In this week’s newsletter: Education is front and center in next week’s elections. A reporter discovers why one student is missing so much school. How to cover parent extremism — and why. An ed reporter goes to Gaza. And a Halloween homage to reporters who are surviving journalism’s horror show.
EDUCATION ELECTION
The big story of the week
The big education story of the week is Tuesday’s elections. School board races are heating up in places like New Jersey, California’s Bay Area, and Minnesota (NorthJersey.com, KQED, Minnesota Reformer). Education issues are playing a significant role in non-education races in places like Indiana (AP).
In Newton, Mass., concerns about DEI efforts have united liberals and conservatives (GBH). In New Jersey, some fear that the focus on trans students’ rights could endanger Democrats (Gothamist). In Kansas, the debate has focused on student achievement (KCUR). In Denver, it’s school safety (Denver Post). In Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, the local school board race has attracted interest from state-level groups (WFAE).
Some outlets have produced extensive school board election coverage and created landing pages to help readers find their stories (Atlanta Journal Constitution, Atlanta Civic Circle). Ballotpedia is covering school board elections in a number of states and has features on several local races under its local news tab (Ballotpedia).
Other big stories of the week:
📰 PORTLAND TEACHERS STRIKE: The Portland teachers strike was one of this week’s most-covered education stories, attracting national attention — though it’s not entirely clear why. The teachers and other school employees went on strike starting Wednesday for better pay and caps on class sizes (New York Times, OPB, Wall Street Journal, AP, NPR). Students at more than 80 schools were affected. Supporters of the strike criticized the district’s plan to send Chromebooks home with students and offer online coaching while schools were shuttered (Oregonian, Oregonian).
📰 SUPREME COURT SCHOOL BOARD CASE: Justices on the Supreme Court heard arguments this week in a case about whether California school board members can block a couple on social media (NPR, LA Times, Vox, The 74). The couple argued that the move violated their free speech, since the accounts were used to discuss official school business. The school board members argued their accounts are akin to private property and they can moderate the spaces as they’d like. The implications go far beyond education, of course, but it’s interesting to see the argument play out at the school board level.
BEHIND CHRONIC ABSENTEEISM
The best education journalism of the week
The best education story of the week is Bianca Vázquez Toness’s AP story At 15, he is defending his home – and struggling to stay in school.
The closely reported piece details the life of Deneffy Sánchez, a compelling Los Angeles teenager who’s struggling to catch up on his coursework and save his family from having to move. He’s a kid with so much adult responsibility that his little sister calls him “Papá.”
While focused on one family, it illustrates the much larger problem of kids who’ve fallen behind, aren’t showing up for school, or can’t be found since the pandemic eased.
The story is just as much about the daily indignities of poverty and precarious housing arrangements as it is about chronic absenteeism or student learning. It’s complemented by uncomfortable details and intimate photos.
“My childhood wasn’t easy,” tweeted Toness. “But nothing like what this remarkable LA teen has endured.”
See also this piece about the many reasons why so many students are missing school in Philly.
BONUS
👏 Driven by in-school reporting, this multifaceted Reema Amin story reports on both the massive arrival of immigrants to Chicago schools this year and one school’s work to help those kids recover from their journey (Chalkbeat Chicago). Reema talked about her story on WBEZ.
👏 Linda Jacobson’s jaw-dropping exposé about a clerical screw-up that exposed tens of thousands of sensitive student records has had an immediate impact: Fairfax County Public Schools has already launched an investigation (The 74).
👏 Freelancer Gail Cornwall delves into the underreported world of learning management systems in this detailed, family-centered story about how digital learning tools are reshaping students’ approach to academics and parents’ relationship with schools (The Cut).
👏 This well-paced story from Stefano Esposito about improv for neuro-divergent teens is full of carefully selected quotes, giving readers a real sense of the kids’ personalities (Chicago Sun-Times).
SCHOOL EXTREMISM
Our latest columns and commentary
This week’s new piece from veteran reporter Laura Pappano focuses on the importance — and challenges — of covering what she describes as school extremism.
“Like it or not, it’s now part of the job,” says Pappano, whose new book, “School Moms,” is coming out in January. “The so-called ‘culture wars’ are not really about education or learning. But they affect both.”
Her piece generated some strong responses, including a plea from the Schott Foundation’s Melissa Daar Carvajal for reporters to include parents, students, and educator activists “who are not the extremists grabbing all the ink with their extremism.”
Ohio State political science professor Vladimir Kogan noted that it isn’t just far-right extremists driving parent activism, pointing to the outrage produced by a Bay Area teachers union’s statements about the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Above: “In many ways it feels like our work has just begun,” writes Seattle Times executive editor Michele Matassa Flores in a celebration of the Ed Lab’s 10-year anniversary. Pictured above is the team, from left to right: editor Katherine Long, reporters Dahlia Bazzaz, Claire Bryan, Monica Velez, and engagement reporter Jenn Smith.
PEOPLE, JOBS
Who’s going where and doing what
🔥 Career moves: NPR higher ed reporter Elissa Nadworny is back in the conflict zone reporting on children and families in Gaza, including a mother giving birth by cell phone light. LAist’s Julia Barajas is starting a new beat covering community colleges. Former WBEZ education reporter Nereida Moreno is also starting at LAist as a digital equity reporter. Former Vox education reporter Libby Nelson has risen the ranks to editorial director. Former EdNC reporter Rupen Fofaria is now the director of the state board of education. Former education reporter Lauren McGaughy is leaving the Dallas Morning News to continue her investigative reporting at KUT Austin. Congrats to all!
🔥 EdWeek Union: The vote count is in, and EdWeek reporters said yes to unionizing. “We look forward to starting the collective bargaining process to make sure that all of EdWeek’s hardworking employees have the protections and policies we deserve,” the union tweeted.
Sound off:
🔥 “Yes, this is an important issue, but comparing percent increases in groups with radically different starting numbers is pretty lame journalism,” tweeted researcher and school board candidate Alex Medler about the Washington Post’s big story on the rise of homeschooling. “Why lead with silly math?”
🔥 “Student journalists sometimes live in a bubble of seeing their college as the entire universe,” the Hechinger Report’s Jon Marcus told us via email. “What’s different these days is that student journalists “seem to be reporting on these things with new assertiveness, rather than worrying about blowback from their classmates or administrators.”
🔥 “Writing about the rallies and protests on campuses is an obvious story,” tweeted Boston education reporter Linda Wertheimer about education coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. “Writing about how K-12 teachers and professors are teaching about it is an important layer that hopefully many education journalists will investigate.”
Above: The cell phone police are featured in this New York Times piece about one school’s phone ban (with an accompanying article about whether cell phone bans work). The ban at Timber Creek has made the school “both more pastoral and more carceral,” writes Natasha Singer.
APPEARANCES, EVENTS, & NEW RESOURCES
What’s happening and new research
⏰ Segments & appearances: WBUR’s “Here & Now” had a segment on teens and social media. NPR’s “Planet Money” dug into the rise of the four-day school week. (For more on how four-day weeks impact students, see this new research in the Oklahoma Education Journal.) WTTW’s “Chicago Tonight” looked back on the massive boycott of Chicago Public Schools 60 years ago. Connecticut Public Radio featured a segment on two local educators behind the new AP African American studies course. (Plus, see this Akron Beacon Journal story about two schools offering the course.)
⏰ Events: Catch a free IRE webinar this afternoon about covering the 2024 election. Learn more about the Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship on Nov. 28 in a virtual event with former fellow Jo Napolitano. ICYMI: Epicenter NYC held an event on Monday to demystify the NYC admissions process. The New Jersey collaboration behind the “Segregated” series held a live event last week to talk about the data behind segregation. For more about the project, see our column earlier this year from NJ Spotlight News executive director John Mooney.
⏰ Controversy: An Alabama newspaper publisher and reporter were arrested on charges of illegally revealing secret grand jury information related to an investigation into payments made by the local school board to several former district employees. The publisher is also on the Board of Education in question.
⏰ Research & reports: A new report written up in ProPublica concluded that had top administrators and school officials properly carried out threat assessment and suicide intervention, the fatal 2021 shooting at Oxford High School could have been prevented. New research in American Economic Review looks at the effectiveness of school counselors in Massachusetts. A new brief published by the Fordham Institute looks at the evidence showing that elementary grade retention can improve student outcomes. (But as APM Report’s Emily Hanford points out, there are some significant “buts.”) And a recent report from New America looks at how public schools spent their COVID relief money and what we can learn from doing funding differently.
⏰ New ventures: The Hechinger Report’s Jon Marcus and GBH Boston’s Kirk Carapezza are teaming up to do a new podcast called “College Uncovered.” Check out their first episode on the cost of college. Capital B is debuting its Gary Documenters program, which will pay residents and non-journalists to take notes at public meetings. And EWA announced it’s leaving Twitter/X and “rethinking our social media strategy.” RIP, @edwriters.
⏰ Books: School lockdowns are featured in a lengthy New York Magazine excerpt from Joe Nocera and Bethany McLean‘s new book, “The Big Fail.” Nikhil Goyal’s “Live to See the Day” tells the story of three kids struggling to make it in a marginalized Philadelphia neighborhood.
THE KICKER
“They can lay us off, pay us poorly, furlough us, and haunt our lives in a host of ways,” tweeted Chalkbeat’s Susan Gonzalez in her awesome Halloween homage to the “final girls” of journalism. “We’ll still keep fighting for a better world and industry.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Grade
Launched in 2015, The Grade is a journalist-run effort to encourage high-quality coverage of K-12 education issues.
