In this week’s newsletter: A Democratic education reform group breaks rank, acknowledging the popularity of private school choice. Bloomberg details how a school principal pushed back on Trump’s immigration orders — and won. Everyone is cheating their way through college — and probably high school, too. And: Before he was Pope, he was just another 8th grader at St. Mary’s.
DEMOCRATS FOR PRIVATE SCHOOL VOUCHERS?
The big education story of the week
The big education story of the week is the announcement from Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) that Democrats should “explore innovative funding models such as education savings accounts, vouchers, and tax credit programs.”
It’s no secret that, despite concerns about equity, quality and funding, private school choice is increasingly popular with Republican lawmakers and parents. (By one account, New Hampshire will be the 17th state in the nation to enact a universal school choice program in recent years.) However, Democrats have generally opposed choice in K-12 education — especially untargeted programs that involve private schools.
All that may soon begin to change, however, with DFER’s A New Path for Education Reform: DFER’s Vision for Abundance, which acknowledges how Democrats have lost ground to Republicans on education issues and need to regain relevance. “Instead of rejecting [vouchers] offhand, how do we shape these tools to align with Democratic values?” asks DFER’s Jorge Elorza.
Will elected officials and other Democratic-aligned groups follow suit, reluctantly or otherwise? It’s too soon to tell. But the 2026 midterms are fast approaching and the Democratic party’s lack of any coherent education agenda is a glaring issue.
Other big news of the week includes conservative school board setbacks in Texas, more states banning cellphones in schools, and Columbia/Barnard suspend student journalists who cover a pro-Palestinian protest on campus. Check out @thegrade_ for daily news updates, Monday through Friday.
AN IMPORTANT TRUMP COUNTER-NARRATIVE
The best education journalism of the week
The best education journalism of the week is How a School in a Tiny, New York Town Beat ICE by Francis Wilkinson of Bloomberg News.
Wilkinson holds a microscope to the case of three immigrant students apprehended March 27 in Sackets Harbor, N.Y., near the Canadian border — a Trump stronghold. Initially shipped with their mother to a Texas detention center, they were improbably returned weeks later.
The story offers a reason why: a “stunningly sophisticated 11-day media and influence campaign,” led by a 32-year-old, first-time school principal, relentlessly pressuring the Trump administration to change course. He provides a suspenseful, nearly day-by-day account.
We’re in a deeply disorienting time, with foreign students being plucked from the streets, police handcuffing school board candidates protesting deportations, and some teachers self-deporting in order to avoid being jailed. But this piece gives readers a rare look into how a community can challenge a seemingly unstoppable force — an important counter-narrative.
Education journalists should find and report on examples where things don’t go as expected. Readers shouldn’t feel that an outcome is inevitable when it’s not.
Other education stories we liked this week include how half of Houston’s valedictorians began school as English learners (Houston Landing), the changing demographics of Minnesota students and Pittsburgh school staff (Star Tribune, Public Source PA), and how a hacker who promised to destroy stolen sensitive personal data after PowerSchool paid a ransom is now extorting school districts for more money (News & Observer, The 74 Million).
DID ANTI-RACISM KILL SCHOOL REFORM?
Our latest columns and commentary
Like you, I knew in a vague way that charter school leaders had been under increasing pressure to change their hard-charging, “no excuses” ways — and that some of the founding leaders had moved on.
But according to Steven Wilson’s new book THE LOST DECADE, the pressures have been relentless — and largely destructive. In his retelling, social justice and antiracist education — and feckless board members and funders — hollowed out high-performing charter school systems and forced leaders (including Wilson) to step aside.
It’s a fascinating, frustrating narrative that hasn’t been well-covered. But even if charter school leaders have bent the knee or stepped aside, I’m not entirely buying the convenient notion of charter school victims and DEI villains. Watch our hour-long conversation above, or check out some notable quotes from the conversation here.
PEOPLE, JOBS, & EVENTS
Who’s going where and what’s happening
📰 Comings & goings: Journalist Brooke Hauser (above), who wrote an award-winning magazine story and book about immigrant teenagers, is now covering higher ed for the Boston Globe. Marcela Rodrigues has joined the Globe’s Great Divide team. The Connecticut Mirror’s Jessika Harkay — an EWA award and Livingston finalist — is joining The 74 later this summer. No word yet on who is going to replace her. And former Seattle Times education editor Corey Mitchell is now editing at The Conversation.
📰 Pulitzers: Just three years since it launched, the Baltimore Banner has now won a Pulitzer for its coverage of drug deaths in the city. Its education editor wrote about the Banner’s focus on urgency and experimentation late last year. Also last year, the AP education team talked about how they won Pulitzer recognition for their coverage of missing students.
📰 Podcasts: “On Point” host Meghna Chakrabarti tells a chilling story about being told to back off of covering dissent over the US COVID response. Paul Kirschner, “one of the godfathers of the science of learning,” disabuses us of our romantic notions of learning (The Bell Ringer).The Colorado Sun’s Erica Breunlin was on the Sun’s podcast talking about education funding. In College Uncovered, Kirk Carapezza and Jon Marcus take you “inside the world of international admissions.”
📰 Recognition: Big congrats to Kae Petrin, who is a newly-minted John S. Knight journalism fellow as well as a data reporter at Chalkbeat. (They also contributed a great 2022 piece for The Grade about making dataviz your friend.) Belated congrats to the Washington Post’s Dana Hedgpeth, Sari Horwitz, and and everyone else involved for their Poynter award recognition for their investigation into Indian boarding schools. (They shared insights about covering the story with The Grade in 2024.) The Boston Globe’s editorial page was also recognized as a finalist for its work on the necessity of closing schools. 📰 Books: Oh, hey — another book about the deeply flawed US COVID response (among other things): The Weaponization of Expertise. Congrats to LAist’s longtime education reporter Adolfo Guzman-Lopez for his new book, California Southern, which “takes us along the neighborhoods of Southern California seen through the lens of an immigrant, father, husband, son, poet, journalist, Mexican, and American.”
📰 Quotables:
“There was one person in particular that was a colleague of mine, who just said, ‘We cannot talk about it.’ That even talking about it in a rigorous objective manner is spreading misinformation. I’ll never forget that.” – Meghna Chakrabati
“The series has been well-received thus far, especially by some of the folks who were initially worried to talk with us about poor test scores. It’s also sparked some follow-up stories that I’m looking forward to reporting more this year. I never would’ve guessed I’d be excited to write about math, but here we are!” – Sheridan Hendrix (via email)
“If you don’t know what the number was before, you are going to have a hard time determining if what you are seeing is a real shift or just business as usual.” – Kyle Spencer
In emulating the Chronicle, the Houston Landing “recreated a model that had already failed to engage vast portions of Houston… Replication without reflection is a fast track to irrelevance.” – Tracie Powell
📰 Longform: Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College (NY Magazine)
THE KICKER
We saved the best for last.
You don’t have to be a Pope fanatic to appreciate this picture of the newly elected Pontiff as a St. Mary’s 8th grader, thanks to Chicago Tribune reporter Gregory Royal Pratt.
