The 12 most memorable education stories of 2024

Surprises, obvious picks, and nontraditional coverage you might have missed.

By Alexander Russo

Journalism is in trouble, both economically and culturally.

Many of us are heading into the new year with little confidence that things will go well — for schools or the education beat.

So what was good in 2024?

So much!

Last month, I gushed about my favorite journalists — traditional and otherwise.

Every Friday, The Grade tells you about all the best education stories of the week.

There’s an enormous amount of effort and talent going into producing high-quality education news.

Now, as in the past, here are the most memorable stories and outlets of the past 12 months — stories that might inspire you or remind you of what journalism about schools can do.

As always, this collection is nothing comprehensive or systematic. It’s not even chronological.

If you see something missing, feel free to share the most memorable stories you read (or wrote). Tag us at @thegrade_ or thegrade2015@gmail.com and let us know.

ELECTION YEAR

MAKING SENSE OF TRUMP VOTERS

For anyone struggling to grasp the surprising November presidential election outcome, New York Magazine’s The End of Denialism is an important and memorable piece of reporting. Set in a working-class part of New York City that shifted towards President-elect Trump, the story finds everyday people angry and scared about their ability to pay their bills and to give their kids a good life.

See also: Lost in translation: Migrant kids struggle in segregated Chicago schools (Chalkbeat/Block Club Chicago), A Trump win, an urban high school and an American identity crisis (Washington Post), Germany Opened Its Doors to Migrants. Now It’s Struggling to Cope (Wall Street Journal).

CONSERVATIVE OVERREACH

It wasn’t just just Democratic voters reconsidering their party’s views in 2024. In The education of a true believer (Washington post), a conservative voter who’s increasingly concerned about schools runs for and wins election on her local school board seat. It’s a fascinating, deeply human look at what happens when we have to confront core beliefs — and don’t like everything that we see. (Perhaps you will also be reminded a bit of a 2019 Atlantic essay about one parent’s increasing discomfort with progressive overreach in Brooklyn.)

See also: She Campaigned for a Texas School Board Seat as a GOP Hard-Liner. Now She’s Rejecting Her Party’s Extremism (ProPublica/Texas Tribune).

BELATED PANDEMIC RECKONING

While many news outlets appear reluctant or unwilling to reconsider the lingering effects of the long-term school closures during the pandemic, the New York Times took a powerful look in What the Data Says About Pandemic School Closures, Four Years Later. “The more time students spent in remote instruction, the further they fell behind,” concluded the Times story. “And, experts say, extended closures did little to stop the spread of Covid.”

See also: School Battles May Help Explain Why Democrats Declined in Some Suburbs (New York Times).

THE BIG PICTURE

SCHOOL SECRECY

If you want to understand the maddening and secretive ways school systems really operate, look into how they treat vulnerable kids who’ve been sexually abused. That’s the underlying message of Insider’s An epidemic of sexual abuse in schools, which finds “shoddy investigations, quiet resignations, and a culture of secrecy have protected predators, not students.” Published a week before the year began, the piece warrants inclusion here because of its power and importance.

See also: Silence and Secrets (Courier Journal), The Hidden World of Special Education Settlements in Massachusetts (Boston Globe).

DWINDLING ENROLLMENT

In a sea of sad stories about enrollment-related school closures, ProPublica’s The Unequal Effects of School Closings stands out for the masterful way it zooms in on one school in one particularly hard-hit community in Rochester, New York — and then zooms out to tell a larger national story.

See also: Hmong, East African programs help St. Paul halt enrollment slide (Sahan Journal), My Senior Year (This American Life), After enrollment slump, Denver-area schools struggle to absorb a surge of migrant and refugee children (Hechinger Report).

MISSING STUDENTS

By now, the chronic absenteeism story is so everywhere that it’s become easy to forget how it — like so many students — almost slipped through the cracks. But the AP’s Schools have made slow progress on record absenteeism, with millions of kids still skipping class and other stories from the ed team there kept up the drumbeat — rewarded in part for their efforts with a Pulitzer nomination.

See also: Skipping School: America’s Hidden Education Crisis (ProPublica), This Braintree teen hasn’t been to school a single day this year (Boston Globe).

MAKING SENSE OF IT ALL

LITERACY AT ITS MOST BASIC

The Boston Globe education team has done so much great work this year, but its early 2024 story When even text messaging is a struggle: The pain of being a teenager who can’t read well is a standout piece of journalism, making abstract arguments about literacy instruction concrete and real by taking the topic down to its most basic function: can a student read text messages?

SCHOOLS AS DAYCARE

While educators — and most education journalists — stick to the polite fiction that schools are solely for educating kids, Jerusalem Demsas — like most normal people — has no time for that. Of Course Schools Are Day Care, Demsas writes in The Atlantic (where she also hosts an excellent podcast, Good On Paper). The piece is memorable not only for saying the quiet part out loud but also by reminding us that caring for kids is a crucial part of school, even before the learning starts.

MAKING SENSE OF REFORM

“I want to believe that our schools are capable of meaningful improvement that lasts,” writes Tim Daly, a longtime education consultant, in his memorable essay on Where Teacher Evaluation Went Wrong. “I would also like to see more signs that our systems can deliver when it matters.” Throughout the year, Daly — along with a few others including David Leonhardt and David Brooks — took a calm, insightful view of what’s happening in a world that can seem heated and chaotic.

See also: How the Ivy League Broke America (Atlantic), Recent Immigration Surge Has Been Largest in U.S. History (New York Times).

SCHOOL LIFE

INSIDE A SCHOOL

Stories that take us inside schools are few and far between these days, but the Houston Landing’s Two Days Inside an HISD School That Improved from F to B Grade Under Mike Miles’ Changes is a memorable exception. What happens when schools try to change things so kids might learn? This story gives you a vivid sense of the challenges and opportunities.

See also: Four square, fútbol, and phonics: A day at Denver’s Valdez Elementary with two newly arrived migrant students (Chalkbeat), An Oregon district upends the schedule to try to get middle schoolers what they need (Oregonian).

INSIDE INTEGRATION

Of all the many pieces produced to remember the 50th anniversary of the Boston school busing effort, The Emancipator’s The buses we rode every September is the most memorable. Written by a former Boston Public Schools student, the piece describes how she and so many others were “carelessly thrust into an egregiously violent environment.” The tradeoffs Black students and families are asked to bear are something we should think about when reading or writing about school integration.

‘ENGLISH TEACHER’

While much less well-known than near-universal educator favorite Abbott Elementary, Hulu’s English Teacher was 2024’s breakout sendup of modern-day K-12 education folly, progressive and otherwise. Focused on an ambivalent high school English teacher and his professional and interpersonal challenges, the show is slowly being recognized in the media and is picking up award nominations galore. Do yourself a favor.

SO LONG, FAREWELL 2024

What else memorable happened on the education beat in 2024?

Chalkbeat got an on-air shout-out on the aforementioned Abbott Elementary.

Houston Public Media pulled a podcast series about the HISD schools at the last minute.

The NAHJ’s palabra emerged as an education journalism powerhouse.

Disillusioned, a book about suburban school challenges, featured a contribution from one of his central characters, Bethany Smith (who wrote a guest essay for The Grade about the experience).

The Atlantic published a story about the stunning lack of legal obligations of school police officers to protect kids.

The Washington Post exposed massive sexual abuse at US schools serving Native American kids. The beat has its first TikTok star.