In this week’s newsletter: School board races are heating up. ACT scores see a drastic drop. The Wall Street Journal makes a surprise hire. A Texas reporter puts “Grapevine” under the microscope. Reporting tips from the Boston Globe’s Mandy McLaren. And a former ed reporter’s masters thesis ends up on “Last Week Tonight.”
BOARD ELECTIONS REV UP
The big story of the week
The big education story of the week is local school board races heating up in places like Fairfax, Va.; Atlanta; Denver; Orange County, Ca.; and Decatur, Ga. (Washington Post, Capital B, Chalkbeat Colorado, LAist, Decaturish).
The vast majority of the nation’s 15,000 local school districts are controlled by an independent elected school board. Some districts like Chicago are moving from appointed to elected (WBEZ). However, school board elections aren’t all full of controversy and upheaval. Ballotpedia has reported that many of them are uncontested.
Check out Ballotpedia’s website and weekly school board elections newsletter for more information — and look for a new piece from us in the coming weeks based on an interview with Ballotpedia elections expert Leslie Graves.
Other big education stories of the week:
📰 TROUBLING ACT SCORES: For the sixth year in a row, ACT scores have declined (Wall Street Journal, Higher Ed Dive). The scores reached the lowest they’ve been in more than 30 years, and a record 43% of students failed to meet any of the subject matter benchmarks (AP, PBS). Students whose scores were reported this year were in their freshman year of high school when the pandemic began. While the numbers paint a dire picture, they don’t reflect all the other recent changes in the college admissions landscape, like the fact that only 43% of students submitted SAT or ACT scores last year — down from 74% before the pandemic (New York Times).
📰 SEGREGATION RULING: A judge in New Jersey declared that the state has failed to address racial segregation in its public schools caused by residency laws (USA Today, Chalkbeat Newark, NJ.com). The ruling could have far-reaching implications for the state’s 674 school districts, but it didn’t order an immediate change or propose a solution. If you’re in Newark, you can learn more about segregation in New Jersey’s schools at a live event Oct. 26 featuring NJ Spotlight News data reporter Colleen O’Dea, Chalkbeat Newark’s Jessie Gomez, and WNYC Morning Edition host Michael Hill.
📰HAIRSTYLE OUTRAGE: Initially suspended for his hairstyle, a Texas high schooler is now being sent to an alternative school (AP, NPR, NYT, USA Today). The Houston-area school system’s treatment of the student may violate the state’s new law prohibiting schools from discriminating against students wearing hairstyles based on race and has generated widespread condemnation.
HOUSING FOSTER STUDENTS
The best education journalism of the week
The best education story of the week is Gail Cornwall’s Couch surfing, living in cars: Housing insecurity derails foster kids’ college dreams, which appears in both the Hechinger Report and the LA Times.
Focused on the challenges facing foster kids attending college, the piece tells an important story centering on a student named Kyshawna Johnson who’s tried college twice before but struggled to find a calm and affordable place to live — and eventually ended up living in her car.
College struggles for kids like Kyshawna aren’t unusual, and efforts to help them with housing have thus far proven insufficient. But this article gives readers a strong balance of human details and policy trends.
BONUS
👏 This impressive Collin Binkley story tallies the huge amount of pandemic aid that large U.S. school districts spent on ed tech of dubious effectiveness – and gives readers a palpable idea of what it’s like for administrators to be bombarded by sales calls (AP).
👏 Kalyn Belsha’s wonky yet lucid story describes how a new federal rule allowing up to 5 million more children to receive free school meals includes financial requirements that may lead many districts to opt out (Chalkbeat).
👏 Sara Randazzo’s helpful story shows that while some teachers can point to benefits for Black and Latino students from cuts to honors classes that are being implemented at some schools, there’s mixed evidence that the changes make a real difference (Wall Street Journal).
👏 Shedding light on a little-discussed section of school bureaucracy, Zaidee Stavely’s parent-centered piece explains how a few large districts in SoCal have failed to keep parents of English learners informed of their kids’ progress (EdSource).
HIGH-QUALITY LITERACY COVERAGE
Our latest columns and commentary
Fresh off her blistering Sunday cover story (co-written with Naomi Martin), the Boston Globe’s Mandy McLaren contributed the final entry in The Grade’s fall series on high-quality literacy coverage.
“Literacy is a tough topic to cover,” admits McLaren. “It requires more time than you likely have and more nuance than your editor can likely stomach.”
Read McLaren’s tips for how to get classroom access and find parents, then make sure to check out the full series in the Globe package, which includes a close look at Boston’s efforts and a “what parents need to know” piece.
In our bonus piece this week, lifelong Texan Bekah McNeel praises the new NBC News podcast series “Grapevine” for making clear that book-contesting parents, pastors, and the creationists are “not backwards people,” but hopes for more “useful insights for enduring these kinds of conflicts, rather than six hours of endless strife.”
Above: APM Reports’ Christopher Peak represented the whole “Sold a Story” team at the Murrow Awards ceremony this week.
PEOPLE, JOBS
Who’s going where and doing what
🔥 Awards: The recognition keeps coming for APM Reports’ “Sold a Story,” which took home a National Edward R. Murrow Award in podcasting. LA Times youth reporter Melissa Gomez was named one the 10 Most Influential Latina Journalists in California in 2023. The Washington Post’s John Woodrow Cox was among those honored last night at the 2023 Dart Awards ceremony for his reporting on gun violence in America and its impact on kids. Congrats to all!
🔥 Career moves & anniversaries: Matt Barnum shocked the ed beat when he announced he’s leaving Chalkbeat to report on K-12 education for the Wall Street Journal. The last time I remember a big national outlet hiring someone without a traditional newsroom background was 2017’s New York Times hiring of Dana Goldstein. And the AP’s Cheyanne Mumphrey celebrated one year on the ed beat, writing on X, “Dreams do come true. It’s been such a blessing being able to tell the stories of the next generation!”
🔥 Job openings: The Dallas Morning News Ed Lab is hiring a reporter. Fort Worth Report is hiring an education reporter “with a focus on following the money and how schools improve student outcomes.” Check previous versions of this newsletter for more jobs that may still be open. No word yet on whether Chalkbeat is going to replace Barnum.
🔥 Impact: California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill requiring California State University to report sexual harassment following an LA Times investigation. And kudos to Chalkbeat and many other newsrooms for being featured in a Washington Post opinion piece about the rebirth of local news.
🔥 Sound off: It “would not be reasonable to expect” journalists to pore over every word on all 1,000 pages of California’s new math framework, says Stanford University math professor Brian Conrad, who wrote a much-discussed Atlantic piece about doing just that. (Whew!) Rather, they should try to get a sense of the concerns that content experts have “and to somehow try to communicate that to the wider public.”
Above: “Teacher shortages are really confusing,” writes Hechinger’s Jill Barshay, whose latest piece describes the enigma that is the teacher shortage narrative.
APPEARANCES, EVENTS, & NEW RESOURCES
What’s happening and new research
⏰ Podcasts & segments: Episode 3 of NBC News’ “Grapevine” podcast is out. WBUR On Point dug into California’s new math framework. WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show looked at how teachers have changed their lesson plans about Christopher Columbus over the years. And USA Today’s Alia Wong talked about the negotiations over a new student loan debt forgiveness plan on the outlet’s “5 Things” podcast.
⏰ Events: AP education editor Chrissie Thompson and AL.com Education Lab editor Ruth Serven Smith spoke at the Grantmakers for Education conference this week. Later today, AccessFest (happening through tomorrow) will host a panel about the “five must-have stories from the K-12 education beat,” featuring Boston Globe education editor Melissa Taboada, EWA’s Lori Crouch, and Wall Street Journal education bureau chief Chastity Pratt. A panel about how newsrooms can support journalists with disabilities will feature Des Moines Register education reporter Samantha Hernandez. On Oct. 23, WBUR will host a K-12 education community listening session. If you’re in Newark, you can learn more about segregation in New Jersey’s schools at a live event Oct. 26 featuring NJ Spotlight News data reporter Colleen O’Dea, Chalkbeat Newark’s Jessie Gomez, and WNYC Morning Edition host Michael Hill.
⏰ Research: NPR’s Morning Edition delved into a new study that found that the student absenteeism rate is double what it was before the pandemic. A new report from Attendance Works showing two thirds of schools struggling with high absenteeism was written up by the Washington Post and USA Today. The 74 detailed another study that shows that reading retention helps students — and their siblings. The outlet also dissected research on cell phone bans in schools that points to higher test scores, less anxiety, and more exercise. And according to the Washington Post, the number of gun confiscations in 47 large districts has risen 79% between 2018-19 and 2022-23 — but the reporting isn’t there. “In DeKalb County, Ga., just two of the 24 guns found on campuses were reported on, while in Louisville, nearly every gun seizure — 24 out of 26 — led to a news story.”
⏰ Layoffs & unions: No word yet on whether any of the ed team will be affected, but the Washington Post buyouts are hitting the Metro section hard, among other departments. On Wednesday, EdWeek employees began casting their votes on whether to form a union. “We are confident that we will win with a strong majority and are excited about what’s to come!” the union posted on X.
THE KICKER
“Hello, my masters project from 2015 on ‘Last Week Tonight,’” tweeted Votebeat editorial director (and former ed reporter) Jessica Huseman. “I wrote this story while stress crying in the basement of Columbia Journalism.”
That’s all, folks. Thanks for reading!
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By Alexander Russo with additional writing from Colleen Connolly, Will Callan, and Greg Toppo.
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.
