🏆 Best Education Journalism of the Week 🏆 (10/31/2025)

In this week’s newsletter:

📌 The prolonged federal shutdown imperils vulnerable families.

📌 A cautionary tale about AI in schools.

📌 A pair of veteran education journalists return to the beat.

📌 New offerings from Chalkbeat — and the Houston Chronicle.

VULNERABLE FAMILIES IMPERILED

The big education story of the week:

The big education story of the week is the prolonged shutdown, which is now imperiling vulnerable American families in far more immediate ways than anything else that’s happened thus far (EdSource, CBS, CNN).

Head Start programs covering 65,000 kids — about 9% of the total — will soon lose funding (Washington Post, NPR, ABC). Millions of families will be impacted by the end of SNAP funding and — if the shutdown continues another month — WIC (New York Times, Politico, LA ist). Then there are more than 75,000 dependents of military veterans whose college assistance is backlogged due to a software glitch that can’t be fixed until the government reopens (Stars and Stripes).

Local school systems are trying to find short-term solutions — and local outlets are covering some of the more creative solutions such as stockpiling food and hiring furloughed park rangers and laid-off federal workers as teachers (WBEZ Chicago,Chalkbeat, LA Times, Christian Science Monitor).

Other big stories of the week include New York City Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s educational priorities (Vox, New York Times, Chalkbeat), the takeover of the Fort Worth school district by the Texas Education Agency (Texas Tribune, AP, Texas Observer), and banning Halloween costumes from school hallways (EdWeek, The Hill, Houston Chronicle).

AI SCHOOLS, VOUCHER CONTRACTS, & AIMLESS YOUNG MEN

The best education journalism of the week:

🏆 Parents Fell in Love With Alpha School’s Promise. Then They Wanted Out describes a gamified, AI-driven micro-school that gave students flexibility — and left many struggling and stressed out. The thorough reporting shows the tech-world theory behind the innovation and where it failed to meet actual educational needs. (Todd Feathers / Wired)

🏆 How Odyssey rose from tech startup to manager of Texas’ $1B school voucher program does one of the more difficult things in journalism — explain a wonky issue in a way that makes the stakes clear. Contracts to manage voucher funds could be deadly boring, but this story makes it engaging and easy to follow. (Isaac Yu / Houston Chronicle)

🏆 Half a million young Californians aren’t in school or work. Most are men is a carefully crafted picture of what it is like to have no way forward — professionally or educationally. Although the story contains some stark numbers, the real gem is the detailed, compassionate portraits of several young men trying to find their way. (Adam Echelman / Cal Matters)

Other great education journalism we liked: ‘We have to be good or ICE will get us’: Takeaways from Chicago children caught in immigration raids (AP), Teachers Are Using AI to Help Write IEPs. Advocates Have Concerns (EdWeek), Parents at a Portland school say their children’s class needed just 1 more student to be in line for a 2nd teacher. The district closed the waitlist (Oregonian), A Silicon Valley family wanted their son’s science test graded fairly. It became a battle (SF Chronicle).

FIRST-HAND SURPRISES INSIDE AN ESA-FUNDED PRIVATE SCHOOL

First, Alabama education reporter Rebecca Griesbach (above) found out that at least 12 new schools had been opened in response to the state’s newly-expanded private school choice program.

Then, she went and visited one of them.

In this week’s video interview, Griesbach describes why she decided to visit Peach City Academy, how she got access, and the mix of expected elements and surprises she encountered — such as classroom discussion she observed.

“They were talking about feminism, suicide, and all of these things that I don’t see when I’m in a public school classroom,” she says.

Watch, listen to, or read the interview here.

PEOPLE, EVENTS, ETC.

*Above: Can’t wait to read Miracle Children, the forthcoming book about the TM Landry college admissions scandal, by **Katie Benner** (left) and **Erica Green** (right).*

📰 Segments: Two great audio segments from NPR’s Leila Fadel and Julie Depenbrock about rethinking school lockdown drills here and here. A vivid Marketplace segment from Carla Javier about schools struggling 3 years after end of universal free school meals. USA Today’s Zach Schermele was on The Excerpt talking about shifting shutdown vibes. NYT metro education reporter Troy Closson had the chance to talk about his reporting on gifted and talented programs.

📰 New arrivals: Longtime Boston Globe reporter Mark Arsenault is joining the NYT’s education team. In case you missed it like I did, Kristian Moravec is The Monitor’s education and workforce development reporter. (Read her recent piece about the struggle to explain Maine students’ woes.)

📰 Returning to the beat: Former Houston Public Radio education reporter Laura Isensee is the new education editor at the Houston Chronicle, leading a team of five reporters and a Hearst fellow. (Her predecessor, Jennifer Radcliffe, has been named local news editor.) Welcome back to Scott Elliott, longtime education reporter who’s going to be the managing editor of EdWeek’s Market Brief.

📰 Moving on: The Oregonian’s Sami Edge is leaving the higher ed beat to edit breaking news. Longtime US News and The Hill education reporter Lauren Camera is now a senior director at Whiteboard Advisors. Read her piece about joining the team here.

📰 New: Chalkbeat’s new “ideas” newsletter will differ from the rest of what readers are used to seeing from the outlet “because I’ll share my own perspective and analysis at times,” writes Matt Barnum in an introductory overview. “The voice will be mine… rather than the omniscient voice that defines normal news coverage.” His first piece is vintage Barnum: a cautionary take on the Southern Surge.

INNOVATIONS, STATS, & QUOTABLES

📰 Innovations: The Houston Chronicle has begun producing Meeting Monitor (above), an AI-powered system with searchable transcripts, summaries and notifications. Cool to see a great story about English Learners by Pittsburgh’s Public Source distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press. The Hechinger Report’s Jill Barshay has added an AI audio reading option for folks who follow her weekly column Proof Points.

📰 Numbers: Roughly 500,000 children in NYC are expected to lose access to food stamps next week because the Trump administration said it will not maintain the SNAP program during the shutdown. Americans’ trust in information from news organizations and social media sites has changed dramatically over time. Education ranks loooow in this recent poll of public priorities. Over 200 school crossing guards have been injured or killed over the past decade. Florida and Mississippi get better reading results with less Title I money, says Dale Chu using Edunomics Lab charts. School closings were more destructive and much less effective than other measures such as masking and ventilation, according to a new study.

📰 Books: Check out two new reviews of Tim Shanahan’s new book on leveled reading, via Mike Petrilli. There’s also a review of two new education books in The Baffler, including one that’s new to me: “Why School Boards Matter: Reclaiming the Heart of American Education and Democracy.”

📰 Quotes

“What can we do to make the additional local news we aspire to provide more salient in the lives of our audiences?”

“We should be a bit more careful about blaming everything on phones.”

“There’s no ‘void’ in education journalism… Social media functionally makes everyone a journalist whether they brand themselves one or not.”

“We let social media run wild in kids’ lives. Now we’re doing the same with AI in schools.”

“The mood in our circles/social media feeds is not a reliable guide to public opinion”

“Do. Not. Wait.”