Health and data reporter Betsy Ladyzhets on sensationalist school COVID headlines, missing context, and the importance of interviewing school clerks

A health and date reporter shares insights and advice on covering school safety issues.

By Alexander Russo

I first became aware of data journalist Betsy Ladyzhets about a year ago, working on a piece about smart ways to cover COVID cases in schools. She was concerned about the lack of data and transparency around school COVID cases. I was concerned that COVID school coverage was unnecessarily amplifying reopening risks and fears.

Little did I know then that I’d have many of the same concerns a year later – or that Ladyzhets would be writing more than ever about schools and COVID. With the help of the Solutions Journalism Network, she has now profiled five schools and districts that managed to reopen last year and keep kids and teachers safe. “The divided communities made the news — but not all U.S. schools were fighting grounds,” she wrote last month. “Many districts managed to bring the majority of their students back into classrooms without breeding a dreaded COVID-19 outbreak.”

These stories are a useful roadmap for education reporters and a great opportunity to learn what a health and science data journalist thinks about how COVID school stories are being written.

“Stories that highlight school outbreaks and tension may cause readers to think there’s no way to open schools safely,” Ladyzhets told me. “At the same time, stories that argue, ‘schools are extremely low risk’ or, ‘we don’t know if masks are actually beneficial for young kids,’ are also harmful.”

Stories that highlight school outbreaks and tension may cause readers to think there’s no way to open schools safely… At the same time, stories that argue, ‘schools are extremely low risk’ or, ‘we don’t know if masks are actually beneficial for young kids,’ are also harmful.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

How do you feel about COVID coverage over all? Do you feel like journalists have generally done as well as they could have, given data shortcomings, or are you like me frequently dismayed at the quality of the coverage that’s been produced?

BL:  I could give you a whole essay on this topic, but in brief: I do think most journalists are doing as well as they can, given not only the constraints of available data but also the constraints of their work environments.  Most journalists are doing their best to learn about the new virus, communicate what they’re learning, and deal with all the challenges of the pandemic themselves.  (A big motivator for my continued work on the COVID-19 Data Dispatch is to help other journalists navigate these challenges!)

Has the coverage of school COVID gotten substantially better since last year, based on what you’ve seen? Do you worry about alarmist coverage as much as I do?

BL: I worry about coverage on both extremes.  Stories that highlight school outbreaks and tension may cause readers to think there’s no way to open schools safely.  And I think, both last fall and this fall, the natural timing of school re-openings (with more lax districts in the South opening before districts that had stricter safety protocols) led to outbreak headlines before we saw any major pieces about districts that actually did well.  San Francisco has not had a single school outbreak in fall 2021, for example!!  Stories like that deserve more attention. At the same time, stories that argue, “schools are extremely low risk” or, “we don’t know if masks are actually beneficial for young kids,” are also harmful.

I often see sensationalist headlines about a district that needs to shut down due to high case numbers, for example… But I don’t necessarily blame the reporters.

What have you learned about covering schools and COVID from doing the project that you didn’t know when you started?

BL: Prior to this project, I had been largely focused on the data side of things – commenting on a lack of standardized case counts, missing testing and enrollment numbers, and other similar concerns.  This project showed me the importance of going beyond numbers and talking to people, as cliche as that might sound.  There’s no substitute for hearing someone’s experience in trying to get kids in classrooms and keep them there.

Of course, this goes back to data, too: through interviews with administrators, nurses, and generally whoever was compiling cases for particular districts, I learned more about where data collection policies differ by district; COVID-19 case numbers always come with a set of caveats, but that’s especially true for schools. Some schools might just report cases in kids who physically came into buildings while sick, for example, while others might report all students who had suspected COVID-19 and needed to quarantine.

What are the challenges of COVID schools coverage that you see?

BL: To me, a major problem with school COVID-19 coverage stems from the lack of data on this topic.  I often see sensationalist headlines about a district that needs to shut down due to high case numbers, for example — stories like this tend to lack context on how common shutdowns are in the district’s region, how many students are quarantined compared to overall enrollment, etc.  But I don’t necessarily blame the reporters, because those data usually aren’t readily available.  And I don’t just mean the data are suppressed by a local government, or something — in many cases, the government literally is not collecting the relevant numbers in any kind of systematic way.

It’s nice to see that they’re asking more questions, but the federal survey is honestly pretty useless when it comes to doing any kind of meaningful analysis. 

What’s the impact of the lack of reliable data about COVID cases and schools, which continues to the present? [inserted question to break up response]

BL: The lack of data has left a space for volunteer and academic datasets on school COVID-19 cases, as has happened for other COVID-19 topics.  Such datasets can never be as complete as something systematically compiled by the government, though.  And in the case of school reopening coverage, incomplete data may make it easier for a pundit to make an argument on one extreme (“schools are almost entirely safe”) or the other (“schools are death traps”) and have that argument go unscrutinized.

The Biden administration recently announced that it’s going to expand its data collection. But how much better is the school COVID data situation now than it was a year ago — and what are your go-to data sources these days?

B:L: It’s nice to see that they’re asking more questions, but the federal survey is honestly pretty useless when it comes to doing any kind of meaningful analysis.  If you look at the past survey results, you can see that data are missing for 20-25 states, based on which metric you look at (due to insufficient data and/or schools declining to participate).  I still think the federal government is the best institution to track COVID-19 cases in schools — and it could be done, as we saw the HHS/CDC successfully set up pretty comprehensive tracking systems for hospitals and nursing homes.  But right now, the best sources are still non-government sources — Burbio and Emily Oster’s dashboard are probably the sources I look at most frequently, along with specific states. NY and TX do the best jobs, IMO, though the NY dashboard is currently offline as they’re revamping it for fall 2021.

Any case number should include a relevant denominator, or at least some context… I would impress upon education reporters to share numbers of students who haven’t gotten infected at school. 

What are some of the outlets that you think are producing high-quality coverage, and what makes the coverage stand out?

BL: I read a decent amount of NYC news and I tend to like stories from Chalkbeat NY, which often partners with THE CITY (a NYC local news nonprofit).  NYC reporters have an advantage on this beat, I think, because both the city and state provide a decent amount of school COVID-19 data — NY state has THE most comprehensive school COVID-19 dashboard — so they have a lot of info to work with, unlike reporters in other areas.

If you were in charge of school COVID coverage, what specific rules or guidance would you give your reporters? 

For one thing, any case number should include a relevant denominator, or at least some context.  Just as vaccine reporters are shouting from the rooftops, “Put the number of vaccinated people who haven’t gotten a breakthrough case in the headline,” I would impress upon education reporters to share numbers of students who haven’t gotten infected at school.  (Though, as I wrote above, I acknowledge that this info is not always readily available.)

I think it’s also key to explore (where possible) how exactly school cases are getting counted.  What counts as a school case, for this district?  Which students/staff members are getting tested?  Are testing and contact tracing happening for close contacts of an infected student?  This kind of context is also key, to explain where numbers are coming from and how they may be incomplete.

In addition, I’d recommend that reporters not only talk to administrators and parents, but also look beyond those typical interview subjects to other school staff.  How are the school nurses doing?  What about the custodians, the cafeteria workers, the bus drivers?  These staff all have important roles to play in reopening — and are putting themselves at risk — just as teachers are.  School nurses in particular have given me some of the most valuable interviews of my project.

Read about schools that reopened successfully last year here. Follow Ladyzhets here. Read the COVID Data Dispatch newsletter here.

Related from The Grade:

This year’s back to school coverage has been unnecessarily alarmist — again.

The tentative successes of in-person learning deserve more coverage.

Smart ways to report on COVID cases detected in schools.