Mask-optional for (almost) everyone, making the beat more inclusive, & the new reading crisis: 🏆 Best Education Journalism of the Week 🏆 (3/11/2022)

More and more districts went mask-optional this week, but a handful of districts are holding off until the end of this month or even early April. That’s the big story of the week. As of today, 336 of the top 500 school districts are mask-optional, according to Burbio. According to the New York Times, mask-optional start dates for San Francisco and San Diego are scheduled for early April, but Sacramento isn’t switching until 4/18 and LAUSD has not yet set a date.ALSO: The other big story of the week is education connections to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including efforts to divest teacher pension funds, the experiences of students attending Ukrainian schools in the US, and US colleges’ efforts to cut ties with Russia.

This week featured The Grade editor Amber C. Walker’s interview with Nikki Usher about making education journalism more accessible and inclusive. Author of the new book, “News for The Rich, White, and Blue,” Usher calls on education reporters to make sure they’re not reflexively picking and writing stories to appeal to white readers — and to focus on making their journalism more useful to readers. “I don’t want to discredit long-form, resource-intensive, investigative journalism,” Usher told Walker. “But I do think that the amount of that journalism that trickles down to ordinary people is very limited.”

We also published a new guide for reporters on how to ask good questions and write effective stories about district spending, a hot topic in schools and education coverage. Written by Education Resource Strategies’ Karen Hawley Miles, How to cover schools’ COVID recovery spending this spring identifies five steps to help education reporters and features spending plans from Hartford, Guilford, and Memphis school districts.

🏆 RUNNER-UP: This week’s runner-up is It’s ‘Alarming’: Children Are Severely Behind in Reading, by Dana Goldstein in The New York Times. The story details how early elementary students across the country are missing reading benchmarks as a result of Covid-related learning disruptions, even more so than they were before the pandemic. The outcomes are especially acute for students of color, low income students, students with disabilities, and English language learners. Goldstein’s piece dives a bit deeper than the general learning loss articles we’ve seen during the course of the pandemic because it focuses on the shortage of educators trained to teach students phonics and phonemic awareness, the building blocks of reading. We especially enjoyed Goldstein’s shadowing of  teacher Garensha John and her first grade class in Bridgeport, Connecticut through a phonics lesson, highlighting the time and expertise required to deliver effective instruction to students. It’s refreshing to see in-person classroom reporting making a comeback. Goldstein’s piece also cautions how missing early benchmarks in reading can have long-term impacts for students; “We’re in new territory,” said Tiffany P. Hogan, director of the Speech and Language Literacy Lab at the MGH Institute of Health Professions in Boston. “Poor readers are more likely to drop out of high school, earn less money as adults and become involved in the criminal justice system.”

BONUS: 
🏆 A teacher’s sex abuse went unreported for years. (USA Today)
🏆 Pa. students reflect on school funding trial (WHYY Philadelphia)
🏆 Uptick but no exodus: Despite stress, most teachers stay put (Chalkbeat)
🏆 Despite political pressure, teachers lead complex history lessons on race & slavery. (USA Today)
🏆 Conservative PACs aim to ‘take back’ Texas school boards (Dallas Morning News)
🏆 Teachers reimagine US history lessons with eye on diversity (AP News)
🏆 Teachers help students navigate misinformation, emotions, history of war in Ukraine (LA Times)
🏆 Why School Choice is Roiling the GOP (US News)

📰 THE NEW YORKER GOES DEEP ON LOWELL & MONTESSORI: There were two notable education-related articles from the New Yorker recently. “Lowell is the fascinating case where you have various parties with the same goal… and yet those parties find themselves totally at odds,” writes the New Yorker’s Nathan Heller, whose story, What Happens When an Élite Public School Becomes Open to All?, compares the debate around Lowell to similar stories taking place in DC, Boston, and NYC. “I realized pretty early that this wasn’t just a Lowell problem; it was a public-education problem generally. And I realized that, because Lowell was a high-profile school that had actually got rid of selective admissions, it was a kind of experiment. generated a bunch of pushback from folks associated with the model.” The story is definitely worth checking out. So is a lengthy Jessica Winter book review headlined The Miseducation of Maria Montessori, even though it’s been criticized for focusing on the popularity of the model among wealthy white parents. “It’s true that Montessori education predominates in private schools in the US and around the world,” wrote Yale’s Mira Debs, who has researched and written extensively about the model. But she notes there are also over 500 public Montessori schools, the largest number of public schools offering an alternative pedagogy. “To only focus on the elitism of Montessori education excludes the efforts of so many educators, especially educators of color, who have long worked to make Montessori more accessible.”

📰 LESSONS FROM COVERING EARLY ED: When KPCC/LAists’s Mariana Dale began covering early childhood education just before the pandemic began, she already knew that she’d like how broad the early childhood beat can be. “I’m interested in any issue that impacts the health and wellbeing of children, ages 0 to 5, their families, the people that take care of them and the people that educate them,” Dale told us in a recent phone interview. That’s a good thing, considering that her beat encompasses education as well as childcare, parenting, maternal health, and more. For anyone new to covering early childhood education, Dale recommends reading the work of Elliot Haspel — and scheduling interviews during nap time. “This might seem silly, but nap time is a really great time to talk to childcare providers. So between noon and 3 p.m. is usually the best window to call them.”

📰 STAYING VIGILANT FOR THE NEXT VARIANT: Education journalists, chastened by readers who are “over” masking, vaccination cards, and remote learning, might be reluctant to sound yet another alarm. But that would be a shame. Because even as states and school districts move away from longstanding safety measures, here comes BA.2, a more transmissible sub-variant of the widespread Omicron variant. The World Health Organization in February called it “a variant of concern.” In New York, BA.2 is “quickly moving to dominate its viral kin,” Gothamist reported on Monday. And in Denmark it may be displacing BA.1, as the original is called, causing a “second surge” that brought daily deaths “to a new summit” just weeks after BA.1 subsided. Will the urge to get back to normal overpower education journalists’ desire to warn us about the new sub-variant? Let’s hope they’ve got enough gas in the tank to face down a new challenge if the data warrant it. (GT)

Looking for media commentary and analysis all day, every day? Follow me at @alexanderrusso. 

PEOPLE & JOBS
Who’s doing what, going where.

🔥 Recognition: Congrats to The Madison County Record’s Ellen Kreth, Jamie Smith, Celia Kreth, & Shannon Hahn for their story, School Board Lessens Punishment in Sexual Assault Case. They are Semi-Finalists for the 2022 Goldsmith Prize. Congrats as well to WPLN /Nashville Public Radio’s Meribah Knight & ProPublica’s Ken Armstrong for their story Black Children Were Jailed for a Crime That Doesn’t Exist News. They’re finalists for the 2022 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting. If you haven’t already read their stories, go here and here.

🔥 Job openings: Chalkbeat Chicago is hiring a bureau chief to replace founding bureau chief Cassie Walker Burke. EdSource in California is hiring an editor. The Baltimore Banner is looking for education reporters to cover K-12 and higher education in Baltimore city, county, and beyond. The Arizona Republic is hiring a schools reporter to report on how K-12 issues are affecting kids, families, and teachers. The Oregonian is hiring an education reporter. The Boston Globe is hiring a higher education reporter, as well as a digital producer for their Great Divide team. The Seattle Times is still looking for an Ed Lab reporter. Politico California is hiring an education reporter. Go apply!

🔥 New follows: The Indy Star’s Rachel Fradette @Rachel_Fradette co-wrote that amazing story about a predatory teacher operating under the noses of teachers and parents. The New York Times’ metro reporter Lola Fadulu @lfadulu, who wrote a ton this week about NYC school experiences going mask-optional. KUOW Seattle’s Kate Walters @KateWaltersKUOW, who’s been covering school issues here and there even though it’s not officially her beat.

🔥 Job moves: Longtime freelancer Rachel Cohen is joining Vox as a senior reporter covering social policy. It’s a dream job, she says. Read her announcement and also one from Vox. Congrats! 

⏰ At SXSW EDU this week, USA Today’s Alia Wong talked about going beyond CRT, EdWeek’s Daarel Burnette talked about media coverage of CRT, Hechinger Report editor in chief Liz Willen talked about the intersection of informal and formal learning, The 74’s Linda Jacobson talked about the power of family in child-led digital learning, and NPR’s Elissa Nadworny spoke about new practices in higher education.

⏰ Upcoming: The Solutions Journalism Network is hosting a panel on Tuesday, March 15th at 12 PM, ET. “Solutions Journalism for the #BlackPress” will feature freelance national education journalist Aaricka Washington and other panelists exploring the current relevance of solutions journalism for Black newsmakers. Register here. Also on Tuesday, March 15th at 2 PM ET, FutureEd and Burbio are hosting a webinar, “Local Perspectives on Spending Covid-Relief Aid”; Register here to attend the virtual event.

⏰ The Texas Tribune is hosting a panel of current and former Texas K-12 school superintendents on Thursday, March 24th at 8 AM, CT discussing how superintendents across the state are managing book bans, the fight over critical race theory, and new policies stemming from the pandemic Register here.

⏰ On Wednesday, March 16th at 12:30 PM, ET, The National Press Club will host a panel called “Opening access: How to push back on restrictive communication policies in education (and beyond),” featuring  Dallas Morning News’ Education Lab editor Eva-Marie Ayala and Politico education editor Delece Smith-Barrow. Register here. 

📌 Help us create an informal history of what it’s been like covering schools during the pandemic? Respond to this email or share your best/worst pandemic education journalism memories here! (Feel free to let us know if you don’t want us to use your name.) 📌

That’s all, folks. Thanks for reading!

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By Alexander Russo with additional writing from Colleen Connolly, Amber C. Walker, and Greg Toppo.