Three EWA members named as 2011 Spencer Education Journalism Fellows

Three members of EWA were chosen as 2011 Spencer Education Journalism Fellows. Sarah Carr of the Times-Picayune, Greg Toppo of USA today and Dana Goldstein of the Daily Beast. Carr won second prize this year in EWA’s National Awards for Reporting in the category of  IIC. Large Media --Series or Group of Articles. Current Spencer fellow and EWA board member Elizabeth Green is also mentioned in the press release for her New York Times Magazine article “Building a Better Teacher”. 

You can read Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism press release below about the  fellows.

New York, March 24, 2010 — Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism has named three education journalists as the 2010-11 Spencer Fellows in Education Reporting, to pursue projects that will examine the charter school innovations in New Orleans. The fellowships will allow the reporters to assess various teacher merit pay plans in Colorado and how schools and parents teach children how to read.

The new fellows are Sarah Carr, the education reporter at the Times-Picayune in New Orleans; Dana Goldstein, a reporter for the Daily Beast website; and Greg Toppo, the education reporter for USA Today.  Each fellow will receive a $75,000 stipend plus up to $10,000 in expenses to spend an academic year sabbatical to do their projects at the Journalism School in New York.  

Sarah Carr, a 2002 Columbia Journalism School graduate, has covered education for  the Times-Picayune since 2007 and plans to use her fellowship to write “Charter Revolution,” a book about the impact that concept has had on education in New Orleans and nationwide. Before joining the  Picayune, Carr reported on education for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel where she wrote a multi-part series on the city’s school voucher program that won the Inland Press Association grand prize for public service.

Dana Goldstein, a 2006 graduate of Brown University, will aim to produce a series of magazine stories that examine the education reform policies of the Obama Administration through the state of Colorado, considered a national leader in bipartisan school reform and a candidate. Goldstein is currently an associate editor and reporter for The Daily Beast, a web magazine headquartered in New York.  She has written about education for The American Prospect, The Nation, BusinessWeek, and other magazine s and newspapers.

Greg Toppo has been a national education writer for USA Today since 2002. A former education reporter for the Associated Press, Toppo is a former teacher at the Santa Fe Public Schools. He proposes to use his year to do research that will result in a “better understanding of the true value of reading and the stakes involved in losing it.”

“We are very pleased to be planning for the third year of this successful program,” said Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Journalism School. “The Spencer Fellowship is a perfect example of our continuing efforts to promote great journalistic technique with a deep, substantive understanding of complex subjects."

“The Fellowship is designed to help produce three important works of journalism a year,” said Arlene Morgan associate dean for programs and prizes who administers the fellowship. A fine example of this is current fellow Elizabeth Green’s March 7th cover story on “Building a Better Teacher” in The New York Times Magazine.

Morgan said the overall program goals are focused on using solid policy research to reach a high standard for excellence in reporting education stories, such as Carr’s proposal on assessing the education experiments in New Orleans, where more charter schools have been established than any other city.

“In light of the cutbacks that have hit newspapers across the country, including in-depth reporting on education, these fellowships are critical to providing an examination of what is arguably one of the most important topics in America,” said Morgan. 

The overall program goals, according to Morgan, are focused on using solid policy research to reach a high standard for excellence in reporting education stories, such as Carr’s proposal on assessing the education experiments in New Orleans, where more charter schools have been established than any other city.

Journalism Professor LynNell Hancock will bring her expertise as a nationally-known journalist and educator on covering education, children and families, to help the fellows develop their coursework throughout the year. Participants will also be assigned an adviser who will act as a writing coach and editor.