC to do more in a recent edition of his COVID-19 Policy Update newsletter. And thanks to the Horace Mann League for featuring my Forbes story School Reopening 2020: The Surge That Never Happened in their newsletter, too! |
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| MEDIA TIDBITSThought-provoking commentary on the latest coverage. |
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| Above: There’s a hidden lesson for education journalism in the Netflix hit series, The Queen’s Gambit. Scroll down and see. đ°Â DEMOCRATS ON SCHOOL SHUTDOWNS: You donât have to care about NYC schools to be curious about what the Biden folks and other top Democrats think about delayed reopenings and in-person shutdowns. And yet I havenât seen anyone say anything about what folks like Biden, union leaders, or EdSec contenders have to say about the topic. Letâs get on it, national education reporters!
đ° ADDRESSING JOURNALISMâS UNION COVERAGE PROBLEM: Never before in my experience has the strength of teachers unions been so clear â or so woefully underreported â as these past few months. As I explained in a long thread here, covering education without covering teachers unions is like covering Congress without covering Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Occasional stories and mentions are not enough, given the quite profound impact that unions have had.
đ°Â TAKING A LESSON FROM âTHE QUEENâS GAMBITâ: âWe’re still living in the âwho has it firstâ world,â tweeted The Cityâs Terry Parris Jr., referring to journalismâs traditional focus on breaking news and competition. But imagine if reporters and teams banded together, like some of the competitors in the hit Netflix miniseries âThe Queenâs Gambitâ? In places like New York City with multiple education reporters and teams, the result would be much deeper and more comprehensive coverage than the current setup.
Missed some previous editions? You can see the archive of past newsletters here. |
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| Above: Watch NY Gov. Andrew Cuomoâs testy response to a question about NYC schools from WSJ reporter Jimmy Vielkind â and the NYTâs Jesse McKinleyâs attempted intervention. Click here to read all about it. |
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PEOPLE, AWARDSÂ
Who’s going where & doing what? |
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| đ„ Congrats to the Atlanta Journal Constitution for hiring Wil Nobles as DeKalb County schools reporter. You may recall that Nobles wrote a powerful thread last year about being an education reporter. He was also profiled in a Poynter story about the downsizing of the Times-Picayune. Welcome back, Wil, and welcome also to Brooke Crum, who is starting at the San Antonio Report this week. You can follow her here.đ„ Media appearances: GBH News K-12 reporter Meg Woolhouse discussed hybrid learning and its impact on educators, students, and their families on Consider This with Arun Rath. NY1 education reporter Jillian Jorgensen talked schools on Inside City Hall. Chalkbeat reporter Alex Zimmerman discussed remote learning with Brian Lehrer on WNYC. And Seattle Timesâ Education Lab reporter Hannah Furfaro offered tips on incorporating science into education stories for EWA Radio.
đ„ Book news: The Atlantic staff writer Adam Harris is excited to share the cover of his upcoming book âThe State Must Provide: Why Americaâs Colleges Have Always Been Unequal â And How to Set Them Right.â Very exciting. Preorder it now! NYT education reporter Erica L. Green talked about âFive Days,â the book she cowrote with Wes Moore. Sheâs also back reporting in classrooms.
đ„ “Don’t expect local reporters to talk to you on background to help your reporting without any citation or compensation,â tweeted the Texas Tribuneâs Aliyya Swaby. âIf you want to take advantage of our work and expertise, you need to credit us.â Sounds fair. Click the link to read more. Swaby also has a great story out this morning.
đ„ So great to see Seattle Times reporter Joy Resmovits‘ byline and national coverage again. Her latest? A look at what a Biden presidency will mean for schools in Washington. Way back in the day, Resmovits was a star national education reporter at HuffPost.
đ„ After Wednesdayâs marathon waiting game on the NYC school closure announcement, I am addicted to this list of NYC education and politics journalists. Feel free to follow the list or suggest journalists Iâve missed.
Did someone forward you this newsletter? You can sign up here. |
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EVENTS
What just happened & what’s coming next? |
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| â°Â There are a bunch of journalism-related panels besides ours that have been proposed for next yearâs SXSW EDU, featuring journalists from Hechinger, EdSurge, and other outlets. Check them out here.â°Â Writing about school reopenings and COVID safety? Catch this on-demand webinar with Brown University professor Emily Oster about how schools can reopen using data-driven decisions.
â°Â Donât miss the Maynard Instituteâs event this afternoon about solutions for overcoming racial inequity in newsrooms with Futuro Media Groupâs Maria Hinojosa. Register here.
â°Â The Education Writers Association announced the launch of the 2020 National Awards for Education Reporting. Journalists may submit entries by Dec. 15. EWA is also gearing up for its second State of the Education Beat report. If you have a picture that you would like to share about your experiences on the beat, send it to seb@ewa.org. |
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 THE KICKER |
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| Big congrats to Chalkbeat national editor Sarah Darville, who got engaged this week in Prospect Park! Give the couple your best wishes here. |
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| By Alexander Russo with additional writing from Michele Jacques and Colleen Connolly. |
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That’s all, folks. Thanks for reading!
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