Racial diversity in education news? Two steps forward, one step back.

Six years in, The Grade’s annual update reveals improvements and challenges among the 11 news organizations and education teams that participated.

The Grade’s annual education news diversity update asks education new outlets, teams, and organizations to share information about racial diversity among its full-time, permanent editorial staff.

This year’s results show some key signs of progress:

The four-person USA Today education team is 100% Asian American or Latino/a (including a new section editor who will be named next month).

Education teams at the LA Times, Southern California Public Radio, and the Seattle Times continue to report high percentages when it comes to racial diversity among the journalists they employ.

Chalkbeat continues to demonstrate its commitment to newsroom diversity even as its number of journalists grows substantially.

Two major national news outlets (the Wall Street Journal and USA Today) shared their racial diversity statistics.

A total of 11 news outlets or education teams have provided information to The Grade.

However, major challenges remain:

Many outlets continue not to participate for various reasons. They include the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, WNYC, Philadelphia Inquirer, The 74, and EdSource.

No additional outlets or education teams joined the group of those who participate this year. And, in a shift, the Education Writers Association (EWA) declined to participate this year.

“EWA is deeply committed to diversity and inclusion,” EWA head Caroline Hendrie wrote in an email. “However, we don’t think we should be included in this particular survey… We are not a newsroom, as you know. We’re a nonprofit journalism membership organization. There is not a line between ‘editorial staff members’ and others.”

AL.com education editor Ruth Serven Smith also declined to participate:

“We have BIPOC people on our team but decline to participate,” she wrote, adding, “We are always working to improve our representation of Alabamians and coverage that serves all communities in Alabama. Readers interested in our work might be interested in this 2021 update.”

Forward

Here are this year’s racial diversity statistics, from high to low:

USA Today:
4 of 4 (100%) members of the education team identify as Asian American or Latino/a
Last year: 40%

LA Times:
3 of the 4 (75%) identify as Persons of Color
Last year: 71%

Southern California Public Radio:
4 out of 7 (roughly 57%) identify as Black, Latinx, Asian American, Native American, or something other than white
Last year: 63%

Seattle Times:
3 of 5 (60%) identify as BIPOC or persons of color
Last year: 60%

Dallas Morning News:
2 of 4 (50%) are journalists of color
Last year: 50%

Chalkbeat:
25 of 55 (45%) identify as Asian, Black, Hispanic/Latino, or biracial
Last year: 43%

Hechinger Report:
7 of 17 (40%) identify as Black/African American or Asian/Pacific Islander or Hispanic/Latino
Last year: 32%

WBEZ Chicago:
2 of 5 (40%) are BIPOC
Last year: 40%

Education Week:
13 of 36 (36%) identify as identify as people of color.
Last year: 31%

Boston Globe:
2 of 6 (33%) are Latino or Black
Last year: 29%

Wall Street Journal:
1 of 5 (20%) identify as African American
Last year: 40%

Please send any corrections or additions to thegrade2015@gmail.com.

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NOTES

There are many other significant measures of diversity, including gender, age, economic background, etc.

This information is self-reported and uses the diversity language supplied to us by the news organizations and teams that respond.

Twenty percent of education journalists who participated in the 2021 survey from the Education Writers Association (EWA) identified as Hispanic/Latina(o), Black/African-American, or Asian.

The small size of most education teams and outlets means that the percentages can change substantially with the arrival or departure of a person or two — or changes in the number of team members over all — as in the cases of the Dallas Morning News, LA Times, and Wall Street Journal.

Progress in diversifying newsrooms can also be hidden by changes in the overall number of journalists. For example, Chalkbeat’s 45% doesn’t look much different than last year, but it reports 11 more journalists on the payroll this year, and six more journalists of color. (Now with 55 journalists, Chalkbeat has the largest education team among those who participate.)

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